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The benefits of agrivoltaics—the placement of solar panels over cropland for more efficient land use—varies dramatically depending on where it’s located, finds new research from the United States. As agrivoltaics spread and attract more interest, this is one of the first studies to really dig into its inherent trade-offs, and identify places where it works well for both electricity generation and farmers’ bottom lines.
The trade-offs in question are that while the huge increased electricity production enabled by more solar panels is a positive, and renting out land to solar providers can also provide new revenue streams for farmers, the shading effect of solar panels can disturb crop growth. Weighing up these costs and benefits has complicated the picture for farmers who may be considering agrivoltaics on their land.
To shed some light on the issue, a study led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign started by looking at 14 years of maize and soybean crop data from the Midwestern US. The dataset, which included information on crop yield and water-use, compared conventional non-solar cropland with farms where a third of the productive area was covered by panels. They also applied climate simulations to the data, to determine how crop-growing conditions and solar panel impact could change under a low, high, and highest-emission future scenario. 
Very quickly, stark differences appeared in the model, between the more humid eastern stretch of the Midwest, and the drier semiarid western Midwest. 
In the humid east, the shade of the solar panels seemed to reduce photosynthesis levels, dramatically curbing maize yields by 24% and soybean by 16%, compared to conventional no-solar agricultural fields. But in the semiarid west, it was a different picture: maize yields were still reduced by the shading effect, but to a lesser degree of 12%, while there was a win for soybeans, which experienced a 6% increase in yields under panels compared to conventional fields. 
 
 
Previous research has dug into these differences between climate conditions and crops, noting that plants like soybeans are more susceptible to the damaging effects of water loss in hot, dry locations, which affects their yields more than the loss of photosynthesis from shading. In other words, the yield advantages of shading are greater, relative to the disadvantages for soybeans, which may explain some of the differences between crops and locations.
Like yields, the economic picture for farmers is also a mixed bag across the Midwest. In general, the researchers found that the income farmers would generate from leasing land to solar developers was not enough to offset the costs of yield losses: in both the humid east and arid west, for maize farmers total farmer profits decreased by between 6% and 16% respectively on agrivoltaic farms. Soybean farmers had a little more luck: while profits in the humid regions went down by 2%, they increased by 9% in the semiarid parts. 
What’s interesting is that the differences between the two geographical regions and their crops may not be so stark under future climate change. The study’s climate modelling showed that dry regions will expand by between 5.3%, 21.6% and a striking 174% under the low, high, and highest emissions scenarios respectively. With drier, hotter conditions spreading across more of the midwest, “agrivoltaics are likely to become more beneficial” the researchers explain, “offering stronger synergies for sustainable land use.”
For now, agrivoltaics won’t work with a one-size-fits-all approach across the landscape: instead what emerges is a patchwork picture of trade-offs. But the research does at least highlight a starting point, namely some soy cropland hotspots in the arid west, where solar panels could deliver a triple-win—higher yields, economic gains, and clean, green electricity. 
Jia et. al. “Climate-driven divergence in biophysical and economic impacts of agrivoltaics.” PNAS. 2026.  
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