SBIR-STTR Award

Agricultural Solar (“Agrivoltaics” or “AV”) is the approach of co‐locating solar PV panels with agriculture. Recent research suggests that when PV panels are properly placed over a crop a mutually beneficial synergy can develop. A major technical problem for wide deployment of AV is that the racking systems for low‐height, utility‐scale solar farms are not adaptable to the unique requirements of tall‐height, long–span installations needed for efficient agricultural production. Simple scale up of the typical racking structure would result in a significantly higher cost per installed watt. What is needed for effective Agricultural Solar adoption is a rethinking of PV racking technology, design and deployment. With the CropSpanPV product/system, we are developing a new racking technology well suited to Agricultural Solar. The product/system employs the proven technology of tension‐net structures. Instead of installing individual solar panels one‐by‐one using extensive field labor the construction crew would install a pre‐packaged combined panel/rack with multiple pre‐attached and pre‐wired solar panels. The key innovations are the means and methods to factory fabricate a standard net structure with attached PV panels and the complimentary innovation of panel/rack packaging for easy shipment and rapid field deployment. We expect that this will result in a lower cost per kilowatt for an agricultural solar installation than traditional racking applied to agriculture with much lower field installation time and far fewer foundations and columns. Our team, in addition to our staff of experienced engineers and entrepreneurs, is comprised of a leading researcher in the field of Agrivoltaics (Professor Greg Barron‐Gafford – University of Arizona) and a pioneering company in the engineering and design of tension‐net structures (Geiger Engineers). We will also have on hand a factory automation consulting company (Phase One Technologies Inc.). This team will help us arrive at the correct academic basis of design, to develop the appropriate pre‐production product design and realize the applicable manufacturing process concept. We then will verify our firm expectation that CropSpanPV can be the low cost leader in the very large projected market for Agricultural Solar in the coming years. This will more quickly realize a renewable electric grid and at the same t