Spectral Bath Engineering for Quantum-Enhanced Agrivoltaics: Advancing Efficiency and Environmental Sustainability via Non-Markovian Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper introduces spectral bath engineering to enhance quantum coherence in agrivoltaic systems, leading to increased efficiency and sustainability by exploiting non-Markovian quantum effects in biological light-harvesting.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach combining quantum biology and renewable energy engineering through spectral filtering and advanced simulations to optimize agrivoltaic performance.

Findings

Enhanced electron transport rate by 25% with spectral filtering.

Extended coherence lifetimes by 20% to 50%.

Achieved 18.8% power efficiency with high system ETR.

Abstract

As global demand for food and clean energy intensifies, agrivoltaic systems have emerged as a vital solution for land-use optimization. However, current designs overwhelmingly treat incident light as a classical photon flux, overlooking the quantum mechanical nature of photosynthetic energy transfer. We introduce spectral bath engineering-the strategic spectral filtering of sunlight through semi-transparent organic photovoltaic (OPV) panels to exploit non-Markovian quantum coherence in biological light-harvesting. Using Process Tensor HOPS (PT-HOPS) and Spectrally Bundled Dissipators (SBD) to simulate the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex, we demonstrate that selective filtering at vibronic resonance wavelengths (750nm and 820nm) enhances the electron transport rate (ETR) by 25% relative to standard Markovian models. This quantum advantage is driven by vibronic resonance-assisted transport, which extends coherence lifetimes by 20% to 50% and nearly doubles pairwise concurrence (89%). Multi-objective Pareto optimization identifies OPV configurations reaching 18.8% power conversion efficiency while sustaining an 80.5% system ETR, potentially generating an additional USD 470 to 3000 $ha^{-1}$$yr^{-1}$ in revenue. Environmental simulations across nine climate zones, including sub-Saharan Africa, confirm persistent ETR enhancements of 18% to 24%. Finally, eco-design analysis using quantum reactivity descriptors ensures that these technological gains are achieved using sustainable, biodegradable materials. By bridging quantum biology and renewable energy engineering, this work provides a quantitative blueprint for next-generation agrivoltaic materials that co-optimize agricultural productivity and energy yield.