Designing plant–transparent agrivoltaics

In this work, researchers evaluate the effects of wavelength-selective cutoffs of visible and near-infrared (biologically active) radiation using transparent photovoltaic (TVP) absorbers on the growth of three diverse, representative, and economically important crops: petunia, basil, and tomato. The results identify crop-specific design requirements that exist for TPV harvester transmission and the necessity to maximize transmission of photosynthetically active radiation to create the most broadly applicable TPV greenhouse harvesters for diverse crops and geographic locations. They determine that the deployment of 10% power conversion efficiency plant-optimized TPVs over approximately 10% of total agricultural and pastureland in the U.S. would generate 7 TW, nearly double the entire energy demand of the U.S.