Land resource allocation between biomass and ground-mounted PV under consideration of the food–water–energy nexus framework at regional scale

Abstract

An economy’s shift towards climate neutrality requires a massive expansion of renewable energy production. Next to wind, photovoltaic (PV) and biomass will be key renewable resources in many regions. A land-use change to PV increases local electricity production, but influences regional water and biomass availability. However, a regional quantitative guideline on biomass-PV tradeoffs on all agricultural fields under food–water–energy (FWE) nexus thinking is still missing. This work presents a comprehensive bottom-up interdependency assessment between ground-mounted PV and biomass generation on a regional scale by integrating independently established methods based on consistent input data at spatial field resolution. Furthermore, impacts on food and water availability are also quantified. Four scenarios were set up based on current policies and future trend, emphasizing PV yield, feasibility, profit, and biomass yields, respectively. The assessment and scenarios are applied to three representative German counties with distinguished land-use structures and geometries as case studies. Scenario analysis shows that the optimal technical strategy is to free the market letting individuals to maximize revenue from their lands, which likely simultaneously is good for society, achieves high PV yields with limited biomass losses, and has more significant crop water saving effects.