A cultivation study looking at transparent solar panels above three ornamental crops will shortly be launched in a Vertify’s research department. Producer BriteSolar wants to find out which crops could be suitable for such a greenhouse cover. “We’re first going to look at crops that require less light or need protection against high levels of radiation, because light transmission is consistently 20% lower than with normal glass,” says Jeroen Sanders, research manager at Vertify. “We’ve set the bar high, because the goal is a 0% reduction in yields.”
The light transmission of the prototype selected by BriteSolar for the test is 80% of the transmission normal glass. “If this has no effect on important crops, it would be interesting,” says Spyros Bousios, Project Manager at BriteSolar.