Event date:
Mar 9 2021 9:30 am

Optimal Panel Density in Agrivoltaic Systems for Major Crops in Punjab, Pakistan

Supervisor
Dr. Nauman Zafar Butt
Student
Waqar Ahmad
Venue
Zoom Meetings (Online)
Event
MS Thesis defense
Abstract
Agrivoltaic (AV) systems allow the energy and food production on the same land area, an upper layer of solar panels together with a crop layer at ground level. This allows the significant saving of land resources compared to separate energy and food productions. Solar panels are installed at a specific height above the crop to allow agriculture machinery to pass. Crops can achieve high yield under the fluctuating shade of solar panels as this cover can alleviate climatic stress off crops. The drop shadow of solar panels reduces the water consumption in agriculture by reducing the rate of evapotranspiration. This requires the development of a new model to understand the water productivity and food-energy-water optimization. The AV performance can strongly depend on the local climate, crop species and the system configuration. The goal of this thesis is to design an optimal AV system using North/South faced fixed tilt and East/West faced vertical panel configurations for some of the major crops in Punjab. An optimal panel density is proposed for each panel configuration so that a given crop evapotranspires at a desired rate known from literature for getting maximum yield. First, we calculate the solar radiations at crop level under solar panels on a specific land area using irradiation models at different panel densities. Solar radiation patterns along with other crop-climate parameters were used to model the time dependent stomatal conductance for wheat, sugarcane and cotton. We further study the radiative and water stress coefficient at specific panel densities to implement the desired evapotranspiration rates. Using this model, we also evaluate improvement in water productivity for the selected crops. AV can play an enormous rule in future as the world is facing challenges in climate, water, energy and food, this technology appears to be the one of best solutions for these challenges.

Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/94708360891?pwd=VmlJYyt6RlAvdU5nYlNWcUtOcVgyUT09

Meeting ID: 947 0836 0891

Passcode: 728824