[Agpv] Agrivoltaics Seminar - Michael Riad Bendok

[Sarah Kurtz]

Michael Riad Bendok will give our 3rd Agrivoltaics Seminar
Title: Agrivoltaic Optimality: A Digital Twin Approach to Agrivoltaic System Design
Abstract: In recent years, agrivoltaics research from both industry and academia has focused on the microclimate effect and its influence on crop yield. Research studies tend to cover the singular, uniquely important topics of irradiance dynamics, thermal modeling, and crop yield prediction. By combining modeling approaches, we can develop a stronger handle on the interaction of all climatic and environmental variables with crop growth. This session will focus on the application of data-driven digital twin modeling to picking optimal system designs. We will not only walk through our approach to modeling agrivoltaics, but also discuss the aspects of planning necessary to bring utility scale projects as large as 400 MW to life in the United States.

Bio: I am a masters student at Stanford University studying Economics, Energy, Data Science, and Optimization. Through visiting my grandmother in her remote farming village in Lebanon every summer of my childhood, I became aware of the impacts of drought, extreme heat, and lack of electricity access on her community’s ability to sustain themselves. Stories of tradeoffs, –tradeoffs between using water for the crops or for the shower; electricity to run the lights or refrigerate the harvest–brought to my attention the need to address the competing interests of energy and agriculture in the context of meeting the needs of local communities. To most effectively pursue a humanitarian solution in Lebanon, I decided to first explore practical solutions here in the United States.
After working for a utility scale solar developer and taking all of the energy economics classes Stanford has to offer, I discovered that the largest barrier to the energy transition is not our ability to build renewable energy capacity, but rather, available land to deploy this infrastructure. Under existing zoning constraints, developers have run out of accessible land to build utility scale solar–so they are turning to farmland to harvest the sun. Given the clear threats this poses to food production systems, we know that local counties have pushed back by repeatedly rejecting permits to use agricultural land for solar production. But for the first time, local communities are increasingly receptive to co-locating agriculture and solar production–but only if it's done right.
But what does it mean to do agrivoltaics “right”? How can we generalize existing pilot projects that have done agrivoltaics “right” to other locations? How can we forecast outcomes before breaking ground on projects to avoid irreversible damage to land use intentions? How do we know what crops will do well, and when to grow them?
I co-founded Fundusol 3 years ago to answer these questions, and hope to help educate the agrivoltaics community on how we approach answering them through this session.

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