Planting crops in fields of solar panels is more efficient, protects the plants and helps keep workers cool, study finds

Photovoltaic technology, most commonly seen as the bulky solar panels used on solar farms, is expected to become a dominant energy source by 2050. But these panels are often installed on land that might otherwise be used to grow crops for feeding a burgeoning population.

Agrivoltaics aims to solve this problem by planting crops around or underneath rows of solar panels, allowing for more efficient land use. In previous studies, solar panels were shown to help shade and protect certain crops as well as increase soil moisture, suggesting that carefully designed systems could support both agriculture and clean energy production.

Existing agrivoltaic research, however, tends to focus on one aspect of this process at a time — for example, light availability or crop growth — rather than addressing the nuanced interactions between microclimates, crop type, light, and panel type. Hosseini et al. share a new model that can simulate the m...