Agricultural activity in arid regions faces critical challenges due to water scarcity, energy instability, and thermal degradation of photovoltaic (PV) cells that power irrigation systems. This study introduces a smart evaporative cooling system integrated directly into irrigation infrastructure, combining dynamic panel positioning with real-time sensor feedback to mitigate heat-induced efficiency losses. Unlike conventional passive cooling, the proposed design leverages evaporative cooling from irrigation basins in hyper-arid climates, offering both technical and environmental benefits. A three-year factorial experiment (2023–2025) in Baghdad, Iraq, compared monocrystalline and polycrystalline PV modules in five cooling configurations. The results demonstrated that the D cooling structure (dynamic adjustment) paired with monocrystalline panels achieved a peak power output of 144.02 W and a fill factor of 0.78, representing a 32.7% increase in maximum power and a 33.6% reduction in system power cost compared to the uncooled controls. Total energy generation improved by 439.5%, while CO₂ emissions were reduced by 93% compared to diesel-powered irrigation. This work highlights the novelty of integrating evaporative cooling with adaptive positioning for solar irrigation in extreme climates. Comparative analysis confirms that monocrystalline modules benefit more strongly from cooling interventions, though both of PV types show substantial gains. The findings establish smart evaporative cooling as a scalable pathway for sustainable agriculture, with future research prospects that include integration with bifacial PV modules, predictive machine learning models, and expansion to larger irrigation networks.