Research and Contributions

Since the 1970s, agricultural lands have served as useful locations for the installation of renewable energy generators, such as wind turbines, photovoltaic modules, biodigesters, and others. Likewise, agriculture is one of the five industries with the highest annual energy consumption in the US. Energy is a vital component in farms’ daily activities, which is involved in the harvesting of crops and the growth of livestock. Due to the current rapidly growing energy consumption trends, renewable energy sources have become a potential solution for energy generation. This paper focuses on the feasibility analysis of promoting the utilization of solar and wind energy generation to provide power for the operational activities involved in diverse agricultural processes through the performance of a geospatial analysis and an in-depth numerical analysis to study the patterns in the estimation of energy potential across the 254 counties located in the state of Texas. Furthermore, different patterns surrounding the thousand farms are analyzed, such as the distance to the largest cities and the location of heavily populated areas with higher energy potential. The results show that farms in several regions in Texas have significant potential to utilize wind and solar energy for their farm operations, and to supply electricity to the nearby population.

Though the agriculture sector is vital to the economy, many farms continue to experience lower profits. Hence, it is essential to reduce farm operation costs. In particular, energy consumption is a major contribution to Texas farm operation costs. Many Texas farms have the potential to utilize solar or wind energy within the vast land of the state to supply energy for farm operations, which may be economically and environmentally efficient. In this project, a feasibility study was conducted to evaluate the potential of utilizing wind or solar energy for farm operations within Texas. Various databases were used to obtain the necessary data. The collected data were analyzed using geospatial and temporal analysis to investigate the feasibility in each Texas county. Based on the results, some counties with more farms and higher energy demands from farm operations also have the highest levels of solar or wind energy potentials, which makes these counties the best locations for promoting renewable energy in farm operations. In contrast, some counties with more farms and higher energy demands have the lowest levels of solar or wind energy potential, which makes the feasibility much lower to promote renewable energy in these areas. There are also some counties with fewer farms and lower energy demands having the highest levels of solar or wind energy potentials, so selling extra renewable energy may be an attractive option in these areas. Overall, the results show that the feasibility of utilizing solar energy may be higher than utilizing wind energy for farms’ operations in Texas.

Due to climate change, natural disasters, and other unexpected events, such as COVID-19 pandemic, farmers in Texas are facing the difficult task of maintaining a profit from their agriculture business. The concept of agrivoltaics creates a system that integrates renewable energy generation and agriculture with one another. This allows farmers to continue receiving income through their agricultural business while providing energy resilience through an environmentally friendly approach. This project conducts a feasibility study to evaluate the potential of implementing an agrivoltaic system using solar panels in an energy cane farm located in Weslaco, Texas. The biomass crop is of interest for an agrivoltaic system as it is low input and is drought resistant. The study utilizes data from the NOAA solar calculator and data collected from the energy cane farm. A shadow analysis is conducted to determine the optimal solar panel density and location within the agrivoltaics system, which considers the solar elevation angle, zenith angle, panel angle, and panel height. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted using HomerPro software to determine the optimal panel angle for the agrivoltaics system design at the selected farm’s location. Due to the crop’s growth patterns and harvesting methods, the agrivoltaics system utilizes a vertically retractable design. A structural analysis of the agrivoltaics system is also conducted to determine its reliability. The structural design followed industry standards set by UL Standard 2703, Edition 1. The results of the feasibility study will be used as preliminary findings for the implementation of agrivoltaics systems in Texas.