Agrivoltaic Modules Co-Designed for Electrical and Crop Productivity
Christiana B. Honsberg, Robert E. Sampson, Ray Kostuk, Greg A. Barron‐Gafford, Stuart Bowden, Stephen M. Goodnick
Abstract
Agrivoltaics provides benefits for both photovoltaic systems and agriculture, enabling dual "harvests" from the sun. An issue with agrivoltaic systems may be the competition between PV modules and crops, leading to agrivoltaic modules that have fewer solar cells and produce less electricity. We present an agrivoltaic PV module design that is angularly and wavelength selective, passing light to the crops in the morning when they are able to utilize it, and to the solar cells during periods of high insolation when they cannot. The agrivoltaic module embeds a holographic film into the PV module, and the cells operate at low concentration, allowing both low costs and high electricity production.