An innovative method based on CFD to simulate the influence of photovoltaic panels on the microclimate in agrivoltaic conditions

Assessing the impact of photovoltaic panels on solar and infrared radiation, wind speed, and turbulence is essential for understanding how these panels may affect crops or livestock in agrivoltaic (APV) systems, as well as water reservoirs in floating photovoltaic (FPV) installations. However, state-of-the-art numerical methods require huge computing resources and rarely account for many physical phenomena at the same time. This study suggests the implementation of source and sink terms within the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver code_saturne, specifically in the Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (U-RANS) equations and the Discrete Ordinate Radiation Model (DOM). It enables time-efficient simulations of solar and infrared radiation, wind speed, and turbulence in the presence of obstacles. First, this method is compared to wind tunnel measurements of velocity and turbulence fields for a downsized ground-mounted photovoltaic plant, RMSE_vel<0.12 m/s, and RMSE_turb<0.05 m²/s², for a flow with a wind speed of 2.5 m/s and a turbulent kinetic energy of 0.05 m²/s² at the PV panel height. Then, it has been applied to an actual APV power plant to validate solar and infrared radiation simulations, on average RMSE_solar<61.0 W/m², and RMSE_ir<14.0 W/m², for a solar radiation reaching 500 W/m² and an IR radiation of about 350 W/m². This innovative method allows for the examination of how obstacles affect the microclimate, and subsequently, key parameters such as evapotranspiration. It paves the way for comprehensive numerical studies of the influence of photovoltaic panels on their environment, with a particular focus on APV and FPV configurations.