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Abstract:

his paper presents a novel 3D agrovoltaic modelling tool developed in python which enables technical and economical evaluation of potential agrovoltaic designs. It has been designed and applied for fruitcrops which typically have a crucial flowering period.To illustrate the potential of this tool, a case study for pear trees in Bierbeek, Belgium is shown. While manygeometrical parameters of agrovoltaic systems are fixed in practice, however, there is also the need to model the impact ofPV modules on the tree light interception.The results of themodellingshow that the amount of solar radiation depends on the modulesused, with semi-transparent modules offering better light distribution and reduced crop loss. Based on the modelling, a prototype agrovoltaic set-up with pear trees and semi-transparent modules has been built in Bierbeek, Belgium.