Solar panels can power grow lights. Why would we need this method if we have access to either sunlight or electricity?
“Solar panels can power grow lights. Why would we need this method if we have access to either sunlight or electricity?”
No matter the light source plants are limited by the physics of the photosynthesis process to about 1% efficiency in turning light energy into chemical energy. It doesn’t matter if th at light source is the Sun or LEDs. These guys took that fundamental limit out. They are driving an electrochemical reaction that is limited by the Gibbs energy of the chemical reactions it is orders of magnitude more efficient the next effect is an 18 times increased output for a given amount of photonic energy. Solar panels are 20+% efficient at turning a photon into electrons that starts the process off with 19 times more energy than photon to chemical energy via the photosynthesis process. Forget solar panels this process doesn’t care where the DC voltage comes from. Go right to the big boy in human energy density nuclear power the amounts of electricity to carbon bond in the form of food energy a multi gigawatt reactor could provide is staggering and it could do that for a hundred years in total darkness underground or in deep space that’s the leap here.