A promising prospect is shown by China's modern solar greenhouses at present levels of performances and costs exemplified by the photovoltaic (PV) greenhouses with a practicable payback period of less than 9 years.
Conclusion Modern solar greenhouse is an important initiative in China's protected cultivation history for it benefits in energy saving, pollution reduction, and comprehensive competitiveness of modern agriculture improvement, especially in this low carbon production era.
Additionally, application of advanced solar technology for better thermal storage, PV power generating and light utilization balance has been proved effective to further promote solar energy utilization in modern solar greenhouses. 1. Introduction
Chinese solar greenhouses (CSG) play an important role in the development of horticultural facilities in China. They are widely used to grow vegetables during winter without any auxiliary heating, especially when the monthly daily average air temperature in the coldest three months of the year was below −10 °C , .
3.2. Economic evaluation The economic evaluation including the cost, operating income and the payback time of the combined agriculture and solar system sectors is conducted to assess the potential of the application of modern solar greenhouses in China.
This paper summarizes the renewable and sustainable strategies for improving the thermal environment of Chinese solar greenhouses (CSG) from structural forms, north wall materials and equipment for thermal storage. CSG structure forms include sunken, variable south roof and air channel heat exchange.