The Potential Of Agrivoltaic Production Sytems For Sub-Saharan Africa

Access to energy and food security are two of the main challenges facing sub-Saharan African countries. Agrivoltaism, an innovative approach that combines agricultural activities with solar energy production on the same land, could provide a solution to this problem. Demonstrative projects are developping worldwide, and some studies already show potential for increasing crop yields and panel efficiency, making agrivoltaism an attractive option for farmers and solar developers. Considering climate change and increasing land scarcity, some findings suggest a high potential of agrivoltaism as a viable and efficient technology to address the major challenges of the 21rst century. Furthermore, the technical potential of agrivoltaic systems seems highest in arid and semi-arid climatic regions of the world with limited water resources and high solar radiation. Thus, in the context of the current energy crisis and the crucial problems linked to food in sub-Saharan Africa, the development and use of agrivoltaic projects could be a way to solve both the energy shortage and agricultural production at the same time and in the same area. In this study, we use the VOSviewer sotfware and we present a bibliometric analysis of agrivoltaic topics based on publications indexed in Scopus and Web of science, in which economic assessments of agrivoltaism and agrivoltaic systems for crops and livestock animals are discussed. The objective of this research is to see to what extent this technique can be considered to advance food, energy, and water security in sub-Saharan Africa ; and identify political strategies capable of accelerating its growth across the continent.