As utility-scale solar deployment accelerates globally, the renewable energy industry is facing a growing challenge:
How to continue scaling solar PV without increasing pressure on already limited land and water resources? 

That question is becoming particularly important in arid and water-constrained regions, many of which also represent some of the world’s highest-potential solar markets. 

A newly published study in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, co-authored by STS Head of Technical Services, Juan Lopez-Garcia, explores how agrivoltaics could help address this challenge by integrating solar PV generation with active agricultural use on the same land. 

The paper, “Agrivoltaics for Arid Climates: Developments, Technological Trends, and Global Data-Driven Technoeconomic Assessments,” examines the growing role of agrivoltaic systems (APV) in improving land-use efficiency, supporting agricultural resilience, and enabling more sustainable solar development in environmentally constrained regions. 

Read the full study here:
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews study 

 

What Is Agrivoltaics?
Agrivoltaics combines solar PV and agriculture in a single system, allowing land to support both renewable energy generation and farming at the same time. 

Rather than forcing solar development and agriculture to compete for land use, agrivoltaic systems are designed to allow both activities to coexist.  

Depending on system design, this can include: 

• Crop cultivation beneath or between solar panels 
• Livestock grazing within solar sites 
• Greenhouse-integrated solar systems 
• Elevated or spaced PV arrays that preserve agricultural functionality 

 While agrivoltaics has historically been viewed as a niche sustainability concept, industry interest is expanding rapidly as developers, policymakers, and investors search for ways to improve the long-term sustainability and efficiency of utility-scale solar deployment. 

Why Agrivoltaics Is Gaining Attention in Arid Regions
Some of the world’s fastest-growing solar markets are located in arid and semi-arid climates, including regions across: 

• The Middle East 
• North Africa
• the southwestern United States
• parts of India
• Australia
• Latin America

These regions often offer ideal conditions for solar PV generation. However, they also face significant environmental constraints related to water availability, land productivity, desertification, and agricultural resilience. As solar deployment scales, balancing renewable energy growth with responsible land and water management is becoming increasingly important.  That is one reason agrivoltaics is attracting growing attention across the solar industry. The newly published research highlights how agrivoltaic systems may help improve the overall productivity and sustainability of land in water-constrained environments by supporting both energy generation and agricultural activity simultaneously. 

 

How Agrivoltaic Systems Can Improve Water Efficiency
One of the most significant findings explored in the study involves water-use efficiency.  In arid climates, water scarcity is often one of the primary constraints affecting both agriculture and infrastructure development. Agrivoltaic systems may help reduce this pressure in several ways.  Solar panels can create partial shading over crops and soil surfaces, which may help reduce evapotranspiration, the combined process of water evaporation from soil and transpiration from plants. 

This shading effect can contribute to: 

• Lower soil temperatures 
• Reduced moisture loss
• Decreased irrigation demand
• Improved crop resilience during periods of extreme heat

In some cases, the microclimate created beneath PV modules may also help improve growing conditions for certain crops that are vulnerable to excessive solar exposure.  As climate pressures intensify across many agricultural regions, improving water-use efficiency is becoming a central part of long-term renewable energy and land-use planning. 

 

The Growing Importance of Land-Use Optimization in Solar PV 

Land-use efficiency is quickly becoming one of the most important strategic issues facing utility-scale solar development. 

Global solar deployment targets continue to rise sharply as countries pursue decarbonization goals and energy transition strategies. At the same time, developers are increasingly encountering challenges related to: 

• Agricultural land competition 
• Environmental permitting 
• Community opposition 
• Biodiversity concerns 
• Water-resource management 
• ESG and sustainability requirements 

Agrivoltaics offers one potential path forward by enabling solar infrastructure and agricultural production to coexist rather than compete for land resources.  This dual-use approach may help improve overall land productivity while reducing some of the tensions that can emerge around large-scale solar development.  As solar deployment accelerates globally, the ability to support both energy generation and agricultural use on the same land could become increasingly valuable. 

Why Agrivoltaics Could Become Critical for Utility-Scale Solar 

Historically, solar development has largely focused on maximizing energy generation and reducing LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy). 

While those priorities remain essential, the industry is increasingly being asked to consider broader questions around sustainability, environmental integration, and long-term land stewardship. As a result, future utility-scale solar projects may increasingly be evaluated not only on economics and energy production, but also on factors such as: 

• Water efficiency 
• Land-use optimization 
• Agricultural compatibility 
• Environmental impact 
• Long-term ecosystem resilience 
• Community acceptance 

 Agrivoltaic systems sit directly at the intersection of these priorities. 

 The study highlights how APV systems could become increasingly relevant within broader food-energy-water planning strategies, particularly in regions where resource constraints may otherwise limit future solar expansion. 

Agrivoltaics and the Future of Sustainable Solar Infrastructure
The broader renewable energy conversation is evolving.  For many years, the primary industry focus centered on scaling renewable generation capacity as quickly as possible. Increasingly, however, attention is shifting toward how renewable infrastructure integrates with surrounding environmental and agricultural systems over the long term. 

 That shift is helping drive interest in areas such as: 

• Sustainable solar development 
• Water-conscious renewable energy strategies 
• Nature-integrated infrastructure 
• Climate adaptation planning 
• Land-use optimization 
• Agricultural resilience 

 Agrivoltaics is emerging as one of the most closely watched areas within this broader transition.  While implementation challenges and regional variations remain important considerations, the potential benefits of integrated solar-agriculture systems are generating growing interest across both the energy and agricultural sectors. 

 

What the Research Reveals About Agrivoltaics in Arid Climates 

The study examines a wide range of global agrivoltaic developments, technological trends, and technoeconomic considerations relevant to APV deployment in arid climates. 

 Among the key themes explored: 

• Significant untapped solar PV potential in arid regions 
• Improved water-use efficiency opportunities 
• Increased land-use productivity through integrated solar-agriculture systems 
• Expanding relevance of agrivoltaics within food-energy-water planning 
• The growing role of APV in supporting sustainable infrastructure development 

 As utility-scale solar expands into increasingly environmentally constrained regions, research like this is becoming more important for understanding how renewable energy systems can evolve to address multiple resource challenges simultaneously.  It also reflects the growing technical complexity surrounding modern solar project development, where environmental integration, long-term sustainability, and infrastructure resilience are becoming increasingly interconnected. 

 

The Role of Technical Innovation in the Next Phase of Solar Growth 

The next phase of global solar deployment will likely require more than continued improvements in module efficiency and project economics.  It will also depend on how effectively the industry addresses the broader environmental and infrastructure challenges associated with large-scale renewable energy expansion. 

Agrivoltaics represents one potential approach for improving the compatibility between renewable energy generation, water management, and agricultural productivity, particularly in arid regions where all three pressures increasingly intersect.  As solar deployment accelerates across water-constrained markets, agrivoltaics is increasingly being viewed not simply as a sustainability concept, but as a practical strategy for supporting long-term renewable energy growth while making more efficient use of limited natural resources. 

 Research like this helps advance industry understanding of how technical innovation and integrated infrastructure planning may shape the future of sustainable solar development.