Industry Trends
Solar Power and Vegetable Production Can Work Together: A Two-Year Answer from Agrivoltaics
2026-04-29
Iowa State University has published the results of a two-season demonstration study (Hortidaily, 2026). In this study, vegetables were actually grown beneath a 10-acre, 1.3-megawatt commercial solar farm funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The conclusion is that “producing electricity and vegetables on the same land at the same time is commercially viable.”
Electricity is produced above, and vegetables grow underneath it. When you first hear that, it probably sounds a little strange. I was surprised too. But when you deal with light conditions every day in a vertical farm, this actually sounds quite natural from the standpoint of plant physiology.
What Is Surprising Here? The Study Itself
The crops tested were very ordinary vegetables and fruits: broccoli, bell peppers, summer squash, strawberries, and raspberries. The trial period covered two seasons.
And the results are quite interesting.
Squash consistently produced higher yields under the panels. Bell peppers showed almost no difference in yield, and sunscald damage was reduced. Broccoli showed a slight drop in yield in one season only, but not at a level that causes real concern.
There were secondary changes as well. Air temperature and soil temperature were 1 to 2 degrees Celsius lower under the panels. Labor input also fell by 28% in the second year compared with the first. The learning-curve effect played out just as expected.
No special machinery was required, and standard commercial farm equipment could be used as is. To borrow the researchers’ phrasing, it works “without sacrificing scale.” In other words, it works while keeping commercial scale intact.
In Fact, Many Vegetables Grow Better in “Shade”
I think this is the most important point for understanding the results of this study.
Many people probably tend to think that vegetables grow better when they get plenty of sunlight. And of course, photosynthesis does require light.
But plants have a concept called the light saturation point. This is the threshold beyond which increasing light intensity no longer improves photosynthetic efficiency.
If you look at actual numbers, the light saturation point of lettuce and strawberries is around 500 umol/m2/s. Even for tomatoes and bell peppers, it is around 700 to 900 umol/m2/s. By contrast, direct sunlight at noon in midsummer can exceed 2,000 umol/m2/s.
In other words, direct midsummer sunlight is “excessive” for many vegetables. It becomes surplus light that the plant can no longer use for photosynthesis.
And excessive light does not simply go to waste. It causes negative effects such as “photoinhibition,” which damages chloroplasts, leaf scorch and sunscald on leaves and fruit, and the heat stress that comes with them. In the Iowa study, the reduction in sunscald damage in bell peppers can be understood as evidence that this kind of excessive light stress was alleviated.
About 20 to 30% shading under the panels lowers light into the “just right” range for these kinds of vegetables. You could even say that shading becomes not a “loss” but “control.” This is the plant-physiology basis for why agrivoltaics works.
In a vertical farm, we are actually creating light with a very similar idea. We use artificial light in a closed environment and maintain a light condition that is not too strong and not too weak, but “just right.” Agrivoltaics can be seen as achieving that same “just right” light outdoors by filtering sunlight.
The Idea of “Two Layers on the Same Land”
This is an interesting structure from an economic perspective as well.
The primary income comes from electricity, and vegetables become the second layer of revenue. Land use becomes a two-story structure.
The conventional assumption was that land can only be used once. But now the upper layer can generate electricity while the lower layer is used for agriculture, and both can work at the same time. It also creates combinations that did not exist in the traditional agricultural landscape, such as collaboration between electric utilities and farmers.
The limits of land expand depending on how you design it. I think this is an idea that shifts the shape of agriculture itself, even if only slightly.
In the Middle East and Arid Regions, It Means Something Different
What makes agrivoltaics interesting is that its meaning changes depending on the region.
In regions such as the Middle East and North Africa, where overly intense solar radiation is itself a bottleneck for agriculture, shading from panels can become not a “loss” but a “benefit.” In places where sunlight is so intense that vegetables struggle to grow, converting part of that sunlight into electricity while using the rest to grow vegetables is a structure that fits very naturally.
Even in locations where a vertical farm is difficult to make work, because of unstable power supply, the hurdle of initial investment, or a lack of operational know-how, agrivoltaics may offer a different answer.
The locations and crops suited to vertical farming are different from those suited to agrivoltaics. You could say this adds one more option to the question, “What fits my region?”
Summary
The ways to grow vegetables are expanding: open-field cultivation, protected cultivation, vertical farming, and now agrivoltaics.
“Vegetables can also grow on land used to generate electricity.” It sounds strange at first, but from the standpoint of plant physiology, it is actually a very natural story. For many vegetables, direct sunlight is too strong. In many cases, the “just right” light under the panels supports healthier crop growth.
Vertical farming and agrivoltaics are not substitutes, and they are not competitors. They stand side by side as different paths that each make sense. Seeing that alignment itself may be the biggest harvest of this two-year study.
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