Agri-Photovoltaics: The Future of Dual Use in Agriculture

Agri-PV is not just a term but a new con­cept that can trans­form agri­cul­ture. It describes the dual use of agri­cul­tur­al land, enabling the simul­ta­ne­ous pro­duc­tion of food or feed while also gen­er­at­ing clean elec­tric­i­ty through pho­to­volta­ic sys­tems. This tech­nol­o­gy remains true to the agri­cul­tur­al use of the land and opens up new hori­zons for farm­ers.

A Solution to Land Competition

The idea of using land, grass­land, and areas for spe­cial crops for elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion is a response to the grow­ing com­pe­ti­tion for agri­cul­tur­al land. Land con­sump­tion will con­tin­ue to increase due to ener­gy use—whether through wind pow­er, ground-mount­ed PV sys­tems, or the cul­ti­va­tion of ener­gy crops for bio­gas production—as part of the ener­gy tran­si­tion. This is where Agri-PV comes into play: it alle­vi­ates this land con­flict and pro­vides farm­ers with an addi­tion­al source of income. More­over, shad­ing from solar mod­ules can increase crop yields and pre­vent soil dry­ing.

Definition and Standards of Agri-Photovoltaics

Experts from var­i­ous fields have devel­oped the require­ments for pri­ma­ry agri­cul­tur­al use in Agri-PV and estab­lished them in DIN SPEC 91434. This stan­dard pro­vides a valu­able dis­tinc­tion between ground-mount­ed PV and Agri-PV.

DIN SPEC 91434 focus­es on plant pro­duc­tion, while DIN SPEC 91492, pub­lished in June 2023, specif­i­cal­ly address­es live­stock farm­ing in Agri-PV sys­tems and defines the require­ments for this inno­v­a­tive form of man­age­ment. Accord­ing to DIN SPEC 91434, there are two dif­fer­ent Agri-PV sys­tems. Cat­e­go­ry 1 includes high-mount­ed sys­tems that allow agri­cul­tur­al man­age­ment under the mod­ules. Cat­e­go­ry 2 allows man­age­ment between the mod­ule rows. The stan­dard also defines the per­mis­si­ble loss of agri­cul­tur­al­ly usable land for each sys­tem: in Cat­e­go­ry 1, the loss due to struc­tures and sub­struc­tures must not exceed 10% of the total project area, while in Cat­e­go­ry 2, a loss of up to 15% is per­mis­si­ble. Addi­tion­al­ly, land use effi­cien­cy is stip­u­lat­ed to ensure that at least 66% of the ref­er­ence yield is achieved on the total project area after the con­struc­tion of the Agri-PV sys­tem.

Support for Special Solar Systems

Agri-Pho­to­voltaics is sup­port­ed as a spe­cial solar sys­tem if the above con­di­tions are met. Sys­tems over and under 1 MWp are dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed.

Agri-PV Over 1 MWp

Spe­cial solar sys­tems over 1 MWp must par­tic­i­pate in the EEG auc­tions of the first seg­ment (§ 37d EEG). These auc­tions take place from 2023 to 2029 on March 1, July 1, and Decem­ber 1. The Fed­er­al Net­work Agency intro­duces a two-stage award process, giv­ing pref­er­ence to spe­cial solar sys­tems. In the first award round, awards are first grant­ed to spe­cial solar sys­tems. A pre­cise­ly defined vol­ume for these sys­tems per year has been estab­lished, increas­ing annu­al­ly from 300 MW installed capac­i­ty in 2024 to 2075 MW in 2029. Only then are oth­er eli­gi­ble sys­tems con­sid­ered, up to the remain­ing auc­tion vol­ume for the respec­tive year. Accord­ing to § 37 b para­graph 2, a dif­fer­ent max­i­mum val­ue applies to spe­cial solar sys­tems in the auc­tions, which is 9.5 cents per kilo­watt-hour in 2024. From 2025, the max­i­mum val­ue is derived from the aver­age of the bid val­ues of the high­est bid award­ed in the sub-seg­ment for spe­cial solar sys­tems at the last three bid dates, increased by 8%, but the max­i­mum val­ue must not exceed 9.5 cents per kilo­watt-hour.

Agri-PV Under 1 MWp

These sys­tems receive a high­er feed-in tar­iff through the EEG than reg­u­lar ground-mount­ed sys­tems. The applic­a­ble val­ue of 7 ct/kWh for usu­al solar pow­er increas­es by 2.5 ct/kWh in 2024 (§ 48 Abs. 1b EEG). There­fore, sys­tems with a capac­i­ty of up to 1 MW do not need to par­tic­i­pate in the auc­tion and receive a sub­sidy of 9.5 ct/kWh when feed­ing in.

Nature Conservation and Agri-PV

Sup­port­ed Agri-Pho­to­volta­ic sys­tems do not have to meet the min­i­mum nature con­ser­va­tion cri­te­ria required for nor­mal­ly sup­port­ed ground-mount­ed sys­tems. It is argued that Agri-Pho­to­voltaics already offer bet­ter com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of land use and ener­gy pro­duc­tion due to the addi­tion­al require­ments.

Applications of Agri-PV

Inte­grat­ing Agri-Pho­to­voltaics into exist­ing agri­cul­tur­al sys­tems opens up numer­ous excit­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties. Par­tic­u­lar­ly promis­ing is the cov­er­ing of spe­cial or peren­ni­al crops, which allows for high­er val­ue cre­ation per area. Notably, the cul­ti­va­tion of berries or apples and shade-tol­er­ant veg­etable crops stand out. The use of ver­ti­cal­ly erect­ed bifa­cial mod­ules on arable or grass­land also proves to be sen­si­ble. Addi­tion­al­ly, so-called track­er sys­tems are used, where the PV mod­ules are sin­gle- or dual-axis tracked to the sun. These sys­tems offer the advan­tage of facil­i­tat­ing man­age­ment between the mod­ule rows, as they can be erect­ed ver­ti­cal­ly, allow­ing pas­sage with agri­cul­tur­al equip­ment.

Acceptance

It is unde­ni­able that Agri-Pho­to­voltaics also change the land­scape. In con­trast to clas­sic ground-mount­ed PV sys­tems, the con­struc­tion with mod­ules is less con­cen­trat­ed in some vari­ants of Agri-Pho­to­voltaics. The use of ver­ti­cal mod­ules, in par­tic­u­lar, could help strength­en pub­lic accep­tance of solar sys­tems. Pro­po­nents of com­bined land use hope that the argu­ment of land com­pe­ti­tion between ener­gy pro­duc­tion and food or feed pro­duc­tion will large­ly dis­ap­pear. Gen­er­al­ly, peo­ple are more pos­i­tive about a renew­able ener­gy project if they are involved in the plan­ning phase. An Agri-Pho­to­volta­ic sys­tem can gain addi­tion­al points if it is designed to ben­e­fit nature as well.

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