Agrivoltaics could increase global land use efficiency compared to bioenergy

Abstract

Climate change mitigation scenarios often include a substantial bioenergy component, raising concerns about the land use impacts of large-scale energy crop production. However, agrivoltaic systems have the potential to generate electricity with a higher land use efficiency than bioenergy by integrating photovoltaic panels into agricultural land. Here, we model the global land system to explore the land use impacts of energy crops, agrivoltaics, and photovoltaics under a 1.5 °C climate change mitigation scenario. Bioenergy demand in the bioenergy scenario increases almost six-fold from 2020 to 2060. Replacing all bioenergy with agrivoltaics requires 30 times less land, leading to 106 Mha more natural land cover, 52 Mt. less nitrogen fertiliser applied, and 305 km 3 less irrigation water withdrawn per year by 2060. Similar but smaller reductions in land use are achieved with standard photovoltaic systems. Our findings suggest that future net cropland expansion can be avoided by prioritising agrivoltaic and photovoltaic systems over bioenergy. Policies that incentivise the adoption of agrivoltaics could increase global land use efficiency, reducing the trade-offs between energy supply, food production, and nature protection.