Life cycle assessment of various agrivoltaic systems across Europe

The deployment of conventional ground-mounted PV (CGMPV) systems on farmland creates intense land-use competition with agriculture. Agrivoltaic (APVs) systems present a promising solution, yet the environmental viability of different designs remains insufficiently understood, hindering their strategic deployment. This study addresses this gap by presenting the first life cycle assessment (LCA) benchmarking four bifacial APV systems, including fixed vertical, interspace, overhead single-axis, and overhead dual-axis systems with varying pitch spacings. These systems are compared against a bifacial CGMPV system (baseline scenario) and national electricity grid mixes, country-specific combinations of fossil, nuclear, and renewable sources, across north to south of Europe. A combined LCA method is applied, with attributional LCA evaluating PV components from cradle-to-end-of-use across ten impact categories, and a consequential approach addressing agricultural land-use change contributions to climate change category. Results demonstrate that APV systems significantly outperform national electricity grids across nine impact categories, achieving 8–111 times lower environmental impacts. The interspace single-axis system emerged as the most optimal configuration with the lowest greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions (11–20 g CO 2eq /kWh), 57 % lower particulate matter, 48 % lower acidification, and 27 % lower eutrophication versus other APVs. The overhead dual-axis system showed the highest impacts (16–29 g CO 2eq /kWh), driven primarily by steel consumption in mounting structures. Monte Carlo Analysis confirmed statistical significance. All APV systems showed 3.5–9.6 times higher mineral resource consumption than electricity grid mixes, highlighting a critical trade-off for sustainable resource management. These findings demonstrate that while APV systems can synergize food-energy systems with superior performance in most environmental categories, mineral resource intensity remains challenging, with material-efficient configurations essential for minimizing trade-offs.