Simulation model for electrical and agricultural productivity of an olive hedgerow Agrivoltaic system

Given the need to promote a more sustainable energy model that contributes to the fight against Climate Change and the consequent advancement of photovoltaics, Agrivoltaics is presented as a solution to the conflict over land use, since it makes it possible to reconcile agricultural production and photovoltaic power simultaneously on the same piece of land. However, it is a new production model and there are still many aspects to research. This work presents a mathematical model to simulate the spatial distribution of the solar radiation in the canopy of the crop of an agrivoltaic plant in which N-S solar trackers are alternately combined with olive groves in hedgerows. In this way, simulation has the advantage of predicting the expected behaviour of one or more configurations of agrivoltaic installations and, on the basis of this simulated behaviour, making decisions during the design phase to optimize their performance. To do this, various models have been integrated to simulate both the behaviour of irradiance on its way from the Sun to the crop, using geometric-vector analysis, and the irradiance absorption processes on its way through the canopy of the crop. Thus, the global model presented allows estimating the electrical and oil production of an agrivoltaic plant such as the one described. From this global model, electrical and oil productions have been systematically simulated for a set of agrivoltaic plants whose design parameters range around the intermediate values of an agrivoltaic facility with olive groves in hedgerows spaced 10 m apart and alternated with 3 m wide and 3 m hight N-S solar trackers. For this intermediate facility, the annual productions of oil and electricity are 789 kg/year & sdot;ha and 891 MWh/year & sdot;ha, respectively. Finally, the oil and energy productions of all the simulated agrivoltaic facilities and their design parameters have been interrelated obtaining mathematical equations to determine in a simple way the influence on the productions of the geometrical design variables of the agrivoltaic installation (height of the solar trackers, width of the collectors and distance between hedgerows). Therefore, the model presented makes it possible to advance in the evaluation of the possible integration of olive groves in agrivoltaic systems and their profitability, constituting an important benefit for the implementation of agrivoltaics in the Mediterranean regions where olive groves play a significant role in agricultural production systems.