Comprehensive Assessment of Solar Agrivoltaics Potential: Systematic Review and Techno-Economic Assessment Modeling Toward Sustainable Food and Energy Production

Sustainable agricultural development is constrained by water resources and ongoing reduction in arable land. Agrivoltaic systems, which integrate solar energy with agricultural activities on same land, offer a sustainable solution by enhancing the synergy between energy and food production, thereby maximizing productivity per unit land area. This review explores design considerations, technological advancements, implementation strategies, and economic drivers of agrivoltaic with focus on potential deployment in the Middle East. Review also identifies potentials and climate-resilient strategies of agrivoltaic implementation on water consumption, increased crop yield, and land-use efficiency. Challenges, like regional constraints, regulatory hurdles, policies and incentives, and the trade-off between crop yield and energy production are also discussed. Finally, a techno-economic analysis of an agrivoltaic system is performed for Eastern Saudi Arabian climate using quasi-steady-lumped modeling to assess the economic viability and life cycle assessment. Agrivoltaic configurations outperforms the independent stationary systems, achieving land-use efficiency of 35–73%, with land equivalent ratio ranging from 1.04 to 2.05. Results show that the product efficiency can be enhanced by 60–70% through agrivoltaic systems utilization. The techno-economic analyses show that the agrivoltaic technology demonstrates a practical viability, particularly in arid regions such as Eastern Saudi Arabian climate, highlighting levelized electricity and crop yield costs of 0.048 $/kWh and 0.50 $/kg for agrivoltaic system and 0.059 $/kWh and 0.651 $/kg for the independent stationary systems, respectively. Conclusively, the research underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding of economic, technological, and policy factors to promote widespread adoption of agrivoltaic technologies.