Balancing Energy and Agriculture in Japan: A Techno-Economic Assessment of Agrivoltaics Based on the Levelized Cost of Electricity

Abstract

Agrivoltaic systems (AVSs) present a promising solution to land-use conflicts between solar photovoltaics and agriculture. Nevertheless, their electricity-side cost performance is strongly influenced by site-specific conditions and agricultural constraints, and a comprehensive nationwide geospatial assessment of optimal designs under agronomic light constraints remains lacking. To address this gap, we developed a GIS-based techno-economic framework for Japan to identify site-specific optimal designs by minimizing the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) while satisfying crop light requirements represented by target Daily Light Integral (DLI) values. The analysis indicates a national average LCOE of 0.1021 EUR kWh−1 for optimized AVSs, with lower electricity-side costs in central to southwestern regions characterized by high solar irradiance. The optimal design, particularly the projected ground coverage ratio (average: 30.38%), varied considerably across the country to balance power generation and crop light availability. Scenario and sensitivity analyses revealed that LCOE is highly sensitive to crop light requirements, whereas PV system efficiency and capital expenditure are the most influential cost drivers. This study provides the first high-resolution, nation-scale LCOE map for AVS in Japan derived through grid-level design optimization under explicit DLI-based constraints, offering a quantitative screening-level foundation for region-specific deployment planning.