1. Introduction

Fossil fuel combustion for human energy use and concomitant carbon emissions [1] is disturbing the global ecosystem balance [2,3], which threatens future generations [4] the global economy [5]. Fossil fuels are being depleted [6], yet simultaneously there is an increasing negative environmental impact from their continued use [7]. This demands a greater use of renewable energy [8,9] to enable to internalize current externalities [10] and de-carbonize the energy supply [11]. In the past few decades, the continuous technical improvements [12,13] in solar photovoltaic (PV) technology have enabled methods to provide clean and sustainable solar energy [14] while driving down economic costs [15]. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that 16% of world’s energy demand, which would be approximately 6,000 TWh, would be generated using solar PV by 2050 [16]. Because of the rise in capacity for solar power generation studies have focused on aggressive use of new designs [17] building integrated PV (BIPV) [18,19] and more conventional rooftop PV retrofits estimated over regional [20], city [21,22], municipal district [23], or multiple buildings [24,25]. However, rooftop systems cannot provide all the energy necessary for some regions with high population densities and thus land- based solar PV farms have also been investigated in depth on technical [26] and economic [27,28] and future economic [29]grounds. The aggressive growth of land-based PV farms [30] creates a conflict in t he use of land [31] for generating energy using solar PV or meeting increasing food production demands of the world population [32]. With the world population increasing at the rate of 1.15% per year [33], and the continued failure to adequately nourish the entire world population [34], this problem is becoming more important. Solar module requires a relatively large amount of open space [35]. Prior efforts to convert crop lands to energy generation (e.g. the production of ethanol) have driven up the cost of food [36], primarily impacted the poor [36] and aggravated world hunger [37]. Fortunately, this major disputation of land use can be resolved using the concept of agrivoltaics (i.e. co-developing the same area of land for both solar PV and agriculture) [38].The agrivoltaic concept has proven successful in several systems [38] including solar PV and aloe vera in dry, semi-arid regions [39], lettuce [40], and cherry tomatoes [41]. Most agrivoltaic studies, however, have focused on shade tolerant crops. This study will focus on a the potential of a relativly shade intolerant crop (grapes) in a promising region for agrivoltaic production (India).

India is a particularly promising region for agrivoltaic production because it has an economy that is made up of many agriculture producers [42], and is rapidly expanding electrical services to the 21.3% of India’s population without access to any form of electricity [43]. In addition, India has significant support from the government for PV production and has achieved increasing solar capacities [44]. Finally, India receives a relatively high solar flux. Indian states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Orrisa, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal, which form the major part of India, receive 4-7 kWh of solar radiation per square meter per day, which is equivalent to 2,300-3,200 hours of sunshine every year [45].

To investigate and quantify some of this agrivoltaic generation potential, without harming the Indian agriculture output even for shade-intolerant crops, for the first time this study explores the viability of agrivoltaic farms deployment on existing grape farms in India. Considering the weak shade tolerance of grapes, an analysis is run for the installation of PV systems in the area available between the trellises on a grape farm without compromising grape production, which represents a novel approach to agrivoltaics in the use of the necessary harvesting space of shade intolerant crops. Then the electrical energy generation potential is determined per unit area and economic benefits for the grape cultivators is quantified. A sensitivity analysis is run on geographical location, selection of module and inverter, row spacing, selection of axis and azimuth angle. The results are discussed and conclusions are drawn to provide best practices.