Rain concentration and sheltering effect of solar panels on cultivated plots
Agrivoltaism is the association of agricultural and photovoltaic energy production on the same land area, coping with the increasing pressure on land use and water resources while delivering clean and renewable energy. However, the solar panels located above the cultivated plots also have a see...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2018-02-01
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| Series: | Hydrology and Earth System Sciences |
| Online Access: | https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/22/1285/2018/hess-22-1285-2018.pdf |
| Summary: | Agrivoltaism is the association of agricultural and photovoltaic
energy production on the same land area, coping with the increasing
pressure on land use and water resources while delivering clean
and renewable energy. However, the solar panels located above the
cultivated plots also have a seemingly yes unexplored effect on rain
redistribution, sheltering large parts of the plot but redirecting
concentrated fluxes on a few locations. The spatial heterogeneity
in water amounts observed on the ground is high in the general case;
its dynamical patterns are directly attributable to the mobile
panels through their geometrical characteristics (dimensions,
height, coverage percentage) and the strategies selected to rotate
them around their support tube. A coefficient of variation is used
to measure this spatial heterogeneity and to compare it with the
coefficient of uniformity that classically describes the efficiency
of irrigation systems. A rain redistribution model (AVrain) was
derived from literature elements and theoretical grounds and then
validated from experiments in both field and controlled
conditions. AVrain simulates the effective rain amounts on the plot
from a few forcing data (rainfall, wind velocity and direction) and thus
allows real-time strategies that consist in operating the panels so
as to limit the rain interception mainly responsible for the spatial
heterogeneities. Such avoidance strategies resulted in a sharp
decrease in the coefficient of variation, e.g. 0.22 vs. 2.13 for
panels held flat during one of the monitored rain events, which is
a fairly good uniformity score for irrigation specialists. Finally,
the water amounts predicted by AVrain were used as inputs to
Hydrus-2D for a brief exploratory study on the impact of the
presence of solar panels on rain redistribution at shallow depths
within soils: similar, more diffuse patterns were simulated and
were coherent with field measurements. |
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| ISSN: | 1027-5606 1607-7938 |