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Implementation of agrophotovoltaics: Techno-economic analysis of the price-performance ratio and its policy implications Stephan Schindelea,⁎,1, Maximilian Trommsdorffa, Albert Schlaaka,1, Tabea Obergfella, Georg Boppa, Christian Reisea, Christian Brauna, Axel Weselekb, Andrea Bauerlec, Petra ...

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  • November 17, 2023
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Applied Energy 265 (2020) 114737


Contents lists available at ScienceDirect


Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy




Implementation of agrophotovoltaics: Techno-economic analysis of the T
price-performance ratio and its policy implications
Stephan Schindelea, ,1, Maximilian Trommsdorffa, Albert Schlaaka,1, Tabea Obergfella,
⁎

Georg Boppa, Christian Reisea, Christian Brauna, Axel Weselekb, Andrea Bauerlec, Petra Högyb,
Adolf Goetzbergera, Eicke Webera,2
a
Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Heidenhofstraße 2, 79110 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
b
Institute of Landscape and Plant Ecology, University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany
c
Institute of Crop Science, University of Hohenheim, 70593 Stuttgart, Germany




HIGHLIGHTS


• Coverage of current agrophotovoltaic (APV) promotion policies in several countries.
• Comparative cost of electricity evaluation of APV and ground-mounted photovoltaics.
• Cost of APV implementation related to the economic benefit of obtaining cropland.
• Price-performance ratio calculation applied to measure economic quality of APV projects.
• Potato production under APV is economically beneficial, winter wheat production not.

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Rising demand for solar power generation will lead to increased land use competition, and thus to potential
Evidence-based policy making economic and social conflict. A solution to this challenge is to produce food and energy within an agrophoto-
Price-performance ratio voltaics (APV) system. Since 2017, governments in Japan, France, Massachusetts (USA), South Korea, and China
Levelized cost of electricity have introduced policies supporting APV implementation. Governments considering APV implementation – e.g.
Energy policies and technology assessment
in India and Germany – for evidence-based policy making are demanding information on how levelized cost of
Innovation and new development in energy
technology
electricity (LCOE) of APV differs from that of conventional ground-mounted photovoltaics (PV), as well as on
Agrophotovoltaics/agrivoltaic how additional costs associated with APV installation relate to the benefit of maintaining agricultural activity
under APV. Data for a techno-economic price-performance ratio calculation has been retrieved from an inter-
and transdisciplinary APV case study in Germany. We observed that the LCOE of APV with €0.0828 kWh−1 is
38% higher than that of ground-mounted PV, resulting in an annual cropland preservation price of
€9,052 ha−1 a−1. The annual revenue of potato and winter wheat production under APV resulted in a perfor-
mance of €10,707 ha−1 a−1 and €1,959 ha−1 a−1 respectively, leading to a beneficial price-performance ratio of
0.85 for potato production and, with a ratio of 4.62, a disadvantageous result for winter wheat. Overall, APV is
not necessarily recommended in crop rotating systems. However, in combination with permanent cultures – e.g.
berries, fruits, or wine grapes – as the price for these types of applications is lower, while at the same time
providing higher performance by optimizing techno-ecological synergies.




Corresponding author.
⁎

E-mail addresses: stephan.schindele@baywa-re.com (S. Schindele), maximilian.trommsdorff@ise.fraunhofer.de (M. Trommsdorff),
albert.schlaak@baywa-re.com (A. Schlaak), tabea.obergfell@ise.fraunhofer.de (T. Obergfell), georg.bopp@web.de (G. Bopp),
christian.reise@ise.fraunhofer.de (C. Reise), christian.braun@ise.fraunhofer.de (C. Braun), a.weselek@uni-hohenheim.de (A. Weselek),
a.bauerle@uni-hohenheim.de (A. Bauerle), petra.hoegy@uni-hohenheim.de (P. Högy), goetzberger@yahoo.de (A. Goetzberger), weber@berkeley.edu (E. Weber).
1
Present contact information: BayWa r.e. Solar Projects GmbH, Kaiser-Joseph-Straße 263, 79098 Freiburg i. Brg., Germany.
2
Present contact information: International Solar Energy Society ISES, Wiesentalstraße 50, 79115 Freiburg i. Brg., Germany.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.114737
Received 22 October 2019; Received in revised form 19 February 2020; Accepted 23 February 2020
Available online 26 March 2020
0306-2619/ © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).

,S. Schindele, et al. Applied Energy 265 (2020) 114737



Nomenclature ha hectare
IFES Integrated Food-Energy Systems
a year kWh kilowatt hours
APV agrophotovoltaics kWp kilowatt-peak
BMBF German Federal Ministry of Education and Research LCOE levelized cost of electricity
BMEL German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture MWp megawatt-peak
BMWi German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy OPEX operating expenses
BnetzA German Bundesnetzagentur p price
CAPEX capital expenditures pb performance/performed benefit
ct cents ppr price-performance ratio
€ euros PV photovoltaics
FM Financial Mechanism of the UNFCCC RE renewable energy
GM ground-mounted $ United States dollars
GWp gigawatt-peak


1. Introduction implementation of APV, e.g. India [22,23] and Germany [24]. We es-
timate that approximately 2200 APV systems have been installed
Globally, ground-mounted photovoltaics (PV-GM) have become the worldwide since 2014, leading to a capacity of about 2.8 GWp as of
most cost competitive source of power generation [1]. Accordingly, PV- January 2020.7 Together with the increasing international APV market
GM represents a growing share in the PV marketplace [2]. Hardly development, the scientific community has paid growing attention to
discussed is the spatial aspect of PV-GM implementation, as well as the APV, and a review of the applications, challenges, and opportunities
loss of cropland resulting from it. Land is the principal basis for human presented by APV systems has recently been published [27]. Pearce
livelihood. It supplies food, fresh water and many other ecological re- (Michigan Technological University) presented a very comprehensive
sources. Yet due to socioeconomic development – e.g. infrastructure, literature review on APV as part of his lecture entitled “Solar PV Science
industrial estate and housing development – as well as soil degradation and Engineering.”8 The first international APV conference will be held
and desertification, cropland is expected to decrease globally by be- in France in August 2020 to connect the scientific community and
tween 50,000,000 ha (the size of Spain) and 650,000,000 ha (twice the promote international exchange in a greater effort to advance APV
size of India) by 2100 [3]. Consequently, cropland is becoming scarce. system technology.9 Techno-ecological aspects of APV have also been
Accordingly, the availability of arable land per capita decreased by 48% discussed [28–31], and geographical APV research gaps have been
between 1961 and 2016 due to the increase in global population [4]. closed by Adeh et al. [32] and Majumdar and Pasqualetti [33]. Pub-
Taking into account planetary boundaries [5] and the limited avail- lications on plant ecology as well as assessments of the agricultural
ability of cropland, it can be foreseen that the rising demand for PV-GM productivity of agave, wine grapes, lettuce, corn, and Java tea in
will lead to increased land use competition and thus result in potential combination with APV have also been written [33–42]. Evaporation,
economic, ecological, political, and social conflicts in the future. One transpiration and irrigation in the context of APV has been covered as
approach to meeting the challenge in terms of sustainable land use is well [30,35,37,43,44]. Social, economic, and political considerations of
the Integrated Food-Energy System (IFES), which enables the simulta- APV have also recently been researched [45–48]. The present study is
neous production of food and energy on the same plot of land. More- concerned with the APV research facility in Heggelbach, Germany,
over, it utilizes synergetic effects by optimally exploiting the potential 2016. As a contribution to resource-efficient land use and the si-
offered by both production systems, as seen for instance in agroforestry multaneous reduction of land use competition, the “Agrophotovoltaics
systems or agrofuel production with cascade use [6]. One solution Innovation Group Resource Efficient Land Use (APV-RESOLA, Grant
emerging from the PV sector for minimizing the impact of arable land No.: 033L098AN)” was established in 2015.10 An APV prototype was
grabbing is an agrophotovoltaic (APV)3 dual use of agricultural land, developed, installed, and tested under real-life conditions as part of an
which was proposed for the first time by Goetzberger and Zastrow [7]. inter- and transdisciplinary project funded by the German Federal
Since 2017, APV has been recognized as a strategy for avoiding or Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). APV-RESOLA defines APV
minimizing land impacts from PV systems in the Global Land Outlook, as a system technology that evidently increases land use efficiency by
focusing on energy and land use by IRENA and UNCCD [8]. In Ger- simultaneously enabling main agricultural crop production and sec-
many, a total of eight APV power plants have been in operation since ondary solar PV power generation on the same cropland area, while
2004, three of which were built for research purposes. General in- optimally utilizing the techno-ecological and techno-economic synergy
formation on the APV power plants in Germany is presented in Table 1. effects of both production systems. The research project is divided into
In parallel to the innovation process of APV in Germany, several five key work focus groups: (1) Technology Development, (2) En-
APV pioneers have implemented demonstration projects, e.g. Japan, vironment and Biodiversity, (3) Society, (4) Agriculture, and (5)
2004 [9,10], Massachusetts (USA), 2008 [11], Italy, 20114 [12,13],
Malaysia, 2015, Egypt, 2016,5 and Chile, 2017 [14]. Some advanced
governments have already implemented APV dissemination policies,
(footnote continued)
e.g. Japan [15], South Korea [16–18], China [19], France [20], and
policy on APV dissemination, please see information boxes in the attachment.
Massachusetts (DOER [21],6 while others are currently discussing the 7
By comparison, the total installed capacity of floating photovoltaics (FPV)
worldwide is estimated at 1300 MWp SERIS [25] and the total installed capa-
city of concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) worldwide is estimated at 600 MWp
3
The name “agrophotovoltaics” is derived from FAO’s IFES methodology as and might reach 1.36 GWp by the end of 2020 IHS [26].
8
well as the terms “agroforestry” and “agrofuels” [6]. Source: https://www.appropedia.org/Dual_use_of_land_for_PV_farms_and_
4
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03HraAXcb4g (01.10.2019). agriculture_literature_review (07.01.2020).
5 9
Source: https://www.gridparityag.com/ and claims by www.almaden- Source: http://www.agrivoltaics-conference.org/home/about.html
europe.com Dr. Erich Merkle as well as Maximilian Abouleish-Boes, http:// (06.01.2020).
10
www.sekem.com/en/index/ (31.08.2019). For more information on the APV-RESOLA project, see following link:
6
For more details on international APV market development and public www.agrophotovoltaik.de.

2

, S. Schindele, et al. Applied Energy 265 (2020) 114737


Political and Economic Analysis. Here, we are presenting the output of
Year of installation
activities stemming the fifth work focus group. In contrast to previous
APV studies, cost data on APV implementation is published here for the
first time and assessed in relation to the economic benefit of obtaining
cropland. We apply and introduce the method of price-performance
2004
2010
2013
2013
2015
2016
2017
2018
ratio calculation as an indicator to measure the techno-economic
quality of an intended APV project within an APV permitting process.
Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences and SolarTube GmbH We thereby provide a decision support tool for policy makers in order to
design public policies for the promotion and dissemination of APV.
Results from our case study on APV implementation support evidence-
based policy making and close research gaps as follows:

(i) How does the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of APV differ
from the cost of conventional ground-mounted PV installations in
Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences




terms of capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operating expenses
Fraunhofer ISE and Farm community Heggelbach




(OPEX)?
(ii) How does the potential additional cost of APV implementation
(price) relate to the benefit of maintaining agricultural activity
Dresden University of Applied Sciences




under APV (performance)?
(iii) What conclusions can be drawn from a techno-economic price-
performance ratio analysis of APV implementation with regard to
public policy design in terms of quality assurance, crop selection,
land management, price, and level of quantity?
Elektro Guggenmos




This is how we contribute to the current discussion on the social,
Gärtnerei Haller
Krug’s Spargel

Krug’s Spargel




economic, and policy aspects of APV.
Operator




2. Theory: Planning APV implementation based on the price-
performance ratio
Potatoes, winter wheat, spring barley, beetroot, leeks, celery




2.1. PV-GM land management in Germany: built-up area vs. arable land

Between 2004 and 2010, PV-GM dissemination was supported
Agricultural products grown at the APV plant site




under Germany’s Renewable Energy Act (EEG), having received a price-
based feed-in tariff (FiT). To minimize ecological impacts, PV-GM im-
Spinach, peas, bush beans, chard, radishes




plementation was governed in such a way that low-quality land, e.g.
former military or landfill areas, was prioritized in PV-GM develop-
Potato, winter wheat, celeriac, clover




ment. In 2005, the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU)
Chinese cabbage, Pointed cabbage



Chinese cabbage, pointed cabbage




published a planning guide for the environmentally sound im-
plementation of PV-GM on arable land, including sheep and goat hus-
bandry [49]. In 2010, however, conversion areas became scarce, and
Flowers, e.g. peonies




with the increasing share of PV-GM implementation on cropland, the
German government decided to eliminate FiT support for PV-GM en-
tirely. Between 2010 and 2014, no PV-GM projects were commissioned
in Germany. In 2014, German policymakers decided to turn the former
Ginseng

Ginseng




price-based FiT regulation for PV-GM dissemination into a quantity-
based approval mechanism with an annual PV-GM capacity of 600
MWp, taking effect in 2015. This new support mechanism targeted
Capacity in kWp




institutional investors, financing utility-scale projects with capacities
General information on APV power plants in Germany.




ranging from 750 kWp to 10 MWp and with a twenty-year FiT price set
by a pay-as-bid, market-based auction rather than by the government
194.4
5000

5000




itself.11 Land availability was expanded to areas next to transportation
12.9
250
70



28



14




infrastructure, e.g. 110-m strips along highways and railroads, as well
as to less-favored areas – a subcategory of arable land characterized by
Lampertheim Rosengarten (Hesse)



Heggelbach (Baden-Württemberg)




low soil quality, for example. Furthermore, federal policymakers
transferred decision-making power to the state level with regard to
Location (Federal State)

Warmisried (Bavaria)



Freising (Bavaria)



Freising (Bavaria)
Dresden (Saxony)
Bürstadt (Hesse)



Bürstadt (Hesse)




* Research facilities.




11
From a rational choice perspective and with all information available, for
the policymaker, it would not matter if PV-GM dissemination is promoted via a
price or quantity mechanism. Yet due to asymmetric information, lack of in-
formation, and non-rational behavior of policymakers and economic players, a
Table 1




restriction risk remains for policymakers when defining the ‘right’ price and
No.




4*

6*

8*
1
2
3

5

7




quantity for the promotion of a certain good according to Weizmann [50]

3

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