Solar panels and crops can share the same land and a new model shows both come out ahead by keeping plants cooler, saving water, and boosting energy output
Image generated with artificial intelligenceSolar panels and crops can share land — a new model shows both come out ahead
Solar farms are expanding fast — and so is the pressure on agricultural land. The two needs have long seemed to be in direct competition.
Agrivoltaics, the practice of growing crops beneath or alongside solar panels, has been proposed as a way to ease that tension. But most research has examined only one piece of the puzzle at a time. Now, a new computational model simulates how panels, plants, soil, air, and even farmworkers interact as a single system — and the findings suggest the trade-offs may be smaller than assumed.
The benefits of agrivoltaics are highly context-dependent; what works well for tomatoes in New Jersey may not translate to wheat in Kansas or lettuce in California.
Two land uses, one field
Photovoltaic energy is projected to become a dominant global energy source by 2050, and solar farm construction is accelerating to match that ambition. That growth comes at a cost: solar installations frequently occupy land that could otherwise produce food. With a growing global population and rising energy demand, the competition between these two land uses is getting harder to ignore.
Agrivoltaics offers a straightforward answer — grow crops around or beneath solar panels on the same plot of land. Early research was encouraging. Panels shaded certain crops, retained soil moisture, and supported agricultural output alongside clean energy production. But those studies tended to isolate individual variables, looking at light availability or crop yield without accounting for how all the moving parts interact at once.
A model that sees the whole picture
The new simulation changes that. Developed by Hosseini and colleagues, it tracks how energy, momentum, mass, and carbon dioxide move through an agrivoltaic system simultaneously — capturing the interplay between solar panels, crops, soil, air, water movement, and CO₂ uptake in a single framework.
That integration is what sets it apart from earlier approaches, which treated each variable in isolation. This model treats the agrivoltaic system as what it actually is: a set of interdependent processes that continuously influence one another.
The researchers validated it against real-world measurements — leaf temperature data collected in Davis, California, and soil temperature readings from Chicago City, Minnesota. The model also incorporates something largely absent from prior research: an estimate of heat stress experienced by farmworkers during working hours.
Tomatoes under the panels: what the simulation revealed
To test the model in a realistic scenario, the researchers applied it to a hypothetical tomato farm using weather data from a hot, humid day in Princeton, New Jersey. The mid-Atlantic location was chosen deliberately — it represents a densely populated region where both food production and energy generation face significant pressure.
The results were notable. Tomato leaves growing beneath solar panels were 1.84°C cooler on average during the day compared to those in an open field. During peak afternoon heat, that difference reached 7.56°C — a meaningful buffer against the temperature spikes that damage crops.
The shade came with an expected downside: crops under the panels received 47% less sunlight. Carbon uptake, though, fell by only 31% — not the 47% you might predict. That gap suggests reduced heat stress allowed plants to photosynthesize more efficiently than they otherwise would have. Water loss through evapotranspiration also dropped by 22.4%, a real gain in water-use efficiency for a sector that accounts for the majority of global freshwater consumption.
Cooler panels, cooler workers
The benefits didn’t flow only to the crops. Solar panels positioned above the tomato plants ran 5.6°C cooler during the day than panels installed over bare soil — and that matters, because heat is one of the primary factors that degrades solar panel performance. The cooler operating temperatures allowed the panels to recover approximately 15% of the efficiency typically lost to heat. A gain in energy output that comes essentially for free.
The model also flagged an occupational health dimension that rarely appears in agrivoltaic research. Average perceived temperatures for farmworkers dropped by 4.46°C during working hours. Heat-related illness is a serious and underreported risk in agricultural labor, so that finding points to a benefit extending well beyond crop yields and kilowatt-hours.
A tool for designing smarter farms
The researchers designed the model to be adaptable across different climates, crop varieties, and panel configurations — making it a practical planning tool before any physical installation takes place. That flexibility matters. The benefits of agrivoltaics are highly context-dependent; what works well for tomatoes in New Jersey may not translate to wheat in Kansas or lettuce in California.
Future versions could go further, incorporating economic variables, regional water availability, and a broader range of crops and geographic settings. As agrivoltaic installations grow in number and scale, simulation tools like this one may become essential for optimizing designs that work for both the farm and the grid.
You can check the complete study in this source: , , , , , , et al. (2026). Food, energy, and health implications of agrivoltaic farms. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 18, e2025MS005588. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025MS005588
Daniel García is an Editor-in-Chief with strong expertise in structural work and engineering principles. He combines this technical foundation with deep knowledge of energy, spatial design, and emerging technologies, bringing a forward-thinking and analytical approach to editorial leadership.
