Greenhouses and solar panels both need to be placed in areas with lots of sunlight - so why not combine the two? Semitransparent solar cells could be integrated into the glass roof panels of greenhouses, capturing light at wavelengths that plants don't use anyway. Researchers at North Carolina State University developed an operating model, finding that in some climates the cells could produce enough solar energy to make the greenhouse completely self-sufficient.
Le solar cells organic designs (OSC) have some advantages over other designs. They harvest energy from sunlight, but can be made more flexible, transparent (or at least semi-transparent), and can be configured to absorb only certain wavelengths of light. This potentially makes them perfect for greenhouse roofs: they can let in most of the light for the plants, while collecting enough to offset some of the structure's energy needs.
“Plants use only certain wavelengths of light for photosynthesis, and the idea is to create greenhouses that make energy from that unused light while allowing most of the photosynthetic band of light to pass through.”Says Brendan O'Connor, author of the study. “However, until now it was unclear how much energy a greenhouse could capture using these semi-transparent organic solar cells.”
Semitransparent solar cells: the tests
To start answering this question, the researchers calculated how much energy would arrive on a greenhouse with OSC on the roof, compared to its energy consumption that it would normally consume. The idea was to find the point at which the greenhouse becomes energy neutral, meaning it generates enough energy from the Sun to fully power itself.
For this study, greenhouses were modeled on the energy needed to grow tomatoes in three locations with different climates. The team found that the impact on the amount of light the plants receive is minimal, but the benefits far outweigh it. In sunny places, for example, a greenhouse with semi-transparent solar cells could become energy neutral, blocking only 10 percent of the light that plants need. This should not adversely affect the plants, the team says.
In colder places it would not be possible to achieve energy neutrality, but the semi-transparent panels would reduce the energy requirement of a greenhouse by half.
