Recent research into “agrivoltaics” — putting solar panels on a parcel of land that grows food — suggests that this isn’t always a dealbreaker. In fact, according to the paper, setting up certain types of solar panels alongside commercial plant crops can play a huge role in generating renewable energy in Canada. To study this, Joshua Pearce, a researcher at Western University’s department of electrical and computer engineering, and his team began looking into previous studies about how plant crops fared alongside PVs. Pearce noted that, while solar panels can cast shade over plants, that didn’t always hinder their growth a lot. A study from 2021 suggests that chard and kale can fare quite well with power-producing neighbours taking up some of their sun. With this data in hand, the researchers looked at government geographic information system (GIS) data, and modelled where ideal sunlight for PV occurs on Canadian farmland, along with which parts of agriculture land is used for crops that didn’t mind a bit of shade.
