This study was conducted to compare lamb growth and pasture production under solar panels and in open pastures in Corvallis, Oregon in spring 2019 and 2020. The results from this grazing study indicated that grazing under solar panels can maintain higher carrying capacity of pasture toward summer, and land productivity could be increased up to 200% through combining sheep grazing and solar energy production on the same land.
Tag Archive for: Agrivoltaics
This study was conducted to compare lamb growth and pasture production from solar pastures in agrivoltaic systems and traditional open pastures over 2 years in Oregon. Topics in focus in this study include experimental grazing management, herbage mass, land equivalent ratio and net return of spring grazing. These topics are useful when considering approaches to developing and managing agrisolar operations that include grazing.
This paper examines the current scope of sheep grazing in New York State and the benefits, opportunities, challenges, and barriers to scaling up the sheep industry to graze ground-mounted photovoltaic arrays for vegetation management. The study shows that there are similarities between USSE facilities and those of Distributed Solar Energy’s benefits, opportunities and challenges but that they are modified due to the larger scale of operations of the projects.
This report explores the synergies between farming and solar photovoltaics with the premises that agricultural production on farmland should be maintained and farm profitability and soil health should be improved. The report states that siting solar facilities in Maryland is a major stumbling block to the progress of in-state solar energy generation and finding common ground and possible solutions to issues allows the state to proceed forward in developing agrisolar operations.
This report reveals that increasing the sustainability of food production will require development of new mixed-use technologies. Also discussed is that novel electricity-generating windows (Wavelength-Selective Photovoltaic Systems, WSPVs) are suitable for use in greenhouses for growing plants. Results show minimal lasting effects of growth under WSPVs on plant physiology and development, thus WSPVs represent a new wedge for decarbonizing the food system.
This AgriSolar Best Practices Guide is intended to assist farmers, PV developers, regulators, and other stakeholders in developing high quality Agrisolar projects. The guide provides Best Practices for Agri-PV systems, PV on agricultural buildings, and open-field applications. Also included in this guide are discussions of trends and innovations in the AgriSolar community. This guide defines the key actions required of all parties involved in project development to maximize the sustainability of Agrisolar projects, from an agronomical, ecological, and financial perspective.
This study assessed the climate conditions inside a greenhouse in which 50% of the roof area was replaced with photovoltaic (PV) modules, describing the solar radiation distribution and the variability of temperature and humidity. The distribution of the solar radiation observed in this study is useful for choosing the most suitable crops and for designing PV greenhouses with the attitude for both energy and crop production. The study also includes suggestions for a better agronomic sustainability of agrivoltaic systems.
The long-term analysis in this study demonstrated a good capability of the numerical model to predict the shading effect inside a photovoltaic greenhouse combining the daily calculated exposed percentage with measurements of solar radiation. Photon flux daily values inside a PV greenhouse were calculated and measured from April 18th to June 8th in 2014. Commercial software was used to calculate the exposed percentage values for the greenhouse being studied. This study shows that modern software can be utilized in optimizing PV greenhouse operations.
Overall, this study demonstrated that the use of semi-transparent OPVs as a seasonal shade element for greenhouse production in a high-light region is feasible. However, a higher transmission of PAR and greater OPV device efficiency and durability could make OPV shades more economically viable, providing a desirable solution for co-located greenhouse crop production and renewable energy generation in hot and high-light intensity regions.
The PV–TEG hybrid system is widely discussed nowadays as an alternative way to maximize solar-radiation energy, which is from both light and heat. This study explains the electro-thermal effects that occur in series and parallel arrays of TEG that are exposed to non-uniform temperature gradients, and included three experiments: individual preliminary tests for thermoelectric module-type selections, series and parallel array configurations, and sampling on PV-TEG hybrid applications. The results of these experiments can be used as a tool for optimizing the design and development of components of agrisolar operations.
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Case Study: Fiddlehead FarmsNovember 21, 2024 - 8:24 am
SCAPES Agrivoltaics Survey November 12, 2024 - 4:29 pm
AgriSolar News Roundup: Agrisolar Development, Aquavoltaics in Taiwan, Illinois Solar Grazing November 12, 2024 - 9:46 am
Case Study: Existing Solar as Farmland Access for Emerging Farmers October 9, 2024 - 11:55 am