Operations and Maintenance Considerations at Agrivoltaic Sites

The purpose of this chapter is to focus on changes to operations and maintenance (O&M) practices or design changes that are needed for Agri-PV projects. Adopting Agri-PV projects will require changes to site O&M practices from conventional PV projects to accommodate farming practices on-site that come with potential contracting, legal, and health and safety regulatory changes. The focus of this chapter is to outline O&M operations at Agri-PV sites, including a comparison with O&M practices at conventional utility-scale solar sites. These comparisons will be relevant, but different, to both new Agri-PV project developments and retrofitting existing conventional PV sites to Agri-PV. This chapter starts with the impacts of different PV design choices on crop management, grazing, and vegetation management practices coupled with other relevant agricultural considerations. Next, this chapter discusses differences in site design and O&M that arise from incorporating crop production and grazing, along with potential impacts of these agricultural activities on PV systems. Finally, non-technical considerations of Agri-PV site management are discussed to ensure that these pieces are accounted for throughout the project life cycle. This chapter will discuss cropping operations based on insights from four Agri-PV sites in the United States: Jack's Solar Garden in Longmont, CO; the Bifacial Agrivoltaic Research at NREL (BARN) site in Golden, CO; a demonstration site at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; and a demonstration site at the University of Arizona's Biosphere 2 facility near Tucson. All projects listed here are hand-harvested but small equipment and tractors are used for tilling, ploughing, and other farming activities.