LIT_113: Chatzipanagi et al. (2023) — Agri-Photovoltaics in the EU: Potential & Challenges (JRC)

LIT_113: Chatzipanagi et al. (2023) — Agri-Photovoltaics in the EU: Potential & Challenges (JRC)

Source

doi:10.2760/208702 — original publication (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)

Summary

JRC science-for-policy report (Chatzipanagi, Taylor & Jaeger-Waldau, 2023) assessing the potential and challenges of agri-photovoltaics (agri-PV, the dual use of the same land for crops/grazing and solar generation) across the EU. For Neobiome Intelligence its load-bearing contribution is a set of installed power-density figures (MW/ha, i.e. kWp/ha) for agri-PV versus conventional exclusive-use ground-mount PV, drawn from realised European projects and a named vertical-bifacial installer (Next2Sun). These calibrate the agripv_kwp_per_ha density input and provide a reference density for exclusive-use ground-mount PV. It is an EU/Germany proxy (data_quality: medium): the physical densities transfer reasonably to NZ, but the report’s cost, subsidy (CAP) and regulatory content is EU-specific and is not carried across. It complements, and does not duplicate, the Fraunhofer ISE guide OT_050.

Key claims

- claim: "Vertical-bifacial agri-PV on grassland is installed at ~0.4 MW/ha (= 400 kWp/ha): 'Next2Sun declares that the installed capacity of their Agri-PV systems on grasslands is 0.4 MW/ha.' (Next2Sun is the named vertical-bifacial builder credited on the report cover.)"
  source_location: "§2.1 PV Power Density, printed p.7 (PDF p.11)"
- claim: "Across a wide variety of realised agri-PV projects the installed PV power density ranges 0.2-0.9 MW/ha (200-900 kWp/ha) depending on system design, and the JRC adopts 0.6 MW/ha (600 kWp/ha) as its default: 'From a wide variety of realised Agri-PV projects, the obtained range for the installed PV power is between 0.2 and 0.9 MW/ha, depending on the system design. In the following we assume a value of 0.6 MW/ha'."
  source_location: "§2.1 PV Power Density, printed p.7 (PDF p.11)"
- claim: "Exclusive-use (conventional) ground-mounted PV has a global-average density of ~0.87 MWp/ha (870 kWp/ha): 'A recent assessment of ground mounted systems gave a global average of 0.87 MWp/ha (Bolinger and Bolinger, 2022)'."
  source_location: "§2.1 PV Power Density, printed p.7 (PDF p.11)"
- claim: "The theoretical packed-module ceiling for reference: '...PV modules with an efficiency of 20 % have power to area ratio of 200 W/m2, which translates to 2 MW/ha' (2000 kWp/ha) — i.e. agri-PV densities are well below the fully-packed maximum because of wide inter-row spacing for the crop/grazing use."
  source_location: "§2.1 PV Power Density, printed p.7 (PDF p.11)"
- claim: "Land-potential context (uses the 0.6 MW/ha default): 'A coverage of only 1 % of Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA) with Agri-PV system translates into roughly 944 GW (assuming an installed capacity per land area of 0.6 MW/ha)' — establishing 0.6 MW/ha as the report's working agri-PV density and confirming agri-PV can supply utility-scale capacity from a small fraction of farmland."
  source_location: "Executive summary — Main findings, printed p.3 (PDF p.7)"

Neobiome Intelligence relevance

• Density input for agro_pv / D01 (agripv_kwp_per_ha). Supplies the missing panel-density numbers the agro_pv page previously lacked: a realised agri-PV range 200-900 kWp/ha with a 600 kWp/ha working default, plus the named vertical-bifacial point value 400 kWp/ha (Next2Sun on grassland). Two design families map onto the two figures: near-ground vertical rows (~400) and interspaced/overhead layouts (up to ~600-900) LIT_113.
• Reference density for exclusive-use ground-mount. Gives a corpus-citable ~870 kWp/ha global-average density for conventional (non-dual-use) ground-mount PV, the sensible anchor against which agri-PV’s lower, spacing-driven density is compared LIT_113.
• Bounds the trade-off numerically. With exclusive-use at ~870 kWp/ha and dual-use at 400-600 kWp/ha, agri-PV yields roughly 45-70% of the generation density of a dedicated ground array on the same footprint, the quantitative cost of keeping the land in food/grazing production. Pairs with the land-use-efficiency (~1.6-1.8x) framing from OT_050.
• ⚠ Proxy scope. EU/Germany data. Physical densities are broadly transferable; the report’s economics, CAP-subsidy eligibility and EU regulatory content are not carried across (NZ cost/consent stay under RT_108).

Research targets

Research gaps

• Resolves the density (kWp/ha) portion of RT_108 with an EU/DE proxy: dual-use 400-600 kWp/ha, exclusive-use ~870 kWp/ha. RT_108 stays open for the NZ-specific layer (installed cost NZD/kWp, consent pathway, crop/pasture yield trade-off under NZ irradiance) and until the density parameters are wired into the model. No new RT opened.

Retrieval provenance

• Upstream source: EU Joint Research Centre science-for-policy report, JRC132879 / EUR 31482 EN, Overview of the Potential and Challenges for Agri-Photovoltaics in the EU (Chatzipanagi, Taylor & Jaeger-Waldau, 2023), Publications Office of the European Union, doi:10.2760/208702 — the authoritative published PDF.
• Prepared by: retrieval pass on 2026-07-25, as part of the RT_108 agri-PV model-integration retrieval run.
• Retrieval target: locate agri-PV installed panel density (kWp/ha) for the agripv_kwp_per_ha model input, plus an exclusive-use ground-mount reference density.
• Verification: the raw is the genuine authoritative JRC PDF (not an AI synthesis). All figures in Key claims were independently re-verified via pdftotext -layout grep against the retrieved PDF and quoted verbatim with exact source_location. data_quality: medium here denotes EU/DE-to-NZ proxy transferability, not extraction uncertainty.

Notes

• Two ground-mount references in the report. The exclusive-use anchor quoted above is the ~0.87 MWp/ha global average (Bolinger & Bolinger 2022). The report separately uses 1.15 MW/ha for “traditional ground-mounted PV systems” in its EU coverage-comparison tables (e.g. “accomplished with only 0.35 % of UAA coverage for traditional ground-mounted PV systems (1.15 MW/ha)”, §2.2.2). The 0.87 figure is the cited-assessment global average; 1.15 is the report’s higher comparison assumption. Prefer 0.87 as the sourced exclusive-use density.
• Distinct from OT_050. OT_050 is the Fraunhofer ISE German practitioner guide (land-use-efficiency framing, system taxonomy). This is the EU JRC science-for-policy report (density figures, EU potential). Cross-referenced on the agro_pv page; not duplicated.

Connections

Links to

Sources (1): OT_050

Technologies (1): Agro-PV (Dual-Use Solar + Agriculture)

Referenced by

Technologies (1): Agro-PV (Dual-Use Solar + Agriculture)

EDT domains (1): D01: Renewable Energy & Storage Systems

Sources (1): CR_059