A review of the attributes of successful agriphotovoltaic projects

This item is part of: Boarin, P., Haarhoff, E., Manfredini, M., Mohammadzadeh, M., Premier, A., (2021). Rethinking Sustainable Pacific Rim Territories. Proceedings of the 2020 APRU Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Hub PhD Symposium, Future Cities Research Hub, School of Architecture and Planning of the University of Auckland. ISBN: 978-0-473-53616-9

ABSTRACT

Climate change is causing massive environmental disasters, which increasingly damage human civilization. To cope with climate risk, the world is progressively converting its energy dependence from the fossil fuel base to renewable energy such as photovoltaic solar farms. Successful photovoltaic (PV) projects have demonstrated various benefits and positive effects in all environmental, economic, and social aspects. However, conventional photovoltaic projects tend to have a serious land-use conflict issue with agricultural farmlands in that solar farms require huge land areas to install PV panels. Responsively, the concept of Agrivoltaic (APV), a mixed system that deploys photovoltaic panels over farmlands, emerged and have been implemented. Although numerous studies demonstrate the multiple benefits of APV, there is a lack of studies analyzing the influential attributes that may lead to the success or failure of the APV project. Thus, this paper aims to review and analyze the influential attributes of APV that may be relevant to its success or failure, based on the triple bottom lines-economic-environmental-social aspects. This paper also aim to review the opportunities and challenges that may arise when implementing APV into the urban environment.