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Reference: Integrated techno-economic and life cycle assessment of shared circular business model based blockchain-enabled dynamic grapevoltaic farm for major grape growing states in India

Key Statements

Abstract-

Indias grape farms face many climate risk events during cultivation and sustainability-related challenges during the export once the crop is harvested. So, to support the farmers, the Government of India (GoI) started promoting adaptive capacity resilient infrastructure. To further strengthen GoI initiatives, this paper proposes a novel Grapevoltaics farm inspired by Dynamic Agrivoltaics (DAgVs) concept based on the shared circular business model principles where resources like energy, water, and land are shared. The conceptual modeling and the rationale revealed that DAgVs role in protecting the grape farms from natural disasters is prominent and tri-production of electricity, grapes, and water (from rainwater harvesting) is possible. However, the DAgVs effectiveness may be influenced by decisions taken by involved stakeholders (grape farmers and solar plant operators) related to resource sharing and support extension in the time of climate risk events raising questions about the resilience in the near term and the sustainability in the long term. So, to counter the resilience and sustainability challenges in grape farms, DAgVs are leveraged with blockchain smart contract technology making it blockchain-enabled Grapevoltaics (BCeDGVs); to understand the feasibility, integrated techno-economic and life cycle assessments are performed. As an illustrative case study, 1 ha of the grape farm is modeled, taking 12 grape-growing states in India as the study regions. The results showed that the solar panels provide resilience support based on the rules of engagement written on blockchain smart contracts. The BCeDGVs has 1295.28–2908.08 kWh/kWp/day solar electricity generation potential across India with a lifetime average of 15,380.65 MWh even after considering the national average photovoltaic degradation rate of 1.9%. The observed grape yields varied between 2 and 31.25 Mt/ha with an average yield of 45 Mt/ha (table grape) and 40 Mt/ha (wine grape). The harvested rainwater across India varied between 1.23 and 7.32 Ml. The economic assessment revealed that grape farmers and solar photovoltaic plant operators across India under BCeDGVs could have revenues ranging between 56.25 and 225 MRs. and 29.48–66.19 MRs., respectively, suggesting to relook into the feed-in tariffs and crop selling prices given the digitalization scope. The environmental sustainability results suggest that 1.984 ha/MW land-use mitigation and 12–100% reduction in groundwater dependency are possible while maintaining the minimum and maximum national average global warming potentials (GWPs) as 0.074 and 0.088 kg CO2eq./kg grape, respectively. Overall, the integrated assessments indicate that BCeDGVs reduce the agriculturally generated GWPs and other impacts while providing resilience support and opening a new research direction for symbiotic grape farms and energy networks.

Link to paper-

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960148123003592

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2023.03.064

Partially indexed reference.

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