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Breadcrumbs
Empowering farmers in Central Europe: the case for agri-PV
Unlocking the vast potential of agri-PV brings benefits for farmers and energy systems in Central European countries.
The following recommendations can provide guidance for governments looking to introduce agri-PV legislation, or, as in the case of Czechia, expand it to encompass multiple types of agri-PV systems.
- Benefits for farmers should be central. The economic benefits and the security of property and investments for farmers should be central to efforts promoting agri-PV, alongside raising public awareness and acceptance. Most importantly, farmers that take advantage of agri-PV still need to be supported by the Common Agricultural Policy subsidies.
- All types of agri-PV need to be included in the legislation. Excluding interspaced agri-PV from regulations significantly lowers the potential, despite evidence showing that negative impacts on crop yields can be limited. At the same time, agricultural land needs to be preserved for food production – e.g. through minimum crop yield requirements and their robust monitoring.
- Research and Development (R&D) needs to be supported. R&D programmes, along with pilot projects, are vital to overcoming technical challenges in the agri-PV sector. They should simultaneously take into consideration energy production, crop yield and biodiversity.
- Agri-PV targets should be set within CAP. Agri-PV should be assigned specific capacity targets and financial support within the individual Member States’ CAP Strategic Plans.
- Investment subsidies are necessary to include farmers in the energy transition. With agri-PV in early stages of development across Central Europe, governments should consider CAPEX subsidies to lower entry barriers for farmers.
Supporting Material
Methodology
Country results
Detailed results of agri-PV potential mapping for each of the analysed countries are presented in the report PDF. The methodology behind these results, as well as data sources, are described in the following section.
Solar parameters for land use efficiency calculations
For the purpose of the calculations, the design of the agri-PV systems was chosen in such a way that meets the shading requirements of different crop types, as well as the standard regulatory requirements. As described in the main report after Laub et. al., crop yields for berries or fruits achieve their best performance under 30-35% shade. The overhead agri-PV system was chosen to meet those shading values in Central European latitudes. Shading analysis was performed using the agrivolatics.one tool from KU Leuven. An east-west orientation with a typical tilt angle of 15 degrees was chosen to provide both good shading conditions for crops, as well as to widen the generation profile to improve power system balancing and increase solar capture prices. The clearance height of three metres was chosen to accommodate both berries and small fruit trees. The transparency ratio was set to 22%, according to the recent product parameters of module producer Bisol. The row-to-row distance was then optimised to meet 35% shading level, as well as match the typical 0.7 MW/ha capacity to land ratio as indicated by Fraunhofer ISE.
Some countries require a minimum of 70-90% crop yield compared to a reference within their agri-PV legislative framework. For main crops like cereals, this is only possible with shading of 25% and less, which in turn translates to a ground coverage ratio (GCR) below 20% in traditional PV systems. Since the shading in vertical agri-PV panels varies significantly depending on the location – from 10%, through 15% to 20% for designs with around 10% GCR, the calculations assume a 10 metre row-to-row spacing. This resulted in a 0.25 MW capacity per hectare. This could be viewed as conservative, but it allows for the use of farming machinery such as combine headers. For most crops, this design guarantees a minimum of 80% crop yields compared to a reference.
Solar generation was calculated by multiplying the capacity by the capacity factors calculated using atlite for each analysed country, using the same PV system designs (tilt, azimuth, bifacial factor).
All the parameters used in the shading and solar generation calculations are presented in the report PDF.
Spatial potential mapping
The potential of agri-PV was calculated using the GLAES tool, following a methodology first introduced by Ryberg, Robinius and Stolten in 2018 and later adopted, among others, by the European Commission. This particular report builds on the author’s previous work on ground-mounted solar potential mapping from 2021.
Spatial data on arable land, pastures, fruit and berry plantations in the analysed countries was sourced from the European Commission’s Corine Land Cover dataset (2018 edition). Several exclusions were then applied to account for buffer zones around roads, railways, power lines, buildings, forests, bodies of water and natural protection areas. A maximum elevation and slope was also set. While the author’s previous analysis and the recent European Commission report limited land used for ground-mounted solar to only low quality soil areas, no exclusions were applied to soil classes in the case of this report. Agri-PV combines agriculture and electricity generation, and should, therefore, also be applicable to good quality soil areas, opening up more potential. A full list of exclusion parameters is provided in the report PDF (after Ryberg, Robinius and Stolten, with Ember modifications following Instrat, JRC and others).
After applying all exclusions, the programme limited the land available for agri-PV to areas within five kilometres of a grid connection point – a high-voltage to medium-voltage substation (based on OpenStreetMap data) – with the distance suggested by solar project developers for medium sized projects. In some studies, a 10 km distance is suggested for larger solar farms (> 10-20 MW), but at the moment these are far less frequent among European agri-PV projects. An exception was made for Slovakia because of the low quality of grid data and therefore extremely high exclusions resulting from the grid proximity criterion. The share of arable land available for agri-PV in Slovakia was an average of the results for other countries, then adjusted for Slovakia’s overall smaller share of arable land in the country’s total land area compared to the Central European average.
The resulting area was translated into installed capacity using values consistent with the other calculations present in the report – namely 0.3 MW/ha for interspaced agri-PV on arable land and pastures and 0.7 MW/ha for overhead agri-PV over fruits and berries. The results for arable land were further disaggregated based on the share of arable land occupied by different main crops – in particular wheat, barley, oats and rye (Eurostat 2020 data).
Agri-PV profits per hectare
The report provides a simplified calculation of the revenues, costs and profits of an interspaced agri-PV system between wheat crops in Poland. Values are provided per hectare. As used in other places in the report, due to the row spacing the capacity is around 0.3 MW/ha, translating into 261 MWh/ha of annual electricity generation in a vertical bifacial east-west design (the reasoning behind these parameters is described in the first Methodology subchapter), and resulting in below 15% shading and a 11% yield (revenue) loss for wheat.
Revenues from electricity generation are calculated based on two price scenarios:
- Using the average 2023 wholesale electricity price for Poland – 111.7 EUR/MWh (via Montel), multiplied by the capture rate 0.89 – Ember’s hour-by-hour estimate of the value of solar generation compared to the baseload price over the whole day, yielding 99.3 EUR/MWh. It is worth noting that in the case of east-west facing agri-PV, the capture rate could potentially be higher.
- Using the 2023 renewables auction results for solar – with an average bid price of 76.2 EUR/MWh, guaranteed for a period of 15 years.
Costs were based on Fraunhofer ISE levelised cost of electricity estimates – 60 EUR/MWh, with 79.1% of that attributed to CAPEX and the rest being OPEX. Consistent agri-PV CAPEX data was only available for 2020, so the CAPEX values were adjusted to 2023 using the average increase of capital expenditure for ground-mounted solar between 2020 and 2023 in Poland – 21%. This resulted in an LCOE value of 70.2 EUR/MWh.
Annual profits per hectare were calculated as the difference between revenues and costs. Depending on the price scenario, the annual revenues varied between 19900 and 25932 EUR/ha, annual costs were 18346 EUR/MWh. It needs to be noted that the comparison of LCOE with electricity prices is simplified. No discounting was applied to revenues as no detail was available on the discounting (or lack of it) in the agri-PV LCOE. The end result will therefore vary depending on the discount factor (which also varies by country) or the future electricity price assumptions. Furthermore, the LCOE was provided for a 20 year period, while auctions have a 15-year price guarantee and predictions of electricity prices in the late 2030s come with major uncertainties. The results will also vary depending on the ownership model and therefore the financing costs, or potential profit sharing schemes between farmers, land owners and solar investors.
As a comparison, the revenues and costs of traditional wheat production (without agri-PV) were used. According to estimates by the Greater-Poland Agricultural Chamber, revenues from 2024 winter wheat are estimated at 1715 EUR/ha, with costs at 1812 EUR/ha, resulting in a net loss of 97 EUR/ha. This includes only basic direct subsidies (116 EUR/ha), with significant revenues possible from other CAP subsidies. However, a major portion of these subsidies should still be applicable to agri-PV systems.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank several Ember colleagues for their valuable contributions and comments, including Sarah Brown, Ali Candlin, Reynaldo Dizon, Harriet Fox, Dave Jones, Richard Black and others. We would also like to extend our gratitude to our partners: SolarPower Europe, Polish Photovoltaics Association, Modern Energy Union and Czech Solar Association. We appreciate Jiří Bím’s valuable insight into Czech agrivoltaic legislation and the insightful comments from Adrianna Wrona from the Green Economy Institute.
Photo creditTitle picture – SolarPower Europe, Školka Litomyšl picture – Kristýna Čermáková
This report explains the key benefits of agri-PV and examines the agri-PV potential in selected countries in Central Europe: Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. By analysing crop yield impacts and electricity generation opportunities, the paper provides land use efficiency estimates. Agri-PV policies in different European countries are compared, providing best practices and recommendations for countries that have not yet introduced agri-PV legislation.