Researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory grew tomatoes under translucent solar panels, which can play a promising role in the Agrivoltaic.
Researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the US Department of Energy developed a translucent solar panel to make certain light spectrums that are optimal for the growth of the crops.
In the experiment, known as ‘No Photon Left Behind’, scientists tested the effectiveness of a biomatch, filtering the light spectrum that is most suitable for the physiological needs of a plant. The biomatch is designed to let the light pass by organic semiconductant materials in solar cells. The scientists determined that limiting the spectrum to certain wavelengths made the tomatoes faster and larger than those in direct, natural sunlight.
“When light comes into contact with a plant, there are many things that can happen,” said Bryon Larson, a NREL -Chemist and main researcher in the project. “Different physiological routes are activated based on the type and amount of light. Those physiological routes often determine the productivity of the plant.”
The researchers study what happens to plants when sunlight is filtered in only the spectrum and the dose that the plant needs, what the light requirement of the plant is, Larson said. “We can produce that through the concept of biomatched spectral harvests, while the use of the light plants does not have to make electricity with transparent [organic photovoltaics] Modules. ‘
The researchers said that the tomatoes under the organic photovoltaic (up) biomatched extend slightly higher than the tomatoes under full sun exposure. Although the direct sunlight plants receive 30% more light, Nrel said that the OPP -plants “Selectively bathe in the slice of the solar spectrum where they go to bumps”.
Testing that factors such as size, weight and how well converted the plants considered the light into biomass, discovered that the tomatoes that were grown under biomatched filters emerged.
“In general, these are a bit more efficient in terms of photosynthetic yield than the control factories,” said Seth Steichen, a biologist who is working on the project.
NREL said the investigation could play an important role in agrivoltaicThe practice of co-locking of solar panels on agricultural land in such a way that both practices can bloom. Agrivoltaics has shown promising for both the agricultural and solar industry. For example, Preliminary results of research At Iowa State University recently discovered that certain crops, such as strawberries, summer pumpkin and peppers, will get better when they follow solar panels next to a single axis.
Image: Gregory Cooper, NREL
The researchers noted that the light that tomatoes reaches activates various functions, such as making sugar to align the fruits and proteins to change the texture.
As such, “the last hurray” was the taste test, Larson said.
The researchers bought organically grown greenhouse tomatoes in the industry and performed a taste test, in which the labels hide on the bottom of each plate to identify the photovoltaic batch, the Marktbatch and the control group of each other.
The results? The photovoltaic tomatoes and tomatoes from the NREL control group are set for first place, and the organic tomatoes purchased in the store came in the last.
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