Techno-Economic Optimization of an Agrivoltaic and BESS Field to Supply NitroCapt's Sustainable Fertilizer Factory : A Feasibility Study

Sammanfattning

Agriculture is a fundamental sector of society with high GHG emissions as well as a high pollution reduction potential. Fertilizers represent 2.5% of global GHG emission due to energy consumption and substances employed in their production. NitroCapt’s sustainable fertilizer bypasses the production of ammonia, resorting to zero-impact materials, and foresees a green supply of energy to power the reactions, which can also be solar energy. This study seeks to verify the feasibility of powering the NitroCapt factory with an agrivoltaics field, enabling the co-location of solar energy generation and land for agriculture. There are many known benefits of this co-location strategy, including lower water consumption and higher protection for the crops, higher income for the farmers, and lower shading losses in the solar energy generation thanks to a larger distancing among the rows of solar panels. The proposed system is of high potential considering the scalability of the field, the applicability to multiple geographical regions, and the benefits of achieving energy independence for the industrial project. The study aims to suggest a techno-economic optimization for the proposed system through the tuning of a set of decision variables linked to the technical parameters of the panel, the size of the solar and storage fields, the location, and the operating logic for the dispatch strategy. Multiple sets of LCOEs were obtained to compare scenarios and select the most suitable system for each desired location. Insightful findings were obtained regarding the applicability of the system based on its geographical location, which impact the weather and irradiance conditions as well as the savings derived from not importing energy from the grid, ultimately highlighting that Spain is a much better candidate for the project considering its high solar irradiance and therefore solar field capacity factor, as well as high electricity prices to import from the grid and presence of a carbonized grid, which needs to be avoided in order to have a completely green product, while Sweden presents low electricity prices in a decarbonized grid and does not hold the same potential for a high capacity factor solar field.