Balancing crop production and energy harvesting in organic solar-powered greenhouses

Ravishankar, Eshwar; Charles, Melodi; Xiong, Yuan; Henry, Reece; Swift, Jennifer; Rech, Jeromy James; Calero, John; Cho, Sam; Booth, Ronald E.; Kim, Taesoo; Balzer, Alex H.; Qin, Yunpeng; Ho, Carr Hoi Yi; So, Franky; Stingelin, Natalie; Amassian, Aram; Saravitz, Carole H.; You, Wei; Ade, Harald; Sederoff, Heike; O’Connor, Brendan

doi:10.1016/j.xcrp.2021.100381

Cited by 55 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Ravishankar et al [22] discussed the application of solar energy for solar-powered green houses for harvesting and crop production. They explained that though the addition of ST-OSCs (semitransparent organic solar cells) to greenhouses (GHs) can improve electricity generation and plant cultivation, establishing the impact of these systems on indoor climate, plants' growth is important.…”

Section: Pv Modules and Arrangementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar energy: A panacea for the electricity generation crisis in Nigeria

Agbo

Edet

Magu

et al. 2021

Heliyon

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Section: Pv Modules and Arrangementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar energy: A panacea for the electricity generation crisis in Nigeria

Agbo

Edet

Magu

et al. 2021

Heliyon

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“…We present here experiments that enabled us to distinguish the qualitative and quantitative effects of OSC filters on gene expression, nutrient content and nitrogen utilization in lettuce. Plants were grown under one of three previously studied OSC filters that were selected based on their spectral complementarity with chlorophyll and photoreceptor absorbance and ease of fabrication: FTAZ:IT-M (FI), FTAZ:PCBM (FP) and PTB7-Th:IEICO-4F (PI) (Ravishankar, et al, 2021) (Fig. 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond energy balance in agrivoltaic food production: Emergent crop traits from wavelength-selective solar cells

Charles

Edwards

Ravishankar

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Semi-transparent organic solar cells (ST-OSCs) offer new agrivoltaic opportunities to meet the growing demands for sustainable food production. The tailored absorption/transmission spectrum of ST-OSCs not only impacts the power generated, but also aspects of crop growth, development and responses to the biotic and abiotic environments. The general relationships between these variables are unknown. Here, we grow red oak leaf lettuce (Lactuca sativa), a traditional greenhouse crop, under three different ST-OSC filters and observe little overall differences on productivity in response to the altered light exposure. In contrast, several key traits involving nutrient content and nitrogen utilization as well as plant defense against herbivory and pathogens are modified over the controls under select OSCs. Overall, our genomic analysis reveals that lettuce production exhibits beneficial traits under exposure from select ST-OSCs. ST-OSCs integrated into greenhouses are, therefore, not only a promising technology for energy-neutral crop production as previously shown but can deliver benefits beyond those based on energy-balance considerations.

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“…Photovoltaic technology based on π-conjugated polymers has the potential of enormous economic impact due to its unique features such as solution-processability, flexibility, lightweight, and potential short energy payback time in modern buildings and solar-powered greenhouses. 1,2 Owing to the rapid developments of polymer acceptors, [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] the record power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) based on polymer acceptors have now surpassed 17%, 15 which is close to the top PCE of polymer solar cells based on non-fullerene small molecule acceptors. [16][17][18][19] Compared with polymer:small molecule solar cells, all-PSCs often exhibit morphological stability and mechanical robustness properties, which are favorable to manufacture large-scale solar cell modules.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco‐friendly solution processing of all‐polymer solar cells: Recent advances and future perspective

Xiong

Zhang

2021

Journal of Polymer Science

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All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) exhibit great potentials in commercial applications. All-PSCs have observed steady performance gains with power conversion efficiency now reaching over 17% in the open literature. However, the current processing of all-PSCs relies predominantly on toxic, chlorinated solvents in moisture-free environments, representing a significant barrier for their commercialization due to the added costs to handle and dispose of such solvents. There is thus an urgent need for safe, environmentally benign, and sustainable ink-based processing methods to produce all-PSC devices reliably and reproducibly in ambient air. In this perspective, fundamental insights on the interplay between all-polymer blend morphologies and eco-friendly solvents are provided. Also, we discuss the recent successes of the green processing methods to manipulate the photoactive morphologies for high-efficiency all-PSCs. In the end, we provide an outlook on future challenges and opportunities of eco-friendly solvents processed all-PSCs for large-scale manufacturing.

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Balancing crop production and energy harvesting in organic solar-powered greenhouses

Cited by 55 publications

References 57 publications

Solar energy: A panacea for the electricity generation crisis in Nigeria

Solar energy: A panacea for the electricity generation crisis in Nigeria

Beyond energy balance in agrivoltaic food production: Emergent crop traits from wavelength-selective solar cells

Eco‐friendly solution processing of all‐polymer solar cells: Recent advances and future perspective

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