A group of researchers led by the Triangle Research and Development Center (TRDC) in Israel investigated the impact of using photovoltaic power generation in a greenhouse hosting cucumber crops and found the impact on crop yield is negligible.
"Our study compares the impact of opaque silicon PV versus semi-transparent organic photovoltaic technologies installed at canopy height within a Mediterranean polytunnel greenhouse on the growth of cucumber plants," the research's corresponding author, Esther Magadley, told pv magazine. "The proposed case study shows the potential of PV integration inside greenhouses. However, further studies investigating the effect of the altered installation location on PV lifetimes and the effect of the altered light spectrum inside the greenhouse are required for different greenhouse types and locations."
In the paper "Examining the effect of different photovoltaic modules on cucumber crops in a greenhouse agrivoltaic system: A case study," published in Biosystems Engineering, Magadeley and her colleagues explained that they used three different semi-transparent PV technologies in their work — bifacial glass-encapsulated PERC panels, bifacial plastic-encapsulated PERC modules, and semi-transparent organic photovoltaics (OPVs).
They compared the performance of the PV-powered polyethylene greenhouse with that of a reference greenhouse without solar power generation. They also compared the performance of the three PV technologies deployed on the greenhouse to that of reference solar panels installed outside the greenhouse.
Read more at pv-magazine.com