In a future world, love vegetables may not are grown in rows grown below the sun. Instead, she may inside are grown under tinted semi-transparent solar panels that allow farmers to grow food and produce energy. That is the future imagined in a recent study that shows how the use of this technology can benefit farmers and the climate.
Semi-transparent solar panels are an emerging area of technology. At least one company offers them as cap to translate outdoor spaces. Mar de new research, pearlier this month in the journal Advanced Energy Materials, investigates whether tinted solar panels can also work on farms, a process part of a dual research area agrivoltaics.
The authors rated how growing basil and spinach work under the panels, en the results are encouraging. For the experiment, the team of scientists grew the plants both in clear glass building and under tint semi-transparent solar panels and compare the results. De panels can filter the different wavelengths of light depending on what color they are. The researchers chose orange-tinted panels absorb most blue and green light, while red light can penetrate to the plants they love.
“The reason plants are green is because they reflect the green [light] and they use all the red, ”said author Elinor Thompson, a senior lecturer in science at the University of Greenwich. “These transparent solar panels use the wavelength of light that the plants do not want, so they are kind of orange-red solar panels. That’s really cool, because then plants get what they want, and then you get the rest of the energy for electricity. ‘
With less light by and large, the tumors saw morphological changes. This includes reduced biomass, including a 15% and 26% reduction of the amount of leaves (i.e. the parts we eat) the basil and spinach produced respectively. That has the potential to cut back on farmer profits. But when infecting the power generated by the panels that could be sold back on the grid or used to compensate for energy use elsewhere, the crops resulted in a financial gain of up to 2.5% for basil and a whopping 35% for spinach.
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This technology is still fairly new, but interest has grown in recent years, Thompson said. With the urgency to grow the climate crisis, engineers are trying to get creative future land use. Instead of a future where energy and plants have to compete for space, these solar panels offer a scenario where they can share space. However, that does not mean that the technology is perfect or that it has no limitations. With the spinach and basil, the roots saw the largest decrease in size compared to other parts of the plants. That could mean that this growing and energizing method would not be so great for root vegetables, such as potatoes and carrots.
However, it is clear that tthe agricultural sector needs some reflection. Growing food is responsible for hast 10% off U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Tinted solar panels do not completely repair this; farmers need to use even less fertilizer and use practices that emit less carbon pollution – or even remove it from the atmosphere. But the agrivoltaics model is is coming with an added advantage: clean energy. The world needs much more of that.
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