Coproduction of solar energy on maize farms — experimental validation of recent experiments

Developing methods for the sustainable coproduction of food, energy and water resources has recently been recognized as a potentially attractive solution to meeting the needs of a growing population. However, many studies have used models, but have not performed an actual experiment to directly validate all their predictions. Here, we report a recently-constructed test site on the ACRE farm in West Lafayette, Indiana, consisting of single-axis trackers in a novel configuration atop a maize test plot. We present a methodology to measure irradiance therein with 10-minute temporal resolution, which allows us to validate prior PV aglectric farm irradiance models.