September 4, 2026
Guest Author: Joseph Bouchard
This is a summary of a post originally published on Substack. Visit @Solpomodoro to read the full piece.
By 2045, about 6,000 California farmers could triple the value generated by their cropland through agrivoltaics — saving on electricity costs, selling energy, and continuing to produce food.
(Almost) Too good to be true
There is a $15B opportunity for roughly 6,000 farms in California to save on electricity costs and sell electricity, while continuing to produce food. Farmers could triple the State’s electricity output from photovoltaics (PV), while benefitting agricultural production and reducing water use on nearly 900,000 acres of land. The combined economic benefit from agrivoltaics could triple the value created by the cropland for farmers. The value generated by the cropland could compare to the operating revenues of California’s largest utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas & Electric. This could all happen before 2045, when California set a legislative target to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
The above describes just some of the benefits agrivoltaics (or AgriPV) would bring to California’s cropland farming communities should it be applied to 10% of California’s cropland – a feasible penetration rate. However, should the success of AgriPV on cropland mirror PV residential installs in California by achieving a penetration rate of 14%, then the $15B could become over $4B greater.
A summary of the economic findings:
Front-of-the-meter (FTM) is AgriPV on cropland that sends the energy generated to the grid.
It is worth noting that this exercise analyzes the economic opportunity of AgriPV in California on cropland and greenhouses only. AgriPV for livestock grazing and pollinator habitat is not considered for two reasons. First, it is a more developed practice that has received more attention in PV communities. Second, AgriPV is an opportunity for cropland farmers to reduce electricity costs from irrigation (approximately 70% of energy usage for agriculture) by producing their own electricity and shading their crops with the structures that support the PV modules. These benefits would be felt most by cropland farmers.
So, what’s the opportunity?
The opportunity is a rare win-win-win for cropland farmers, PV project developers, and local communities. Farmers have a second lucrative revenue stream and/or an effective option to decrease energy costs without interrupting their agricultural production. PV project developers have a new customer segment with a lot of land with good irradiance. Local communities receive abundant clean electricity and access to the same amount of food produced by farmers.
In sum, agrivoltaics is a $15B opportunity to triple California’s electricity output from photovoltaics and account for 63% of energy produced by PV in 2045, helping California reach its net zero goal for energy generated by PV.
A BTM vs FTM “cook-off”
The economic value for the Golden State is a trade-off between generation from behind-the-meter (BTM) and front-of-the-meter (FTM) installed capacity. All else equal, BTM is assumed to create more economic value for farmers than FTM, valued at $343.20 per MWh, or the average cost of electricity for Californian agriculture in 2025. However, there exists a theoretical limit for BTM generation – 28,505,457 MWh per year, which is the assumed maximum electricity demand by cropland farmers in 2045. The analysis assumes 10% of AgriPV generation will come from BTM; the remaining 5% to reach the theoretical maximum is met by other forms of electricity generation.
Similarly, FTM is assumed to create less economic value for farmers, valued at $25.00 per MWh, or the 2025 levelized PPA price according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Crop production is assumed to generate a constant ~$5B per year for farmers, or $5,491 per acre used by AgriPV. Altogether, the economic value of AgriPV is a trade-off between energy generation consumed by the farms and sold to the grid.
Visit @Solpomodoro to read the full article
To learn more about the $15B opportunity, including a deep-dive on the calculations and the opportunity-sizing-model, visit the article A $15B opportunity for cropland farmers in California on Joseph Bouchard’s Substack @Solpomodoro.
Guest Author: Joseph Bouchard
Exploring the business and economics that drive agrivoltaics – the combination of farming and photovoltaics. Solpomodoro merges my passion for renewable energy (sol = solar) and food (pomodoro = tomato in Italian). Enjoy and stay hungry!