Bi-facial PV solar power systems for mixed use of arable and grassland, an evaluation over GB and Ireland taking into account environmental exclusion areas.

A significant barrier to the planning and installation of large solar power plants is the reduction of arable farmland and the potential despoiling of areas of outstanding natural beauty in the countryside with solar PV panels. Bi-facial Photovoltaics (PV) allow continuing use of land for farming whilst providing an additional income to farmers from royalties associated with solar power production. The ESA GTIF (Green Transition Information Factory) programme initiated three kickstarter projects in 2024 following a successful demonstrator over Austria (gtif.esa.int). The UK-Ireland-France (gtif-uk-ireland-france.net) kickstarter covers 5 different applications (called capabilities) including mapping of PM2.5 at 10m, drought prediction at 10m, urban heat island mapping at 30m and mapping of methane emission plumes at 20m and the mapping of potential areas for the development of solar bi-facial PV (solar bPV) farms over arable and grassland in the 3 aforementioned areas. To select areas of potential development using solar bPV requires knowledge of high resolution spectral albedo, LULC (Land Use Land Cover), topography, and understanding of the solar power equation and Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI). Spectral albedo is mapped from 10m spectral albedo derived using the ESA HR-Albedo retrieval system [1,2] which was operationalised by the EU Copernicus Sentinel Global Mosaic (https://s2gm.land.copernicus.eu); Global Horizontal Irradiance is taken from both MERRA-2 at 50km and from the UN Solar Atlas at 250m (https://globalsolaratlas.info/map); LULC from the ESA World Cover 2021(https://worldcover2021.esa.int/) and exclusion zones such as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, National Parks and Sites of Special Scientific Interest). Losses due to PV, distance to grid and different seasonal changes are mapped and will be demonstrated for GB and Ireland. The GTIF-UKIF project is now being rolled out across France with the potential to be rolled out across Europe and Africa.

Cited references
[1] Muller, J-P., Song, R., Francis, A.N., Gobron, N., Peng, J., Torbick, N., 2022. Assessment of 10m spectral and broadband surface albedo products from Sentinel-2 and MODIS data. DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12092 
[2] Muller J.P., Song R. Brockley D., Whillock M., 2023. Sentinel-2 Global Mosaic HR-Albedo Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document S2GM-UCL-ATBD-v3.1 https://s2gm.land.copernicus.eu/help/documentation