Strawberry agrivoltaics in Canada: Comparing uniform thin film and non-uniform crystalline silicon semi-transparent solar photovoltaic modules in controlled environment agriculture
Bibliographic record
Abstract
While colocation of solar photovoltaic (PV) and strawberry cultivation has shown promise, the impact of different types of illumination on plant growth remains uncertain. To provide information to strawberry agrivoltaic system designers, this study performs a comparative analysis of strawberry cultivation under 1) uniform illumination provided by thin-film cadmium telluride (Cd-Te) with 30%, 40% and 70% transparent PV modules and 2) non-uniform semitransparent crystalline silicon (c-Si) with 25% (red - using a red dye for spectral changes), 44% (clear) and 69% (clear) transparent bifacial PV modules, which include rows of solar cells and transparent glass elements. All systems were assessed in a controlled biome that simulated the outdoor conditions of London, ON, using regulated temperatures. The strawberry fresh weight, plant height, leaf count, and flower count were quantified under each agrivoltaic system, and economics were analyzed. The results show that higher strawberry yields were consistently observed under non-uniform shading of c-Si semi-transparent PV compared to uniform thin-film PV. Specifically, while 70% uniformly transparent Cd-Te PV module resulted in 140.6% of the average control fresh weight, non-uniformly 69% transparent c-Si PV achieved a maximum fresh weight of 201.4%, more than the average control. Coupled to the economic value of the PV generation, the Canadian strawberry agrivoltaics sector could generate more than twice the revenue from traditional strawberry farming alone. These results underscore the dual benefits of agrivoltaics to both enhance agricultural productivity while achieving substantial clean energy production. • Nonuniform transparent c-Si PV module doubled strawberry growth compared to controls. • Uniform transparent Cd-Te module surpassed controls but was less effective than c-Si. • Canadian c-Si strawberry agrivoltaics could produce 1558–2861 GWh, worth 1.7–3.1 million CAD. • CO 2 emissions reduced by 171–315 kilotons with c-Si PV based strawberry agrivoltaics. • Strawberry agrivoltaics can more than double traditional farming's revenue.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".