Photo voltaic monitoring panels help prime quality rice yields in Japan agrivoltaics trial
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 06, 2025
As Japan expands its renewable vitality portfolio, a brand new examine from the College of Tokyo affords perception right into a dual-use land technique that mixes photo voltaic vitality era with rice cultivation. This agrivoltaics pilot, performed in Miyada-mura, Nagano Prefecture, examined the viability of rising rice beneath photo voltaic panels mounted on a dual-axis sun-tracking system.
The researchers put in photovoltaic panels three meters above a rice paddy, enabling the system to comply with the solar all through the day and throughout seasons. In the course of the planting season, the panels had been adjusted to permit extra daylight to succeed in the rice, whereas within the low season, the configuration was optimized for vitality output.
Rice yields underneath the panels reached 75 p.c and 85 p.c of these from typical paddies in the course of the first and second years, respectively. Enhancements within the second 12 months had been attributed to higher daylight calibration. Crucially, the rice met Japan’s high grain high quality benchmarks.
The photo voltaic array produced practically 44,000 kilowatt-hours yearly, reaching an vitality effectivity of 961.4 kWh per kilowatt – similar to main methods in Europe. The price of manufacturing over 20 years was estimated at 27 yen per kilowatt-hour, aligning with typical family charges in Japan, even with out subsidies.
The workforce emphasised the significance of dynamic shading administration to strike a stability between crop productiveness and photo voltaic output. They proposed future enhancements akin to real-time daylight optimization utilizing AI and the usage of high-efficiency or semi-transparent PV supplies to reduce shading.
As Japan targets substantial photo voltaic growth by 2030, the examine advocates for agrivoltaics as a way to harmonize clear vitality objectives with meals safety, significantly in space-limited rural areas.
Analysis Report:Case study of rice farming in Japan under agriphotovoltaic system
Associated Hyperlinks
SPIE–International Society for Optics and Photonics
All About Solar Energy at SolarDaily.com
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