A ray-tracing-based irradiance model for agrivoltaic greenhouses: development and application

A key challenge in designing agrivoltaic systems is avoiding or minimizing the negative impact of photovoltaic-induced shading on crops. This study introduces a novel ray-tracing-based irradiance model for evaluating the irradiance distribution inside agrivoltaic greenhouses taking into account the transmission characteristics of the greenhouse’s cover material. Simulations are based on satellite-derived irradiance data and are performed with high spatial and temporal resolution. The model is tested by reproducing the agrivoltaic greenhouse experiment of a previous study and comparing the simulated irradiance to the experimentally measured data. The coordinates of the sensor positions in the presented application are optimized based on one day of raw data of minutely measured irradiance from the experimental study. These coordinates are then used to perform simulations over an extended timeframe of several months to take into account the seasonal changes throughout a crop cycle. The average deviation between the simulations and the experimental measurements in terms of radiation reduction is determined as 2.88 percentage points for the entire crop cycle.