Using Standard PV Mounting Structures with Spaced Modules in Agrivoltaic Applications

Agrivoltaics are emerging to conciliate the land requirements of food production and energy generation while contributing to the decarbonization of the energy sector. This approach, however, still faces uncertainties regarding its economic viability due to increased initial investments required for the structures, which may hamper the potential benefits that could otherwise be harnessed by this approach to conciliate the food-environment-energy nexus. This paper presents the impact that small modifications in the placement of the modules in standard supporting structures would have on the solar resource distribution on the ground and land productivity. The results showed that the spacing of the modules did not manage to top simpler adjustments to the PV field, showing an overall equal performance when compared to reference systems.