Pairing Solar Photovoltaics and Agriculture: Engineering, Economics, and Policy Landscape of Agrivoltaics

Abstract

As the U.S. strives to meet its goal of providing 100% clean electricity by 2035, large-scale deployment of solar photovoltaics (PV) has been a priority for the federal and state governments. With utility-scale solar PV fields driven to be sited on cropland, solar and agriculture industries as well as policymakers have proposed agrivoltaics as a solution to alleviate challenges faced in both industries while unlocking additional co-benefits. Although interest from industry and academia is growing, commercial crop agrivoltaic deployment in the U.S. remains uncertain. To spur adoption of agrivoltaics, states, such as New Jersey, are implementing agrivoltaic incentives. This project aims to investigate the engineering, economic, and policy factors that will, or will not, drive adoption of agrivoltaics. The methodology used in this project is two-pronged: 1) a quantitative Agrivoltaic Farm Model consisting of a pySAM solar model and agricultural model and 2) qualitative interviews with experts in the agrivoltaics field. New Jersey was used as a case study to analyze the financial implications of adopting agrivoltaics, conventional PV, or no solar systems across farm types and agrivoltaic partnerships. The effects of agrivoltaic incentives, crop yield reductions, and crop profit were investigated. Pairing the quantitative results with qualitative findings, this project finds that agrivoltaic adoption is unlikely to occur without an agrivoltaic incentive. An agrivoltaic SREC-II incentive level of $0.10/kWh to $0.11/kWh is necessary for solar developer adoption of systems sizes 1 to 5 MW. Low value commodity crop farmers unlock the greatest benefits under the incentive. This project concludes that state policy should focus on incentivizing innovative agrivoltaic designs that are closest in cost to conventional PV systems. Three specific policy recommendations to the New Jersey Dual-Use Pilot Program are provided.