Voltiris’ Post

Highest energy yield ⚡ ever reached for a crop-compatible agrivoltaic system? A few weeks ago, the Voltiris team achieved to reach a peak power of 145 Wp/m2 for its innovative greenhouse solar modules. Why is this a breakthrough in the agrivoltaics field ? 1/ The Voltiris modules have been tested and validated in greenhouse settings over the most light-demanding crops (tomatoes, pepper, cucumbers...). For these crops, the rule of thumb is "1% light loss is 1% yield loss". In comparison, reaching 145Wp/m2 would require a ~70% light loss when using standard checkerboard APV technologies, which decreases too much the agronomical yield to be economical. This was made possible thanks to our fruitful collaboration with 3M who has been supplying us perfect dichroic filters, that could separate effectively the wavelengths reaching the crops from the ones used for generating power. 2/ No similar spectrally-filtering low-concentration agrivoltaics system have reached such a high efficiency in the past. This efficiency could only be reached thanks to the team dedication to get the perfect optical and mechanical design of the dichroic-based concentrator. In Low-Concentration PV systems, every details count, and small errors in the optical system can be detrimental to the system efficiency. I can't wait to see how far the dedicated Voltiris team will push further the boundaries of the agrivoltaics field, and how Voltiris will keep contributing to the electrification and decarbonization of the greenhouse industry.