Assessing the Energy Yield and Irradiation Distribution in Fixed and Tracking Agrivoltaic Orchards

Agrivoltaics (AV) plays a crucial role in mitigating land-use conflicts between photovoltaics and agriculture by enabling the simultaneous production of food and PV energy on the same land. While various models and simulation tools exist to predict the irradiation distribution and estimate the energy yield in AV systems, accurately simulating variations in the irradiation across different sections of the crop canopy remains a significant challenge. This difficulty arises from the complexity of modelling intricate crop shapes. This study proposes a modelling and simulation approach based on raytracing, to predict the irradiation variations in distinct sections (sky-facing and the top, middle, and bottom) of the external envelope of apple trees under fixed and single-axis tracking AV systems. For each AV topology, the irradiation on the apple trees directly under and between the PV arrays are analyzed. Findings show that for the trees directly under the PV modules in the fixed systems, the bottom receives the lowest irradiation followed by the middle and the top. The sky-facing part of the tree between the PV arrays receives higher irradiation than that of the tree directly under the PV arrays. Analysis of the shading losses during the flowering period show generally higher shading losses under tracking. Also, the shading losses for the east and west sides of the tree between the PV arrays is higher compared to the tree directly under the PV modules. The specific energy yield from the tracking system is 7% higher than the fixed systems. This research therefore indicates that there exists high variations in irradiation in AV orchards and at different sections of the same trees. Also, higher shading losses under tracking systems call for tracking algorithms which co-optimize crop and energy yields.