Economic Feasibility of Agrivoltaic Systems in Food-Energy Nexus Context: Modelling and a Case Study in Niger

In the literature, many studies outline the advantages of agrivoltaic (APV) systems from different viewpoints: optimized land use, productivity gain in both the energy and water sector, economic benefits, etc. A holistic analysis of an APV system is needed to understand its full advantages. For this...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Srijana Neupane Bhandari, Sabine Schlüter, Wilhelm Kuckshinrichs, Holger Schlör, Rabani Adamou, Ramchandra Bhandari
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-09-01
Series:Agronomy
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/11/10/1906
Description
Summary:In the literature, many studies outline the advantages of agrivoltaic (APV) systems from different viewpoints: optimized land use, productivity gain in both the energy and water sector, economic benefits, etc. A holistic analysis of an APV system is needed to understand its full advantages. For this purpose, a case study farm size of 0.15 ha has been chosen as a reference farm at a village in Niger, West Africa. Altogether four farming cases are considered. They are traditional rain-fed, irrigated with diesel-powered pumps, irrigated with solar pumps, and the APV system. The APV system is further analyzed under two scenarios: benefits to investors and combined benefits to investors and farmers. An economic feasibility analysis model is developed. Different economic indicators are used to present the results: gross margin, farm profit, benefit-cost ratio, and net present value (NPV). All the economic indicators obtained for the solar-powered irrigation system were positive, whereas all those for the diesel-powered system were negative. Additionally, the diesel system will emit annually about 4005 kg CO<sub>2</sub> to irrigate the chosen reference farm. The land equivalent ratio (LER) was obtained at 1.33 and 1.13 for two cases of shading-induced yield loss excluded and included, respectively.
ISSN:2073-4395