Agrivoltaics, a promising new tool for electricity and food production: A systematic review

Increased global demand for food and energy implies higher competition for agricultural land. Photovoltaic installations contribute to more sustainable solutions to satisfying energy requirements, however, they also require land. To address this dilemma, agrivoltaics has been proposed, combining energy and agricultural production on the same area. Our objectives were to review and synthesise the current agronomic knowledge on agrivoltaics and its future development possibilities. A systematic literature search was conducted in Web of Science on 17 December 2022, resulting in 54 articles that met the inclusion criteria and concentrated primarily on food production. Most studies focused on combining electricity generation with crop production. Vegetables, especially lettuce and tomato, were the focus of many papers. The success of a crop under an agrivoltaic system depends on many factors, yet mainly on location and season. Additionally, even light-demanding crops such as maize could be grown under certain conditions. Therefore, we propose to define an optimal daily light integral for each species, rather than a shade level. Given climate change, agrivoltaics may reduce inter-annual yield fluctuation by buffering the negative effects of both frost and high temperatures on crops, as well as reducing water consumption. Future research should focus mainly on berries and on plants whose production can be affected by high temperatures. Experiments on larger areas, over several years, and with solar panels allowing a separation of the light spectrum are needed to promote development of agrivoltaics without affecting crop yields.