Agrivoltaic Systems: Potential Opportunities for South Africa

Conference Paper: Agrivoltaic Systems: Potential Opportunities for South Africa

Abstract

South Africa has seen a drastic uptake of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems with an increasing number of solar farms over the last decade. From an available land perspective, there is also much potential to significantly expand the generation capacity, when compared to the rest of the world. More than 80% of the land area has a solar resource greater than 1600 kWh/m2/yr . Over 79% of the land is used for agricultural purposes, yet only 22.5% of the in-stalled PV capacity is in the agricultural sector. This highlights the potential of dual land usage with agrivoltaic systems. This paper investigates the opportunities to develop such systems by considering agricultural production in South Africa that may be suitable – to pave the way forward for the implementation of appropriate agrivoltaic systems in the country. A GeographicInformation System ( GIS) analysis was undertaken, considering the solar resource and land with a slope of less than 2 degree – to minimise construction costs. Current large-scale solar projects in South Africa indicate that at least 0.6 GWh of electricity can be generated annually per hectare. The current total capacity (of all sources) generated around 237 TWh of electricity in 2022. To generate an equal amount of electricity with agrivoltaic systems would then (roughly) require less than 400 thousand hectares of agricultural land; or less than 2 % of the available land suitable for agrivoltaic systems (depending on the designed panel density). Further site-specific techno-economic analyses are underway to provide greater insight into the potential opportunities for South Africa.

Contains a model

Contains novel data

Topics

Market Assessments

Technical potential

Agrivoltaic Activity: Animal Grazing, Crop Production

Authors: Alan C. Brent, Nicholas Chapman and Imke H de Kock

Conference: AgriVoltaics World Conference 2023; Seoul, South Korea; 2023-04-11

Published

TIB Open Publishing, 2024

DOI: Not Provided
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Online: Internet link for Agrivoltaic Systems: Potential Opportunities for South Africa

Citation

Alan C. Brent, Nicholas Chapman, Imke H de Kock. 2024. Agrivoltaic Systems: Potential Opportunities for South Africa. In: AgriVoltaics World Conference Proceedings 2023. AgriVoltaics World Conference 2023; 2023-04-11; Seoul, South Korea. (!) : TIB Open Publishing; p.

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