“Agri(culture)” plus “(photo)voltaics”


Agrivoltaics is an approach to integrating agriculture and solar energy production. Unlike conventional solar, where agricultural use is displaced, agrivoltaic systems are designed to maintain productive farmland below or between solar panels. Systems are designed to act symbiotically with the environment in order to harness multiple benefits that ultimately take care of the land while growing revenues. This dual-use approach is gaining attention as interest grows in using resources more efficiently to meet food, water, and energy security goals. 



How are agrivoltaics used?


You may run across many different terms when researching Agrivoltaics: agri-pv, ag-solar, solar grazing, eco-solar, conservation solar, farmer friendly solar, etc. We’ll do a deep-dive on those terms and the differences in a later post. 


To keep things simple, there are three main ways to combine agriculture and solar:

  • Animals - Some agrivoltaic systems pair with livestock, such as sheep grazing beneath and between panels.
  • Pollinator - In other cases, solar arrays are paired with pollinator habitat that provides ecological services while maintaining land productivity.
  • Crops - At HARVEST California, we are especially interested in agrivoltaic systems that are designed to support crop production by spacing or elevating panels so that plants receive sufficient sunlight and farm equipment can operate normally.



Why do agrivoltaics outcomes differ?


An important agrivoltaics consideration is that outcomes are highly context dependent. Crop type, climate, soil conditions, light availability, and solar array design all influence how agriculture and energy interact on a given site. Panel height, row spacing, tilt, and tracking behavior may also affect how much sunlight reaches the plants. Design choices directly shape agricultural outcomes.


Focusing on agrivoltaics systems that pair solar and crop production, multiple studies have documented positive effects, including long-running experiments at University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 Agrivoltaic Learning Lab, where researchers found cooler temperatures and improved soil moisture under panels compared to full-sun plots. In some cases, crop yield even increases with partial shade.


Here in California, one of the most promising benefits of agrivoltaics is water savings, which can reach 30% under some conditions. In future blog posts, we’ll dive into this opportunity that is gaining urgency with the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) compliance requirements rapidly approaching. 


New to agrivoltaics and have a specific question you’d like us to address? Reach out.