May 31, 20224 min read

How Agrivoltaics are Our Blueprint for a Sustainable Future

By Solomon Blecher '25

Over 4,000,000 Hectares of forest were cut down in 2020.

In less scientific language, this is the equivalent of chopping over 15,400 square miles of forests, or an area the size of Switzerland.

What’s more, eighty percent of the nearly 16,000 square miles deforested each year is for agricultural use, and most often for animal grazing. Obviously, the trees are not cut all in the same place, but this sheer amount of deforestation being an annual trend, especially given the escalating climate crisis, is concerning. We need to do something about deforestation.

The agricultural sector is responsible for the majority of deforestation because the land forests occupy is necessary for crops and animal grazing to feed the ever-growing world population, which is expected to reach _______ by _______.But that’s not how it has to be. If humanity is to transition to more plant-based diets, as is already the norm in many countries, including India and Taiwan, humanity could significantly lower its dependence on space for animal grazing, thus reducing deforestation and also mitigating climate change by preventing trees from being cut down. With the __amount of land that could be saved (roughly ⅓ of all land)_from reducing animal grazing lands, we could instead rewild this land or reutilize much of it for growing crops underneath solar panels, known as agrivoltaics.

Agrivoltaics is a way to use plants and solar panels to produce renewable electricity and food. It was invented in 1981, but solar panels were very expensive then, so it was hardly feasible on a large scale nor invested in as much as today. hard to make it usable. There are solar panels suspended up to 10 feet over plants and are cooled down by the plants. Cooler solar panels produce more energy as electrical resistance is higher at higher temperatures. In other words, it’s just conventional solar and crop fields in a hybrid system. This technology is extremely productive and space efficient, as it allows both food and solar energy to be produced together, where the two would typically be separated, using up more valuable land.

That being said, the amount of food needed to sustain our growing population is enormous, currently 5133 tonnes per minute and if we were to plant crops underneath all the solar panel farms on earth, it still wouldn’t be enough food to feed the 7.9 billion people in the world. But, some countries have plans to double their solar power in the next 10 years (like Germany and Morocco) so as solar increases, there would be more space for crops under the panels and eventually, if we ate only plants and vegetarian food, we would never need older methods of agriculture, like pastures. This would be helpful to stopping climate change as agriculture plays a large role in contributing to carbon emissions.

This could be expensive, right? Well, right now, yes. It costs a lot more money for agrivoltaics than conventional solar. According to a study at Germany’s Technology and Support Center, it costs about $993 USD per kWh to make a large-scale agrivoltaic system vs. $770 per kWh for a conventional solar system.

But it will get cheaper as the parts are mass produced and supply chains get more efficient. Solar panels used to cost $2 per watt in 2010 but now cost about $0.40 per watt. This is because there is more production of materials and products that are used to make solar panels. The same thing can happen for agrivoltaic systems. And the amount of food these systems could produce is huge if it were to be used on a massive scale. Also, with just 1% of the country covered in agrivoltaics, the solar power from those systems could power the entire electrical needs of the US. That sounds like a lot, until you compare it to the 27% of the entire land of the US taken up just for private pastureland, which are fields where animals graze. They are necessary to feed our population even though they don’t help anything else.

The solar panels make use of the sunlight while the plants make use of the partial shade provided by solar panels. Many people believe that almost all plants must be in the complete sun while it is light outside, but that is not true. Some plants need lots of sunlight, but many plants, including many crops, actually do better in partial sunlight or shade than in complete sunlight for 12 hours. In fact, having too much sunlight leads to more water needed to sustain the plant, and agriculture accounts for 80% of our water use. An Oregon State University showed that water was used 40% more efficiently for an agrivoltaic crop field compared to an open field. So the solar panels not only lead to green energy but also less water usage which means more water for us humans. Additionally, the plants under the solar panels are cooler and cool down the solar panels up to 9 degrees Celsius, allowing for 10% more electricity if above plants, according to the same OSU study.

There are multiple companies working on this, including Jinko Solar, Canadian Solar, Trina Solar, Tracker Sled, and more. There is an odd mutual relationship between solar panels and plants that we should take advantage of for a renewable and green future. You can help agrivoltaics become a reality by convincing other people that agrivoltaics is important and getting the government to incentivize farms to build solar panels over their crops. This will help solve some of the biggest problems facing the world today.

References

How Agrivoltaics are Our Blueprint for a Sustainable Future

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