this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
17 points (81.5% liked)
Solarpunk technology
3763 readers
1 users here now
Technology for a Solar-Punk future.
Airships and hydroponic farms...
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I've always wanted to create a low-tech version of this concept.
The problem (for me) is that many crops like lettuce can't handle full strength summer sunlight. The normal solution is shade cloth, but I always feel like that's just throwing away energy. I'd rather devise a method where rather than having 50% shade cloth over 1 square meter of plants, I somehow split that same amount of light over 2 square meters of plants.
Thats effectively what agrivoltaics do, with some energy taken up by solar panels, but I'd like to sort out a plant-only version that works on a small scale. You could have 2 grow beds stacked on top of each other, and use a one-way mirror and some other optics, but i don't think there's a low tech way to keep the sun tracked.