Study title

This data collection provides the crop, energy, water and environmental data collected and analyses as part of the "Harvesting the sun twice" agrivoltaics project in East Africa. Developing agrivoltaic (AV) systems combining energy and food production provides multiple socio-economic, livelihood, and ecological benefits, extending well beyond technology and electrification. As AV systems are climate change resilient, reduce evapotranspiration, mitigate drought stresses and enhance crop growth, ultimate goal of the project was to increase energy, food, water and land use security, benefiting the individuals who live and work in rural East African communities.Access to energy is a widespread problem across East Africa, where 73% of the population still do not have reliable electricity. Proving secure and affordable energy infrastructure is crucial to promoting inclusive development of rural communities in this region, and solar power is a sustainable way of achieving this. However, ground mounted arrays of solar panels also remove land from food production at a time when crop yields are threatened by a changing climate and increasing populations, insecure ownership and land "grabbing" are putting pressure on land resources. In practice, economic growth linked to conventional solar arrays may be outweighed by reduced income from crop production and greater food insecurity. Renewable energy technologies which resolve energy, climate and land security conflicts are urgently needed. So called agrivoltiac (AV) systems permit the delivery of solar electricity, crop production, and rainwater harvesting on the same land area. Instead of being ground mounted, arrays are several meters high, enabling crops to be grown underneath. In locations with high light intensity, high temperature, and low rainfall, such as many places in East Africa, the productivity of crops grown beneath these elevated solar arrays can be significantly improved because shade from the panels...