Vertical Free-Swinging Photovoltaic Racking Energy Modelling: A Novel
Approach to Agrivoltaics
Abstract
To enable lower-cost building materials, a free-swinging bifacial
vertical solar photovoltaic (PV) rack has been proposed, which complies
with Canadian building codes and is the lowest-capital-cost agrivoltaics
rack. The wind force applied to the free-swinging PV, however, causes it
to have a non-90° tilt angle and no energy performance model accurately
describes such a system. To provide a simulation model for the
free-swinging PV, where wind speed and direction govern the array tilt
angle, this study builds upon the open-source System Advisor Model (SAM)
using Python. After the SAM python model is validated, a view factor
model is used to calculate front and back irradiations. The findings
reveal that free-swinging PV generates 12% more energy than vertical
fixed-tilt PV. Free-swinging PV offers a levelized racking cost, which
is 30% lower than that of other agrivoltaics racks including commercial
fixed-tilt metal, optimized fixed-tilt wood, and seasonally-adjusted
wood PV racking.