AN INTEGRATION COEFFICIENT IC APPROACH
When seeking to offer integrated solutions like, for example, Greenhouse Solar Power Systems, adapted to specific needs, as we do through the Integration Coefficient IC, it is necessary to get the supply chain channels used to offer solar solutions that can grow the prestige of their businesses, which they can add something unique to the current solar solutions that they offer to their market until now and that they can reach a significant number of clients or economic sectors in their region to convert them into “anti-pollution” centers and thus promote environmental sustainability. Businesses oriented to volume but with innovation and intelligence.
In this sense, Greenhouses constitute a segment in itself worth taking into account for solar business development using both, ongrid and/or hybrid installations. These greenhouses are typically human constructions that, due to their high density of use, can be seen from space as a dense white zone that, for example, only in Almería, Andalusia, Spain, is equivalent to an area of 100,000 soccer fields, that is, about 30,000 hectares.
According to measurements made by the Andalusian Energy Agency, the average radiation at its La Mojonera station (Almería), on a surface with an inclination of 35 degrees, which is what the “roofs” of the most common greenhouses in this area usually have, is 180.8 kWh per square meter.
Taking advantage of only 5 percent of that radiation, an efficiency applied for the moment to the new kind of flexible transparent solar panels, for one year an electrical energy of 31,366 million megawatt hours would be obtained. With this generation, three quarters of the energy needs of all of Andalusia would be covered.
The previous calculations have been made based on data obtained from the Andalusian Energy Agency, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development of the “Junta de Andalucía”, the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism, the National Institute of Statistics, the University of Michigan and the Institute of Statistics and Cartography of Andalusia.
Researchers from the University of Almería state in a publication in the scientific journal “Energies” that if the roof of the greenhouses in Almería, Murcia and Granada had solar panels, 31% of Spain's energy needs could be generated (even with transparent flexible panels of 5% efficiency).
The study also points out how the profitability of agricultural operations under plastic could be increased by generating solar energy. It is estimated that by using BIVP type solar panels whose efficiency is similar to those of current panels, close to 20%, that is 4 times more than what is available for new flexible panels of maximum transparency, that, although they are not completely transparent, some studies and even installations of the same type in other countries have shown that they are very suitable for the application without any risk for the plants growth.
We invite solar installers in that region, and of course, anyone else interested, to subscribe to our website for more information.