The research project combines LiDAR measurements with advanced meteorological simulations to assess the climate impacts of large-scale photovoltaic installations in desert areas.
Photovoltaic parks of sufficient size and appropriate design can influence climate processes in coastal desert areas and potentially increase rainfall.
This hypothesis underlies a research project led by the University of Hohenheim in Germany. The initiative, which will be implemented in the Arabian Peninsula, is funded by the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science (UAEREP), an international program that invests $5 million annually in technologies aimed at increasing rainfall in arid areas. The project was selected from approximately 120 international proposals and will receive funding for three years.
The research is led by Oliver Branch and Volker Wulfmeyer, specialists in Earth system science and meteorology who have studied desert climate dynamics for more than a decade.
The central hypothesis builds on observed effects in large-scale photovoltaic installations. Dark solar panel surfaces absorb solar radiation, increase air temperature near the surface and generate thermally driven updrafts. In coastal desert environments, these updrafts can interact with moisture-bearing sea breezes, potentially promoting convective cloud formation and precipitation.
According to the researchers, the effect could be amplified on a very large scale and with an optimized factory design. Differential heating over photovoltaic fields could force moist air into higher atmospheric layers where condensation occurs, potentially causing localized rainfall and storm development.
The project will also explore artificial dunes several hundred meters high, which could act as man-made orographic barriers. Like natural mountain ranges, they can produce orographic lift, enhancing condensation and precipitation processes.
To test these hypotheses, the team will deploy high-resolution LiDAR systems and take measurements near major solar installations in the United Arab Emirates, including the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, which had approximately 3.8 GW of installed capacity at the end of 2025 and is expected to reach 7.2 GW. The instruments will record three-dimensional profiles from temperature, humidity and wind to cloud-forming heights.
The observational data will be used to drive ultra-high-resolution meteorological models that simulate atmospheric dynamics over various photovoltaic and artificial dune configurations. These simulations will be run on the Hunter and HoreKa supercomputers at the University of Stuttgart and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
The aim is to determine the optimal size, placement and design parameters for such infrastructures to maximize their potential impact on precipitation formation. The researchers also suggest future integration into energy and agricultural systems in arid areas, combining solar energy generation with drought-resistant crops and water management strategies.
In addition, the concept explores energy and thermal synergies: part of the electricity generated by photovoltaic plants could power irrigation and pumping systems for resilient crops such as jojoba or jatropha. The vegetation could in turn lower local temperatures, potentially improving photovoltaic performance.
Another recent study from China assessed the impact of using up to 50% of the Sahara Desert to deploy large-scale solar power plants and found that these could affect global cloud cover through disrupted atmospheric teleconnections. This in turn would impact solar energy generation itself in North Africa, Southern Europe, the South Arabian Peninsula, India, Northern Asia and even Eastern Australia.
This content is copyrighted and may not be reused. If you would like to collaborate with us and reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
