AGRIVOLTAIC: Challenges and Opportunities

 AGRIVOLTAIC: Challenges and Opportunities

Kunal Chowdhury, Assistant Professor,

Department of Renewable Energy, MAKAUT,WB.

 

Sustainability refers to ability of avoiding depletion of natural resources.  Considering different natural resources, fossil fuels are one of the key resources which are depleting continuously. Therefore, rigorous R&D activities on renewable energy resources are going on all around the world. One of the drawbacks of renewable energy is its distributiveness which leads to large area requirement. On the contrary for a population dense country, land is a prime natural resource and two basic needs related to land are energy and food. Energy is one of the central parameters of life after food. Even in food preparation the role of energy is inevitable. Access to the energy resources controlled by four parameters and these are availability, adaptability, acceptability and affordability. Solar power has the potential to meet all these requirements. As a result, solar energy is the most potential form of energy in sun rich countries in terms of providing energy security.

To highlight this issue the government of India launched International Solar Alliance (ISA) program to the countries are laying between Tropics of Cancer and Tropics of Capricorn. These countries are rich in sunshine and agriculture is the backbone of their economy. Thus, integration is needed in between the power generation from PV power plant and at the same time use of land for conducting agricultural activities to fulfil the requirement of energy and food security. Security is a term which indicates the availability of spin off source which can be used or switched on if by any chance the major source gets ceased. Unfortunately, these developing countries are solely depending on import of energy resource and if by any chance the import gets ceased, they have no option to switch on other sources. Successful applications of solar power can bring energy security to these countries. International Solar Alliance can bring energy security to these countries. However, to bring food security, the land below the PV plant should be used successfully. Thus, in ISA there need to discuss on the dual use of the land. In this paper field studies is reported for dual use of land for power generation and at the same time use for agricultural activity, this will open up the avenue of ‘Agrivoltaic’ (AV) to bring energy and food security and to emerge the solar park as the ‘Agrivoltaic Park’ or AV Park. The possible integration between the PV power production and agri production has been reported by the researchers. Dupraz. C et al. reported that ‘Agrivoltaic’ system is the solution for this problem. Dual use of PV panels and existing farmland will increase the land use pattern. It can increase the land productivity by 60-70% [1]. Some researchers said about the benefits of using solar panel over agricultural lands; Marrou. H et al. reported that PV panels helps in reducing the water demand by plants up to 14-29% depending on the shading level under dry climatic conditions. Dupraz. C et al. also set the criteria of feasibility of AV plants by the term Land equivalent ratio (LER) which is calculated by the relative yields of land in question. LER for an agrovoltaic (AV) system was the sum of the relative yield of electricity by the PV panels and the relative yield of the crop. An AV system is feasible if LER>1[1].

The AV Park can give the answer on the dual use of the land by another economic approach. When the algebraic sum of income generation from PV power (IPV) and that of income from agriculture (I_Ag) is greater than that of initial income from agriculture (I0Ag) having the relationship,

 

"[I(PV) + I(Ag)] > I(0Ag) --------------- "

 

In Indian context, Agrivoltaic system is viable in the regions with high solar radiation level. Western part of India i.e. Gujrat & Rajasthan as well as Ladakh in the northern region is suitable for such application. High initial cost is an obstacle for such systems. Govt. of India is implementing few policies & regulations which will be beneficial for Agrivoltaic systems. RESCO model & KUSUM scheme are two of such government initiatives. Though more endeavour on loan, capital investment, land policy & grid interaction should be emphasized for successful implementation of Agrivoltaic in India.

 

References:

1. Chowdhury K., Mandal R. (2021) Agrivoltaic: A New Approach of Sustainable Development. In: Roy P.K., Roy M.B., Pal S. (eds) Advances in Water Resources Management for Sustainable Use. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol 131. Springer, Singapore.