A crop-agnostic baseline for agrivoltaics: Field-Proven characterization of Micro-CPVs with diffuse light transmission

Traditional concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) systems cannot capture diffuse light and require bulky sun-tracking. In this work, we characterize a commercially oriented, semi-transmissive, micro-CPV with integrated tracking optically, thermally, and electrically under the sand-laden, hot desert climate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates to evaluate its potential for agrivoltaics and ability to contribute towards the interplay of the food-energy nexus. When the module operates in an “Electricity” mode (E-mode) by focusing direct light on micro-cells, the peak electrical efficiency was 26.9 % while 14–26 % of the incoming irradiance was uniformly transmitted as diffuse light underneath. When climate conditions are not favourable for electric generation, switching to a “Maximum Light Transmission” mode (MLT-mode) yielded a transmittance up to 71.61 %, providing a daily illuminance (daylighting applications) of 1.84 × 109 lumens m−2 day−1 and Daily Light Integral (DLI) dose of 29.69 molPAR m−2 day−1, suitable for moderate-to-high light crops. On the thermal front, the air temperature beneath the panel surpasses the ambient temperature by a range of 10–15 °C, and the solar cell temperatures ran ∼ 27 °C above ambient at midday. Based on the data and observations of a 1-year crop-agnostic module characterization, we identify design improvement and manufacturing errors, mostly in the field of optics and tracking-integration.