Analysis of the Use of Bifacial Solar Panels in Vertical Placement and their Temporal Coupling in Agrivoltaic Irrigation

Agrivoltaics (AV), the dual use of agricultural land to produce crops and photovoltaic (PV) power, is attracting great interest in the last years. Foreseeably, commercial success of the concept will depend on the achievement of cost-effective designs which are synergistic with different agricultural crops. Here we compare the merit points of the so-called vertical AV with respect to the so-called south-tilted AV. For a vertical AV topology, we calculate the fraction of PV energy that would be consumed by a submersible electric motor-pump to irrigate onehectare of a forage crop. Considering the crop need for a dispatchable water allocation in summer, equipping the system with battery storage is advisable. The surplus energy can be used to supply nearby households, or to irrigate the crops in adjacent plots. Ultimately, this can broaden the scope of local renewable energy communities.