Techno Economic Modeling for Agrivoltaics: Can Agrivoltaics Be More Profitable Than Ground Mounted PV?

Agrivoltaics (AV) is a dual land-use approach to collocate solar energy generation with agriculture for preserving the terrestrial ecosystem and enabling food-energy-water synergies. Here, we present a systematic approach to model the economic performance ofAVrelative to standalone ground-mounted PV(GMPV)and explore how the module design configuration can affect the dual food-energy economic performance. A remarkably simple criterion for economic feasibility is quantified that relates the land preservation cost to dual food-energy profit. We explore case studies including both high and low value crops under fixed tilt bifacial modules oriented either along the conventional North/South(N/S)facings or vertical East/West(E/W)facings. For each module configuration, the array density is varied to explore an economically feasible design space relative toGMPVfor a range of module to land cost ratio (ML)—a location-specific indicator relating the module technology (hardware and installation) costs to the soft (land acquisition, tax, overheads, etc.) costs. To offset a typically higherAVmodule cost needed to preserve the cropland, bothE/WandN/Sorientated modules favor high value crops, reduced ($ < $60%) module density, and higherML \ (> 25). In contrast, higher module density and an increased feed-in-tariff (FIT)relative toGMPVare desirable at lowerML. The economic trends vary sharply forML <10 but tend to saturate forML > \20. For low value crops, ∼15% additionalFITcan enable economic equivalence toGMPVat standard module density. The proposed modeling framework can provide a valuable tool forAVstakeholders to assess, predict, and optimize the technoeconomic design forAV.