Agrivoltaic system: Experimental analysis for enhancing land productivity and revenue of farmers

Abstract

Energy and food security is alarmed by the influences of climate change, population, and world economic growth. In this perspective, the co-located agrivoltaic system, a nexus of photovoltaic and agriculture production, is more suitable to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of a country like India. An experimental investigation has been conducted at CUTM, Odisha through a portable and adjustable agrivoltaic system of 0.675 kWp capacity in 11 m2 of land area to study the enhancement of land productivity and revenue of farmers or/and investors. This system provides an underneath farming of 1.5 kg turmeric as a shadow tolerant medicinal crop. Major performance indicators of the project such as land equivalent ratio, benefit-cost ratio, price-performance ratio, and payback period have been found as 1.73, 1.71, 0.79, and 9.49 years respectively. Further, the temperature level is decreased by 1–1.5 °C resulting in the improvement of the energy generation in the system and successfully tested in dual DC micro-grid solutions having two 12 V 75 Ah solar tubular batteries. This work can be extended to different scales of agrivoltaic systems with suitable crops in th farmers' land, as they are the end-users of this co-located system.