As the world turns its attention to renewable energy resources, questions about the viability of a land-intensive resource like solar panels have arisen. Competition with agricultural land is a major concern, and one that research is attempting to solve with the combination of photovoltaics and agriculture, termed agrivoltaics. Investigations into possible combinations of crops and panels is ongoing but thus far focuses on plant performance and panel density. More research is needed on the impacts of agricultural practices on solar panel operation and efficiency. This paper addresses this relationship by investigating two effects on solar panels: the ambient temperature around a solar panel based on its location in a large-scale array, and the impact of different ground cover type on solar panel operating temperature in small-scale arrays. To investigate the impact of ground cover on panel temperature, small scale arrays were constructed and placed over three land cover types: irrigated agriculture with black landscape fabric, barren land, and grassland. To investigate variations in panel temperature based on panel location, five sensors were placed at the North, South, West, East, and Center of a large-scale array to record hourly temperature data for the summer of 2021. Irrigated agriculture with black landscape fabric was found to be significantly hotter than barren and grassland ground cover types, while grassland was found to have some cooling effects. This finding demonstrates that solar panels and grasslands can be beneficially co-located, which would provide significant relief to the land use challenges of food and energy. Temperatures across an array experienced differences based on the north-south transect. It is unclear if this was due to the specific environment surrounding the site, or systemic across solar arrays. Regardless of the cause, solar arrays can experience temperature differences across a 1 MW scale, demonstrating the need for further research if these dynamics are to be understood and incorporated into future siting for solar arrays.
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