High-concentration photovoltaics for dual-use with agriculture

Abstract

This study assesses the potential of transparent, tracking-integrated CPV to facilitate more effective dual-use of land for simultaneous agricultural and solar energy production. The concept leverages on the fact that a concentration system is a natural light splitter, separating direct solar radiation from the diffuse. Therefore a transparent CPV module using multijunction solar cells can generate a large supply of electrical power while preserving the diffuse component of sunlight for other uses – in this case, to illuminate crops. We consider the solar resource, the light requirements of plants and the achievable optical properties of the proposed system to evaluate the potential of direct-diffuse light-splitting CPV in agriculture. We show that a tracking-integrated, transparent CPV system integrated into the roof of a greenhouse can provide comparable solar energy generation to a Si solar array, while still admitting sufficient light to cover most of the daily light requirements of many crops.