- Scientists from the City University of Hong Kong have developed a novel system design for agrivoltaic projects in grape farms.
The researchers described their findings in “Integrated techno-economic and life cycle assessment of shared circular business model based blockchain-enabled dynamic grapevoltaic farm for major grape growing states in India,” which was recently published in Renewable Energy. They said the new system design facilitates rainwater harvesting, with the solar array tilting to follow the direction of the rain. The system then stores and reuses the collected water for irrigation purposes.
The researchers used a circular business model (CBM) based on blockchain and smart contract technologies to coordinate between PV system operators and grape farmers.
“The proposed system will work even without blockchain configuration,” researcher Nallapaneni Manoj Kumar told pv magazine. “But with blockchain configuration, agrivoltaics work more efficiently with perfect co-ordination considering all the uncertainties that arise between the solar power generation and grape farming in terms of co-location shareable uses such as water for crop irrigation and solar panel washing. This is only possible when the system is able to track real-time weather and operate automatically via smart contracts.”
The academics used a resilience performance, life cycle analysis, and techno-economic(RePLiCATE) approach to demonstrate the multifunctional viability of the system across several grape-producing states in India. They claimed that the country’s current regulations for power purchase agreements (PPAs) are not making agrivoltaics viable.
“Smart contracts help in automating the agreements and provide a link to the energy and grape trading marketplace,” they said.
The panels have a surface that allows the free flow of water. The water can be used to clean the panels themselves or provide irrigation via a drip system connected to a storage tank.
The scientists said that the total revenue generated by a 1-ha Grapevoltaic farm could vary, depending on electricity and grape yield productions, electricity prices, and grape market prices. They said the proposed system can reduce water consumption for farmers and PV operators.
“Agrivoltaics, in general, are a good solution for grape production as grape plant is shade tolerant but is also more sensitive to weather events,” Nallapaneni said. “To avoid these we need such high technical systems that can link, for example, the grape farm to GrapeNet platform where trade regulations and grape certifications can be done in one click.”
Author: Emiliano Bellini
This article was originally published in pv magazine and is republished with permission.
