Designing plant–transparent agrivoltaics
Abstract Covering greenhouses and agricultural fields with photovoltaics has the potential to create multipurpose agricultural systems that generate revenue through conventional crop production as well as sustainable electrical energy. In this work, we evaluate the effects of wavelength-selective cu...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Nature Portfolio
2023-02-01
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| Series: | Scientific Reports |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28484-5 |
| _version_ | 1811171675639644160 |
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| author | Eric J. Stallknecht Christopher K. Herrera Chenchen Yang Isaac King Thomas D. Sharkey Richard R. Lunt Erik S. Runkle |
| author_facet | Eric J. Stallknecht Christopher K. Herrera Chenchen Yang Isaac King Thomas D. Sharkey Richard R. Lunt Erik S. Runkle |
| author_sort | Eric J. Stallknecht |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Covering greenhouses and agricultural fields with photovoltaics has the potential to create multipurpose agricultural systems that generate revenue through conventional crop production as well as sustainable electrical energy. In this work, we evaluate the effects of wavelength-selective cutoffs of visible and near-infrared (biologically active) radiation using transparent photovoltaic (TPV) absorbers on the growth of three diverse, representative, and economically important crops: petunia, basil, and tomato. Despite the differences in TPV harvester absorption spectra, photon transmission of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR; 400–700 nm) is the most dominant predictor of crop yield and quality. This indicates that different wavebands of blue, red, and green are essentially equally important to these plants. When the average photosynthetic daily light integral is > 12 mol m–2 d–1, basil and petunia yield and quality is acceptable for commercial production. However, even modest decreases in TPV transmission of PAR reduces tomato growth and fruit yield. These results identify crop-specific design requirements that exist for TPV harvester transmission and the necessity to maximize transmission of PAR to create the most broadly applicable TPV greenhouse harvesters for diverse crops and geographic locations. We determine that the deployment of 10% power conversion efficiency (PCE) plant-optimized TPVs over approximately 10% of total agricultural and pasture land in the U.S. would generate 7 TW, nearly double the entire energy demand of the U.S. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-10T17:19:00Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-095fc30291e5433c9d741ac54101241e |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2045-2322 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-10T17:19:00Z |
| publishDate | 2023-02-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Scientific Reports |
| spelling | doaj.art-095fc30291e5433c9d741ac54101241e2023-02-05T12:12:13ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222023-02-0113111410.1038/s41598-023-28484-5Designing plant–transparent agrivoltaicsEric J. Stallknecht0Christopher K. Herrera1Chenchen Yang2Isaac King3Thomas D. Sharkey4Richard R. Lunt5Erik S. Runkle6Department of Horticulture, Michigan State UniversityDepartment of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State UniversityDepartment of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State UniversityDepartment of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State UniversityMSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State UniversityDepartment of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State UniversityDepartment of Horticulture, Michigan State UniversityAbstract Covering greenhouses and agricultural fields with photovoltaics has the potential to create multipurpose agricultural systems that generate revenue through conventional crop production as well as sustainable electrical energy. In this work, we evaluate the effects of wavelength-selective cutoffs of visible and near-infrared (biologically active) radiation using transparent photovoltaic (TPV) absorbers on the growth of three diverse, representative, and economically important crops: petunia, basil, and tomato. Despite the differences in TPV harvester absorption spectra, photon transmission of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR; 400–700 nm) is the most dominant predictor of crop yield and quality. This indicates that different wavebands of blue, red, and green are essentially equally important to these plants. When the average photosynthetic daily light integral is > 12 mol m–2 d–1, basil and petunia yield and quality is acceptable for commercial production. However, even modest decreases in TPV transmission of PAR reduces tomato growth and fruit yield. These results identify crop-specific design requirements that exist for TPV harvester transmission and the necessity to maximize transmission of PAR to create the most broadly applicable TPV greenhouse harvesters for diverse crops and geographic locations. We determine that the deployment of 10% power conversion efficiency (PCE) plant-optimized TPVs over approximately 10% of total agricultural and pasture land in the U.S. would generate 7 TW, nearly double the entire energy demand of the U.S.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28484-5 |
| spellingShingle | Eric J. Stallknecht Christopher K. Herrera Chenchen Yang Isaac King Thomas D. Sharkey Richard R. Lunt Erik S. Runkle Designing plant–transparent agrivoltaics Scientific Reports |
| title | Designing plant–transparent agrivoltaics |
| title_full | Designing plant–transparent agrivoltaics |
| title_fullStr | Designing plant–transparent agrivoltaics |
| title_full_unstemmed | Designing plant–transparent agrivoltaics |
| title_short | Designing plant–transparent agrivoltaics |
| title_sort | designing plant transparent agrivoltaics |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28484-5 |
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