Integrating solar energy with agriculture: Industry perspectives on the market, community, and socio-political dimensions of agrivoltaics

Abstract

Large-scale development of solar-generated electricity is hindered in some regions of the U.S. by land use competition and localized social resistance. One approach to alleviate these coupled challenges is agrivoltaics: the strategic co-location of solar photovoltaics and agriculture. To explore the opportunities and barriers for agrivoltaics, in-depth interviews with solar industry professionals were conducted and findings suggest that the potential for an agrivoltaic project to retain agricultural interests and consequently increase local support for development is the most significant opportunity of dual use solar. Capable of increasing community acceptance, participants expect agrivoltaics to play an important role in future solar endeavors, especially in places where development may be perceived as a threat to agricultural interests. The results further reveal the interconnections among the various dimensions of social acceptance and suggest that the growth of agrivoltaics is contingent on market adoption of the technology through community acceptance and supportive local regulatory environments. As solar photovoltaic systems transcend niche applications to become larger and more prevalent, the dimensions of social acceptance, including the opportunities and barriers associated with each dimension, can help inform decision making to enhance the growth of agrivoltaics and thus photovoltaic development. The findings can help land use planners, solar developers, and municipal governments make informed decisions that strategically and meaningfully integrate agriculture and solar, and in turn provide multiple benefits including the retention of agricultural land, local economic development, and broad adoption of solar energy technologies.

Introduction

Despite the mature and promising potential for solar photovoltaic (PV) technology to retrench global reliance on fossil fuels, large-scale PV development is experiencing complex challenges, including land use conflict [1], [2], [3] and — as the scale of solar has increased — social resistance, which has previously been more commonly associated with large-scale wind farms [4], [5], [6]. Growth in large-scale PV development can create land use disputes, especially in instances of competition between land for agriculture versus energy production [1], [7], [8]. This history and growing concern over land use highlights the challenge of meeting the soaring demands for solar power while conserving rural and agricultural lands [9]. It is posited that the impact of solar development on land will be diminished by siting PV in a manner that is compatible with multiple uses [10], suggesting changes in conventional practices will be necessary.

Agrivoltaics, the co-development of land for both agriculture and PV, is an innovative and increasingly popular approach to solar development [11], [12], [13], [14]. This deliberate co-location of agriculture and PV is intended to alleviate land use competition [2] and boost revenues for landowners [15], among other benefits. Numerous empirical studies have investigated the technical viability of agrivoltaic systems, examining PV with plant cultivation [11], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], aquaponics [23], and livestock production [24], [25], [26], [27], [28]. Overall, agrivoltaic systems have been demonstrated as a technically and economically practical use of agricultural land, capable of overcoming the dominant separation of food and energy production and increasing land productivity by 35–73% [11].

This work is part of a larger study of agrivoltaic technology [27] that involves technical and social research as well as life cycle assessment (DE-EE0008990). Interviews were conducted with both solar industry professionals and agricultural industry professionals [30]. Interviews with agricultural professionals suggests that the effective diffusion of the agrivoltaic innovation is strongly related to the acceptance of farmers [30], which further emphasizes the need to study the technology within a social context to identify and address relevant barriers. Analysis of both interview datasets was conducted inductively, meaning that a conceptual framework for making sense of the data was not applied prior to empirical examination of the interview transcripts. Inductive coding revealed that within the broad category of opportunities and barriers, solar industry professionals and agricultural industry professionals are focused on different considerations; agricultural industry professionals see agrivoltaics as an innovative technology and the diffusion of this innovation was discussed based on dimensions highlighted in the diffusion of innovations framework [30]. Solar industry professionals, in contrast, were also asked about opportunities and barriers, but their responses focused on the potential for agrivoltaics to improve the social acceptance of solar technology. The value of taking an inductive approach to this research is the opportunity it provides to reveal this divergence, the implications of which are considered in the discussion.

The specific intent of this study was to draw insight about solar development from participant experience, and responses indicate that the most considerable opportunities and barriers center on social acceptance and public perception issues. Perspectives about the opportunities and barriers to agrivoltaic development were captured via interviews with solar industry professionals, and inductive analysis revealed that interviewees were most focused on opportunities and barriers that correspond with Wüstenhagen et al.’s [4] three dimensions of social acceptance: market, community, and socio-political factors. The social acceptance of renewable energy is shaped by a complex interplay among market, community, and socio-political factors [4]. While this framework is constructive for understanding the varying dimensions of social acceptance, Devine-Wright et al. [31] assert that it is weak in terms of the relationships between dimensions, suggesting that further research should apply a holistic approach for discerning the interdependence among factors shaping social acceptance of renewable energy. The purpose of this study is therefore to explore the perceptions of industry professionals in the U.S. and consider the implications of the identified opportunities and barriers from a social science perspective.

While the participants of this study discuss this technology specifically in the context of their experience, which is primarily with grazing and pollinator applications, the results are relevant to agrivoltaics more broadly. By grounding to relevant solar industry professionals’ experience navigating solar development, the insights drawn from this study speak to the opportunities and barriers of various agrivoltaic applications through analytic generalization [29]. The findings can help land use planners, solar developers, and municipal governments make informed decisions that strategically and meaningfully integrate agriculture and solar and in turn provide multiple benefits including the retention of agricultural land, local economic development, and broad adoption of solar energy technologies.