06/10/2026
Scientists are testing rose-tinted solar panels that could allow farmers to grow food and generate electricity on the same piece of land.
Researchers at Mälardalen University in Sweden tested semi-transparent magenta solar panels above broccoli. The idea is to divide sunlight more intelligently: allow wavelengths useful for photosynthesis to reach the plants while solar cells use part of the remaining sunlight for electricity.
The team grew broccoli in full sunlight and beneath panels with 50% and 70% transparency. Surprisingly, all three groups produced similar yields, although broccoli beneath the panels required about 25 extra days to reach harvest.
The shaded plants also became much more efficient at using the light they received. Under the 50%-transparent panels, light-use efficiency was about 4.5 times higher than the full-sun plants; under the 70% panels, it was about 2.8 times higher.
Meanwhile, the panels generated electricity. Researchers estimated around 224.7 megawatt-hours per hectare during the growing period, although conventional solar panels would have produced roughly 100 MWh more over the same area.
The current panels are still a prototype rather than an optimized agricultural system. Their magenta filter blocks some green light without converting all of it into electricity, leaving significant room for improvement.
If future designs can efficiently split sunlight between crops and electricity production, farmland may no longer have to be used exclusively for either food or solar power. The same sunlight — and the same land — could produce both.
Source: Cell Reports Physical Science; Mälardalen University
