Energy and Economic Optimization of APV and APV-CPV Agrivoltaic Systems Using Python: Study of a Tomato Farm

Agrivoltaics (APV) is an approach that combines electrical energy generation and agriculture on the same land. In recent years, this technology has proven useful in solving the problem of soil competition between the energy and agricultural sectors and creating a diversification of income sources for farmers. The use of photovoltaic modules, elevated above the ground also, makes possible to reduce soil evapotranspiration and consequently water demand, contributing to the production of clean energy and the decarbonization of the agricultural sector. However, it has been shown that the shading generated by traditional silicon photovoltaic modules can lead to a decrease in agricultural yield for certain types of shadeintolerant crops. Therefore, in recent years, the use of innovative photovoltaic modules such as semi-transparent, wavelength-selective and concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) modules that reduce shading on the crops below, are being experimented. As agrivoltaics is a synergetic approach, electrical agricultural economic and environmental aspects must be considered in its implementation. This study presents a multi-objective optimization methodology developed in Python both for traditional system (APV) and innovative agrivoltaic systems with Fresnel lens (APV-CPV). The methodology allows to identify, depending on the type of location user and crop, which technology achieves the right trade-off between economic profitability, energy production and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\text{CO}_{2}$</tex> emissions, respecting the space constraints defined by regulations. In this paper, the methodology developed is applied to an agricultural user located in Campania (Italy), a tomato producer, for which the best solution was found to be the semi-transparent Fresnel technology which, with a yield reduction of 23 %, allows a return on investment in 7 years with an NPV of about <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$19 \mathrm{k}$</tex> € and an higher electricity production compared to traditional solution.