Projects / Photovoltaic Greenhouses

The project regarded the integration of Photovoltaic panels on agricultural greenhouses.
The design process considered both energetic and agricultural needs.
Plants (flowers in our case) need sunlight and warm temperatures to ripen properly while the opaque surface of PV panels acts as a shading device. Solar irradiation and daylighting analysis were carried out in order to avoid these unwanted side effects and to ensure the right level of daylighting and solar irradiation for each specific plant species, optimizing at the same time the energy yield of the panels.
The project was invited to be presented at the Energy Forum (December 2011), an important international conference on Sustainable Design, gaining the general attention. Although there are many existing examples of “photovoltaic” greenhouses, in many of them pv panels are just located on the roof, regardless of internal condition, while in this case plant and energetic needs were considered at the same time in the pre-design phase.