Feasibility of building Agrivoltaic greenhouses in deprived and low water areas

نوع: Type: Thesis

مقطع: Segment: masters

عنوان: Title: Feasibility of building Agrivoltaic greenhouses in deprived and low water areas

ارائه دهنده: Provider: Hadi Masoumi

اساتید راهنما: Supervisors: Dr Mohsen babaei

اساتید مشاور: Advisory Professors:

اساتید ممتحن یا داور: Examining professors or referees: Dr Javad Taherinezhad and Dr Seyedmahdi Hosseinian

زمان و تاریخ ارائه: Time and date of presentation: 2025

مکان ارائه: Place of presentation: 44

چکیده: Abstract: Population growth and national development have increased the demand for water, food, and energy, resulting in challenges such as energy imbalance, fuel and electricity shortages, depletion of groundwater resources, and land subsidence. Additionally, rural-to-urban migration due to drought or deprivation has made issues like housing shortages, traffic, and air pollution. Implementing infrastructure projects to address these challenges includes significant economic costs and environmental impacts. Agrivoltaic systems have proven to have the potential to reduce agricultural water consumption, produce renewable energy, and improve farmers' livelihoods through dual-income generation. Despite these advantages, this technology has not yet been implemented in Iran. This study aims to assess the feasibility of constructing agrivoltaic greenhouses in Iran, particularly in arid and deprived regions. In the first phase, the study examines the national need for such projects and the required technologies for their construction. In the economic feasibility phase, two scenarios for project operation (government and private sector) and two scenarios for market sales of agricultural and energy products (domestic and international) were considered for economic calculations. The results indicate that agrivoltaic greenhouses are not economically viable for both private sector and government in the domestic market. However, in the international market, the government-operated projects exhibit a return on investment (ROI) of 2.5 years and an MIRR (Modified Internal Rate of Return) of 11%. For the private sector, due to limitations in electricity export, project income is lower and reducing the MIRR to 10%. In addition to the agrivoltaic greenhouse project, two other projects—conventional greenhouses and photovoltaic power plants—were also evaluated in this study. The findings reveal that photovoltaic power plants have higher economic viability in most scenarios, including the domestic market, with a significant advantage over other projects. However, if projects gain access to open markets or if domestic agricultural product prices approach global levels, the difference in MIRR among these projects decreases, and all projects achieve acceptable economic feasibility. Sensitivity analysis results show that under simultaneous variable changes, photovoltaic power plants remain dominant in most cases, achieving the highest MIRR. Since photovoltaic power plants do not require high expertise for operation and, unlike agrivoltaic greenhouses, do not depend on sufficient water resources for production, these projects are almost water-independent. Therefore, photovoltaic power plants are the best option for establishment in arid regions and for operation by ordinary farmers. However, if sufficient water resources are available for greenhouses, agrivoltaic greenhouse projects could generate significantly more employment and income than photovoltaic power plants. Specifically, implementing such projects over an area of 2,000 hectares—equivalent to 0.01% of Iran's total agricultural land—could directly create jobs for approximately 34,000 people and generate annual revenue of $846 million to $1 billion. Moreover, this project could save 477,000 cubic meters of water, 616 million cubic meters of gas, and prevent the emission of 1.45 million tons of greenhouse gases in power plants, contributing significantly to the country's sustainable development.

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