Agrophotovoltaics: enhancing solar land use efficiency for energy food water nexus

Agrophotovoltaic (APV) or agrivoltaic systems are sustainable energy systems that can produce electricity and food from the same land area and conserve water. This study evaluates the performance, reliability, and economic viability of three solar photovoltaic (PV) systems: a monofacial and bifacial rooftop system and a monofacial agrivoltaic system in Chennai (12.8259° N, 80.0395° E). The agrivoltaic system integrating crops beneath outperformed the bifacial and monofacial systems, with a normalized daily average power output of 59.88 W and an efficiency of 16.89%, surpassing the bifacial (56.35 W, 14.45%) and monofacial (47.18 W, 12.49%) counterparts. The results show that the land equivalent ratio (LER) of 1.85 for an agrivoltaic system emphasizes efficient land use by combining crop cultivation with electricity generation. Furthermore, economic analysis shows that the agrivoltaic system has a lower levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and a payback period of 0.039 and 6 years, respectively, which is better than the bifacial (LCOE: 0.046, payback: 7.56 years) and monofacial (LCOE: 0.048, payback: 7.25 years) systems. The Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) results show that agrivoltaic systems are very reliable, with an MTBF of 40.21 years compared to 32.31 and 31.81 years for monofacial panels and bifacial systems, respectively. The year-round performance of an agrivoltaic system is also comparable to that of a bifacial PV system. The integration of crops not only enhanced energy production but also contributed to the overall reliability of the agrivoltaic system, making it a compelling, and economically advantageous solution for sustainable dual-land-use energy production.