University of Illinois

Awards Issued Prior to January 20, 2025, Were Funded Under Previous Administrations and May Not Reflect the Priorities and Policies of the Current Administration. Declining Cost of Photovoltaic Technology and Rising Market and Policy Incentives for Solar Energy Are Making It Increasingly Profitable to Convert Cropland to Solar Farms, Leading to a Potential Conflict With Food Crops. Agrivoltaics (avs), the Co-located Production of Solar Energy and Crops, Is an Emerging Technology That Can Reduce This Competition for Land, Provide Climate-smart Solutions to Improve Land Productivity (combined Crop and Electricity Yield), Crop Water-use Efficiency, Profitability and Economic Resilience of Agriculture. Deployment of Avs in Asia and Europe Is Growing and There Is Increasing Interest Among Farmers in the U.s. However, Research on Avs Has Been Limited to Isolated Experimental Studies on a Few Crops in a Few Regions. We Propose the Project for Sustainably Colocating Agricultural and Photovoltaic Electricity Systems (SCAPES) to Provide the Interdisciplinary Scientific Knowledge, Extension and Education for Designing Sustainable Av Technologies for Diverse Crop Species (row Crops, Forage, and Specialty Crops) Across Three Biophysically Diverse Regions in the Us: Illinois, Colorado and Arizona. Scapes Will Couple State-of-the-art Field Experiments With Farm-scale Economic Analysis, Farmer Survey and a Systems Modelling Approach to Extrapolate Biophysical and Economic Outcomes Across the Us to Address Key Knowledge Gaps and Analyze System-wide Effects on Markets and Climate Systems. a Diverse Team of Extension Specialists and Educators Will Enable Interactive Engagement With Stakeholders to Generate and Transfer Usable Knowledge for Decision Support, Inform Research Design and Educate and Inspire Future Leaders About Avs as a Timely and Value-added Innovative Solution to Sustainable Food and Energy Production.