{"Page SDG":"SDG07 Affordable and clean energy, SDG11 Sustainable cities and communities, SDG09 Industry innovation and infrastructure, SDG08 Decent work and economic growth","Page URL":"https://www.appropedia.org/Solar_photovoltaic_wood_racking_mechanical_design_for_trellis-based_agrivoltaics","Page affiliations":"FAST, Category:Western University","Page authors":"User:J.M.Pearce, User:Khayibo, User:Nicholas.Vandewetering, U. Jamil","Page description":"Using a trellis to plant vegetables and fruits can double or triple the yield per acre as well as reduce diseases/pests, ease harvesting and make cleaner produce. Cultivars such as cucumbers, grapes, kiwi, melons, peas, passion fruit, pole beans, pumpkins, strawberries, squash, and tomatoes are all grown with trellises. Many of these cultivars showed increased yield with partial shading with semi-transparent solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. To further increase the efficiency of trellis-based growing systems, this study investigates novel low-cost, open-source, sustainable, wood-based PV racking designs for agrivoltaic applications. Design calculations are made to ensure these racks exceed Canadian building code standards, which with snow loads surpass those of most of the world. A complete bill of materials, fabrication instructions, and proof-of-concept prototypes are provided for three system topographies (sloped, T-shaped and inverse Y) along with economic analysis. In addition, to being cost competitive, the designs can act as trellis supports and be used for irrigation/fertigation purposes. The results indicate that these racking structures have enormous promise both agriculturally and energetically. If employed on only grape farms inside Canada, 10 GW of PV potential is made available, which is more than twice the total current installed PV in Canada.","Page image":"File:Trellis PV.png","Page is part of":"Category:FAST Completed","Page keywords":"energy, solar energy, solar power, photovoltaics, sustainable development, Mechanical engineering, Racking, biomaterials, wood, mechanical design, balance of systems, renewable energy, DIY, Environmental, trellis, grapes","Page language":"en","Page title":"Solar photovoltaic wood racking mechanical design for trellis-based agrivoltaics","Page title tag":"Solar PV Wood Racking for Trellis Agrivoltaics","Page views":"130","Page year":"Sunday, 01-Jan-23 00:00:00 UTC","Project status":"Designed, Modelled, Prototyped, Verified","Project thumb":"https://www.appropedia.org/w/images/thumb/b/bf/Trellis_PV.png/330px-Trellis_PV.png","Project was made":"1","Project was replicated":"1","Modification date":"Wednesday, 16-Sep-26 14:23:19 UTC"}