Agrivoltaics Align with Green New Deal Goals While Supporting Investment in the US’ Rural Economy
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Water Resources Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
2
Biological and Ecological Engineering, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
3
Discipline of Biosciences and Biomedical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology-Indore, Khandwa Road, Simrol, Indore, Madhya Pradesh 453552, India
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2021, 13(1), 137; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010137
Received: 16 November 2020 / Revised: 20 December 2020 / Accepted: 22 December 2020 / Published: 25 December 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainability and Political Agroecology)
Agrivoltaic systems combine solar photovoltaic energy production with agriculture to improve land-use efficiency. We provide an upper-bound reduced-order cost estimate for widespread implementation of Agrivoltaic systems in the United States. We find that 20% of the US’ total electricity generation can be met with Agrivoltaic systems if less than 1% of the annual US budget is invested into rural infrastructure. Simultaneously, Agrivoltaic systems align well with existing Green New Deal goals. Widescale installation of Agrivoltaic systems can lead to a carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction equivalent to removing 71,000 cars from the road annually and the creation of over 100,000 jobs in rural communities. Agrivoltaics provide a rare chance for true synergy: more food, more energy, lower water demand, lower carbon emissions, and more prosperous rural communities.
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Keywords:
Agrivoltaics; agriculture; photovoltaics; Green New Deal; agrophotovoltaics; food-energy-water nexus
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Externally hosted supplementary file 1
Doi: 10.7267/mc87px76j
Description: A jupyter notebook file meant to accompany this publication is hosted on the Oregon State University Scholars Archive. It will take time for the notebook file to be updated to account for changes requested by the reviewers, we have begun the process of having the file updated there. The python jupyter notebook contains the full calculation used for this paper and allows users to alter key assumptions to see their corresponding impact. A in-browser accessible version of the file can be viewed at https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/proctork/Reduced-Order-Agrivoltaic-Cost-Estimate/HEAD
MDPI and ACS Style
Proctor, K.W.; Murthy, G.S.; Higgins, C.W. Agrivoltaics Align with Green New Deal Goals While Supporting Investment in the US’ Rural Economy. Sustainability 2021, 13, 137. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010137
AMA Style
Proctor KW, Murthy GS, Higgins CW. Agrivoltaics Align with Green New Deal Goals While Supporting Investment in the US’ Rural Economy. Sustainability. 2021; 13(1):137. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010137
Chicago/Turabian StyleProctor, Kyle W.; Murthy, Ganti S.; Higgins, Chad W. 2021. "Agrivoltaics Align with Green New Deal Goals While Supporting Investment in the US’ Rural Economy" Sustainability 13, no. 1: 137. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010137
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