Comparative life cycle assessment of an overhead agrivoltaic system: Environmental impacts and methodological insights

Agrivoltaic systems have been identified by the European Union as a key strategy to enable the utility-scale deployment of photovoltaic (PV) systems needed to achieve complete decarbonization of the European energy system by 2050, while simultaneously reducing land-use conflicts. This study addresses the environmental sustainability of such systems by conducting a life cycle assessment (LCA) in compliance with ISO 14040/14044 standards. The assessment focuses on an overhead agrivoltaic system (characterized by PV modules mounted above cultivated crops), primarily intended for electricity generation, and compares it to a conventional system consisting of a ground-mounted PV system (reference PV system). The functional unit is defined as 1 kWh of alternating current electricity delivered into the grid, and system boundaries follow a cradle-to-grave approach. The results reveal that the agrivoltaic system provides significant advantages in land-use efficiency, reducing land-use impact by 95% and increasing land-use efficiency use by 46%, compared to the reference PV system. However, it also shows slightly higher environmental impacts in categories such as resource use, minerals and metals (14%) and climate change (12%). The increase in resource use is due to the larger material requirements of elevated structures, while in climate change impact is partly attributed to reduced crop yields under partial PV modules shading. Despite the slightly higher climate impact, the specific emissions per kWh remain very low (16.8 gCO 2 eq/kWh), confirming the potential of agrivoltaic systems to contribute to energy decarbonization while optimizing land use. Nevertheless, the study suggests that strategic crop selection, i.e. shade-tolerant crops capable of benefiting from the microclimatic conditions under PV modules, can enhance agrivoltaic performance and mitigate environmental trade-offs in a wide range of impact categories, including climate change, allowing agrivoltaic systems to perform as well as or even better than conventional ground-mounted PV systems. Beyond these results, the study contributes to the methodological advancement of LCA applied to agrivoltaic systems. It outlines how to clearly define the primary function, select a coherent functional unit, and resolve multifunctionality in line with ISO 14040/14044. This work represents one of the first ISO-compliant LCAs of agrivoltaic systems, providing robust insights to support their future sustainable expansion.