Determining the influence of design features in agrivoltaics systems on tracking efficiency

The object of this study is agrivoltaics systems. The task addressed relates to determining the tracking efficiency of agrivoltaics systems. The subject of the study is the dependence of the tracking efficiency of agrivoltaics systems on their design features and the dependence of the area coverage efficiency of photovoltaic panels on the distance between the arrays in an agrivoltaics system during the highest solar activity. It was established that the tracking efficiency of an agrivoltaics system with a horizontal axis of rotation and the orientation of the axis of rotation "East-West" is 34.75%, and for an agrivoltaics system with an orientation "North-South" – 52.89%. The tracking efficiency of an agrivoltaics system with an orientation "North-South" and the axis of rotation set at an angle of latitude (50°) is 67.95%. At the same time, with the rotation axis set in such a way that the photovoltaic modules track the flow of sunlight also in the vertical plane, this value is 69.5%. The length of the day during the operation of the agrivoltaics system varies from 12 hours on March 21 and September 21 to 16 hours on June 21. This combination of the time of switching on and off the agrivoltaics system and the length of the day leads to the fact that the angle of inclination of the photovoltaic modules relative to the plane of their axis of rotation is 45°. The obtained value of the angle of inclination of the photovoltaic modules relative to the plane of the axis of rotation in the agrivoltaics system has made it possible to determine the distance between agrivoltaics arrays, which was 3.79 m. If one takes into account the specified distance between the agrivoltaics arrays, the efficiency of covering the area with photovoltaic modules during the highest solar activity will be 52.8%. The research results could be used as a basis for designing agrivoltaics system structures at different latitudes as well as assessing their economic efficiency