How Arctech Catches the Trend of Agrivoltaics Project

Due to the increasing popularity of solar energy and the pressing challenges of climate change, solar power is being used everywhere and solar projects are being installed over the world. On one hand, the wide adoption of solar energy could help speed up the world to become cleaner and more sustainable; on the other hand, the land for utility-scale solar plants is decreasing. To realize sustainable development and create a healthier, greener world for all humankind, while making full use of every land for solar projects, the concept of agrivoltaics?was proposed in 1981 by Adolf Goetzberger and Armin Zastrow and gains popularity last decade.

What is agrivoltaics? You can tell by the word, which contains agriculture and photovoltaics. Generally speaking, agrivoltaics project consists of integrating PV modules above the crops. In this way, agricultural land can be used for two purposes, growing crops and generating power. Some may concern that the shade from the panels cast on crops would affect their productivity, however, according to the Nature paper “Solar PV Power Potential is Greatest Over Croplands”, global energy demand would be offset by solar production if even less than 1% of cropland were converted to an agrivoltaic system, not to mention that sometimes, the shade can protect crops against high temperatures and extreme weather conditions, reduce evaporation and increase soil moisture, and all these?are beneficial for crops growing and pressure relieving on ecosystems and biodiversity?improvement. Moreover, the electricity produced from the agrivoltaic system can be used for agricultural projects since some farms will use technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and the internet of things to improve productivity and all these technologies are powered by electricity.

As the world's leading tracking, racking, and BIPV solutions provider, Arctech has been committed to supplying high-tech solar tracking and racking systems for solar projects worldwide. The company has also participated in many agrivoltaic projects. For example, last July, Arctech delivered its flagship product SkySmart II tracking system to a 575MW agrivoltaic project in Nangong City, Hebei Province, China.?

Picture of the agrivoltaic project

In this project, the owner planted colorful fragrant rice, colorful wheat with rich selenium and colorful oilseed rapes under the solar panels. This is also the first time Arctech’s SkySmart II being applied to a utility-scale solar project in China. Designed with the self-developed multi-point drive mechanism, SkySmart II could provide a 200% increase in wind resistance than other 2P tracking systems and a 52% reduction in foundations than 1P tracking systems.

Picture of the agrivoltaic project

Moreover, with the help of artificial intelligence, tracking control strategy, cloud strategy based on real-time meteorological data, bifacial power generation strategy and closed-loop feedback strategy that shares parameters with DC combiner and string inverter, SkySmart II can adapt to various terrains, weather and land conditions and enable up to 7% of additional energy generation.?

Now, this agrivoltaic project has been commissioned and is operating. According to?relevant?news reports, compared with traditional agriculture projects, the comprehensive income per mu of this project is 1.5 times higher. For more about this project, you can visit https://www.arctechsolar.us/xiangmu/272.html