Low-height vertical photovoltaic integration in vineyards with negligible agronomic impact

The rapid expansion of photovoltaics (PV) is intensifying competition for land, particularly in regions dominated by high-value crops such as vineyards. Agrivoltaics offers a potential solution by enabling dual land use for food and energy production, yet many existing configurations rely on elevated or structurally intensive systems that may affect crop performance, increase material demand, or disrupt culturally sensitive agricultural landscapes. This context calls for agrivoltaic designs that structurally prioritize cultivation while enabling energy generation with minimal agronomic impact. Here we assess, through field-scale experimentation, a low-height, trellis-integrated vertical agrivoltaic concept implemented in three pilot installations in southeastern Spain. We provide the first multi-site empirical evidence, based on a single 2024 harvest season, that these integrated PV systems can operate in vineyards without statistically significant differences in several yield and grape-composition indicators under the conditions tested, including °Brix, acidity and phenolic composition at harvest under the conditions tested. We demonstrate that meaningful energy production can be achieved under a cultivation-first design logic, resulting in Land Equivalent Ratios (LER) consistently above unity (1.16-1.53), thus confirming real land-use efficiency gains. We identify a clear potential for photovoltaic densification in low-trained vineyards, indicating that installed capacities comparable to ground-mounted PV systems could be reached without additional land occupation or agronomic interference (with LER values reaching 1.95). We show that the proposed structural solution achieves low material intensity (161-141 kg steel/kWp) while maintaining mechanical adequacy, positioning it at the lower boundary of reported agrivoltaic steel demand. We link technical performance with social acceptance, highlighting the suitability of low-height, trellis-aligned integration for viticultural landscapes with strong identity constraints.