A pathway to food and energy security: Agrivoltaic potential in the MENA region

Abstract

Agrivoltaics (AV), the co-location of solar photovoltaic energy generation and agricultural farming, directly addresses the water-energy-food nexus and associated security challenges. Maximizing land efficiency is a long-standing practice, and AV presents an untapped opportunity to optimize land use in countries struggling with water, energy, or food security. Despite its promise, AV potential remains unexplored in countries that could benefit the most, particularly those in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. While AV suitability has been studied in many countries, no region-wide, quantitative assessment exists for the MENA region, despite its acute resource constraints. This study is the first to quantify AV suitability across the MENA region, expressed as a proportion of national agricultural land, using a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based weighted overlay analysis. The method integrated openly available datasets on solar irradiance, land cover, slope, and agricultural land distribution, providing a consistent-resolution assessment at regional and national scales. Results show that in the absence of solar radiation limitations, AV-suitable areas almost perfectly overlap with agriculturally suitable areas, yielding ranges of 74–100% under a conservative scenario and 94–100% under an optimistic scenario. Results from a control set of countries (UK, JPN, ECU, SWZ) exhibited substantially lower overlap supporting these findings. These findings highlight the immense AV potential in the MENA region and demonstrate the scalability of this open-dataset approach, providing a foundation that encourages detailed crop-specific studies and pilot projects at localized scales.