Integrated techno-economic and life cycle assessment of shared circular business model based blockchain-enabled dynamic grapevoltaic farm for major grape growing states in India

Abstract

Grape farms face many climate risks during cultivation, and regulatory and sustainability-related challenges after the harvest. To support the farmers, Government of India (GoI) aims to promote adaptive capacity throughout the grape value chain by improving resilient infrastructure. This paper proposes a novel Grapevoltaics farm design based on shared circular business model principles where resources like energy, water, and land are shared between grape farmer and solar plant operator. The resilience (in the near term) and sustainability (in the long term) of such multifunctional systems may be influenced by the decisions taken by the involved stakeholders in terms of resource sharing and support extension when facing climate risk events. To address stakeholder engagement, the proposed Grapevoltaic farms leverage blockchain smart contract, making them Blockchain-enabled Grapevoltaics (BCeDGVs). To understand the feasibility, 1-ha Grapevoltaic farm is modeled for 12 grape growing regions accross India and analysed using Resilience Performance, Life Cycle Analysis, and Techno-Economic (RePLiCATE) approach. The results show that the solar panels provide resilience support based on the rules of engagement written on blockchain smart contracts. The BCeDGVs has 1295.28–2908.08 kWh/kWp/day electricity generation potential across India with a lifetime average of 15,380.65 MWh even after considering the national average photovoltaic degradation rate of 1.9%. The observed grape yields vary between 2 and 31.25 Mt/ha with an average yield of 45 Mt/ha (table grape) and 40 Mt/ha (wine grape), and the rainwater harvest varies between 1.23 to 7.32 Ml. The economic assessment revealed that grape farmers and photovoltaic plant operators across India under BCeDGVs could have revenues ranging between INR 56.25 to 225 million and INR 29.48–66.19 million, respectively, suggesting to relook into the feed-in tariffs and crop selling prices. The environmental sustainability results suggest that 1.984 ha/MW land-use mitigation and 12–100% reduction in groundwater dependency are possible while maintaining the minimum and maximum national average global warming potentials as 0.074 and 0.088 kg CO2-eq./kg grape, respectively. Overall, the integrated assessments find that the BCeDGVs may promote low carbon, climate resilient grape cultivation in India and has possible integration with GoI's GrapeNet platform. This study highlights a new research direction symbiotic grape farms and energy networks.