Quality assurance in histopathology laboratories

Xia & He Publishing Inc.

The medical field is inherently susceptible to errors, with laboratory tests being no exception. In histopathology laboratories, where tests are considered the gold standard for diagnosing various diseases, errors can significantly impact patient outcomes. Quality Control (QC) and Quality Assurance (QA) programs are essential in minimizing these errors and ensuring the generation of accurate and reliable reports. The complex, multistep nature of histopathology work, combined with the subjective nature of many diagnostic interpretations, makes implementing QC methods challenging yet crucial. Implementing effective QA and QC measures ensures that histopathology laboratories adhere to the highest standards of diagnostic accuracy and reliability, thereby safeguarding patient health and enhancing clinical outcomes.

Objectives of Quality Schemes

The primary objectives of quality schemes in histopathology laboratories include producing accurate and complete test reports, delivering these reports promptly, maintaining high ethical and professional standards, and providing continuous education and training to laboratory staff. These objectives are vital for achieving and maintaining high-quality services in histopathology. By adhering to these quality objectives, histopathology laboratories can ensure that diagnostic processes are not only accurate but also efficient, fostering trust and reliability in laboratory results.

Phases of the Testing Cycle

The testing cycle in histopathology laboratories is divided into three main phases: pre-analytical, analytical, and post-analytical. Each phase involves specific processes and quality control measures to ensure accurate and timely results. The careful management of each phase is crucial to minimizing errors and ensuring that the diagnostic process is seamless from start to finish.

Pre-analytical Phase

The pre-analytical phase is critical as most errors occur during this stage. Accurate patient and sample identification is paramount. Errors in this phase can affect all subsequent steps. The involvement of multiple personnel, including those outside the laboratory, necessitates a comprehensive organizational effort to improve this phase. Quality assurance monitors for this phase include labeling errors, adequacy of clinical history, and lost specimens. Effective communication and coordination among all parties involved in this phase are essential to mitigate the risk of errors and ensure that samples are handled with utmost care and precision.

Analytical Phase

The analytical phase involves the technical and interpretative steps necessary for diagnosis. There is some debate about the exact scope of this phase, but it generally includes gross examination, processing, embedding, cutting, staining, and ultimately, diagnosis. Peer review is a critical quality measure in this phase due to the subjective nature of histopathology reporting. Both prospective and retrospective methods are used to ensure accuracy and reduce errors. The implementation of robust peer review mechanisms ensures that diagnostic interpretations are subjected to rigorous scrutiny, thereby enhancing the accuracy and reliability of laboratory results.

Post-analytical Phase

The post-analytical phase ensures the completeness and accuracy of reporting, including transcription and report corrections, verification, and correlation with ancillary studies such as immunohistochemistry (IHC) and electron microscopy. This phase also covers the timely delivery of reports to clinicians and patients. Ensuring that reports are accurately transcribed, verified, and delivered on time is crucial to maintaining the integrity of the diagnostic process and facilitating effective clinical decision-making.

Turnaround Time (TAT) and Clinician/Patient Satisfaction

TAT and clinician/patient satisfaction are important parameters for assessing laboratory performance. Timely reporting and high satisfaction levels indicate effective quality management in histopathology laboratories. Monitoring and optimizing TAT not only improves operational efficiency but also enhances patient care by providing timely diagnostic information to clinicians.

External Quality Assessment (EQA) Schemes

EQA schemes, clinical audits, continuing medical education, and laboratory accreditations are crucial for maintaining and improving diagnostic standards. These activities provide educational value and feedback, helping laboratories recognize and rectify performance issues. Participation in EQA schemes is often optional but highly beneficial for continuous improvement. Engaging in these external assessments fosters a culture of continuous learning and quality enhancement, ensuring that laboratories stay abreast of best practices and emerging trends in the field.

Conclusions

Achieving and maintaining high-quality services in histopathology laboratories require coordinated efforts from all stakeholders. There is a need to increase awareness about the importance of QA&I schemes among pathologists and other healthcare members to ensure optimal patient care. By fostering a collaborative and quality-focused environment, histopathology laboratories can significantly enhance diagnostic accuracy, reduce errors, and ultimately improve patient outcomes.

 

Full text

https://www.xiahepublishing.com/2771-165X/JCTP-2023-00035

 

The study was recently published in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Pathology.

Journal of Clinical and Translational Pathology (JCTP) is the official scientific journal of the Chinese American Pathologists Association (CAPA). It publishes high quality peer-reviewed original research, reviews, perspectives, commentaries, and letters that are pertinent to clinical and translational pathology, including but not limited to anatomic pathology and clinical pathology. Basic scientific research on pathogenesis of diseases as well as application of pathology-related diagnostic techniques or methodologies also fit the scope of the JCTP.

 

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Journal

Journal of Clinical and Translational Pathology

DOI

10.14218/JCTP.2023.00035 

Article Title

Quality Assurance in Histopathology Laboratories

 

How microbial communities emerge

- researchers create new framework to help understand process

Swansea University

Virtually all multicellular organisms on Earth live in symbiotic associations with very large and complex microbial communities known as microbiomes.

New research has just been published aimed at offering a complete understanding how those relationships form.

Computational ecologist Dr Miguel Lurgi explores how associations between complex bacterial communities and multicellular hosts emerge in nature by combining theory with empirical work.

For his latest research Dr Lurgi and his colleague Dr Gui Araujo, from the Biosciences Department of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, teamed up with collaborators from the French Scientific Research Council, the University of New South Wales in Australia, and the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, also in Australia.

They set about devising a theoretical framework to gain further knowledge on the emergence of host-associated complex microbiomes. Their insights have just been published by prestigious journal Trends in Microbiology,

Dr Lurgi said: “We argue that microbiome assembly is a product of ecology and evolution acting together.

“Our research aims at bringing together ecological and evolutionary theory on one hand, and microbial and symbiont ecology and evolution on the other, to create a holistic picture of the assembly of complex symbioses.

“These symbiotic relationships constitute one of the most ancient associations between multicellular organisms and groups of microbes, and, in many cases, they are fundamental to the persistence of both the host and the microbiome.”

The researchers are currently using the proposed framework to investigate microbes inside marine sponges. They are also looking at extending these findings to other microbiomes, eventually allowing for a unified understanding of the intricate nature of symbiotic relationships of multiple species within different groups of hosts and across taxa.

Dr Lurgi is head of the Computational Ecology Lab at Swansea and has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust award for his research project The origin of complex symbioses.

He said: “My main research focus is on the mechanisms behind the emergence of complexity in ecological networks. I develop theoretical models of ecological communities and network dynamics to better understand these mechanisms and the biodiversity patterns they give rise to.”

Dr Lurgi and Dr Araujo are now working on developing the mathematical foundations of the ideas presented in the current paper and have just presented the work at the 19th International Symposium of Microbial Ecology, in South Africa.

Read the paper A mechanistic framework for complex microbe-host symbioses in full

-END-

 

Note to editors:

When reporting this story, please use Swansea University hyperlinks.

Founded in 1920, Swansea University is a research-led, dual campus university located along Swansea Bay in south Wales, UK. Its stunning beachfront campuses and friendly welcome make Swansea University a desirable destination for more than 22,000 students from across the globe. There are three academic faculties, delivering around 450 undergraduate and 350 postgraduate degree programmes.

Swansea is a UK top 30 institution, ranked 25th in the 2024 Guardian University Guide. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, 86% of Swansea University’s overall research and 91% of its research environment were classed as world-leading and internationally excellent, with 86% of its research impact rated outstanding and very considerable.

Swansea University is a registered charity. No. 1138342.  

For more information, please contact Swansea University Press Office. Call 01792 295050, or email:  press@swansea.ac.uk

 

 

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Journal

Trends in Microbiology

DOI

10.1016/j.tim.2024.08.002 

 

Study suggests US droughts, rainy extremes becoming more severe

Researchers examine trends from years 850-2100 in North America

Ohio State University

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Severe drought in the American Southwest and Mexico and more severe wet years in the Northeast are the modern norm in North America, according to new research – and the analysis suggests these seasonal patterns will be more extreme in the future.

The middle of the United States, meanwhile, can expect bigger swings between wetter wet periods – high-rainfall years known as pluvials – and drier summers through the rest of this century, the study predicts.

Researchers at The Ohio State University say the findings, based on modern precipitation data, historical tree rings and climate models spanning the years 850 to 2100, suggest climate change has shifted precipitation patterns across North America to extremes that were not experienced before industrialization began around the mid-1800s.

“It’s very much a tale of Southwest versus the Northeast for most of the seasons,” said senior author James Stagge, assistant professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering at Ohio State. “Mexico and the American Southwest tends to get drier across more or less all seasons, whereas we’re seeing in the Northeast – and Ohio is included in that – a trend toward wetter, particularly in the winter and early spring.”

The combination of drier droughts and wetter pluvials in much of the nation’s midsection won’t necessarily occur in a predictable way.

“So you might be going from, say, this year our drought is really bad, and in five years or so we might see the wettest pluvial we’ve had in a while,” Stagge said. “That variability is concerning because it changes how we might need to manage water to prepare for more extremes in both ways. Trying to plan for that is a real challenge.

“This is all part of the same pattern moving into the future. It’s only going to get worse.”

Former Ohio State graduate student Kyungmin Sung, now a research fellow at the Korea Environment Institute, is first author of the paper. The research is published today (Sept. 6, 2024) in Geophysical Research Letters.

In contrast to attribution studies that examine whether or how human-associated climate change has influenced extreme weather events, this work focused on documenting centuries-long trends in pre- and post-industrial drought and pluvial extremes across North America. 

The researchers compared changing climate patterns observed in the past 20 years to the pre-industrial era and then predicted how periods of low and high precipitation will trend through the year 2100.

“What we can say is, ‘here is the scale of change we’ve seen in the past 100 years under an increase in greenhouse gas concentration, and here’s what we saw in the previous 700 years,’” Sung said. “And the scale of the change we’re seeing now and into the future is dramatically larger in many areas than any natural climate variability we saw prior.”

The researchers merged data from five sources: two modern compilations of precipitation observations, tree ring reconstructions from the distant past, and two climate models – each covering the same historical period as the tree ring analyses and continuing to predict future extreme dry and wet trends with increasing greenhouse gases. 

The integration of different data types lends credibility to the findings, Stagge said: “A benefit of having very different types of data is they can fill in each other’s gaps. We consider trends to be significant only when they’re showing up across multiple data sets – so that increases our confidence.”

Maps of the changing climate patterns show the method produced smooth spatial transitions and obvious boundaries, suggesting that “what we’re seeing is real,” he said.

While the drying of the West is a well-known phenomenon, the team was surprised to see how extensive the precipitation increase has been and will be in the Northeast and how dramatic the heightened variability from droughts to pluvials is going to be in the center of the country.

These patterns of water shortages and gluts could affect industries ranging from farming to construction and city planning, and are likely to strain management efforts to maintain household water-source reservoirs at optimum levels.

“Planners, government agencies and engineers want to do the right thing and plan for a potentially changing climate, but oftentimes they don’t necessarily have the numbers or the broader picture of what’s going to be happening where,” Stagge said. “This puts regions on notice. In the Southwest, you’re going to have less water to deal with, and if you’re managing a farm in the middle of the country you might be seeing wider swings between droughts and pluvials.

“Certainly, we’d like to arrest further climate change, but it takes a long time to turn that ship,” he said. “In the meantime, we should be planning on where we’re headed to decrease impacts on people, the economy and the environment.”

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at Ohio State, and the Ohio Supercomputer Center. Gil Bohrer of Ohio State was also a co-author of the paper.

#

Contact: James Stagge, Stagge.11@osu.edu

Written by Emily Caldwell, Caldwell.151@osu.edu; 614-292-8152

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Journal

Geophysical Research Letters

DOI

10.1029/2023GL107400 

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Centennial-scale intensification of wet and dry extremes in North America

Article Publication Date

6-Sep-2024

 

Protecting just 0.7% of world’s land could help save a third of most unique and endangered species

Imperial College London

 

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Red bellied lemur in Madagascar, one of the EDGE species identified

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Credit: ZSL Rikki Gumbs

Conservation efforts directed towards just 0.7% of the world’s land mass could help protect one third of the world’s threatened and unique tetrapod (four-limbed vertebrate) species, new research by Imperial College London, On the Edge, and ZSL has shown.

The study, led by researchers at Imperial College London and published this week in Nature Communications, finds that large gains in conservation are possible by focusing on areas home to exceptional biodiversity and species with high levels of evolutionary distinctiveness and global endangerment.

These endangered species include animals like the aye-aye, a highly distinctive lemur found in Madagascar; the long-legged and eagle-bodied secretary bird; the purple frog, which has a nose similar to a pig; and the gharial, a long-snouted and critically endangered crocodile found in the Indian subcontinent.

At present, however, just 20% of the areas identified in the study are under some form of protection, with most areas facing consistent and increasing levels of human pressure.

Lead author Sebastian Pipins, a PhD candidate at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, said: “Our research highlights the regions of the world that are of immediate concern. Furthermore, it shows that in protecting just a fraction of the Earth’s land surface, huge gains can be made for the preservation of nature.”

On the edge of extinction

The project identified specific areas of conservation interest with exceedingly high levels of threatened evolutionarily history that are marked by their concentration of Evolutionarily Distinct (ED) and Globally Endangered (GE) species. 

Evolutionary distinctiveness quantifies how unique a species is, with some being the result of long periods of unique evolutionary history with few or no close living relatives. Meanwhile, global endangerment reflects the extinction risk of a species. Species that score highly on both measures are known as EDGE species, while the areas in which these species are found in high concentrations are referred to as EDGE Zones.

Pipins added: “It is crucial to not just consider species diversity in conservation efforts, but also the evolutionary history of diversity, to ensure that large and unique branches from the tree of life are not lost.”  

Zones of interest

The study mapped the distribution of almost 3,000 EDGE species, identifying 25 EDGE Zones where conservation efforts can have the greatest impact. 
Specific areas of EDGE species richness include large parts of Southeast Asia and the Indo-Gangetic plain, the Amazon basin and the Atlantic Forest, as well as in Hispaniola, the highlands of Cameroon, and the Eastern Arc mountains of East Africa. 

The authors found maximum richness within an area of less than 100-square kilometres in Madagascar, which, along with Mexico and Indonesia, contained the highest number of EDGE species. 

Underlining the critical importance of national leadership to support conservation efforts, the research also found that 75.6% of EDGE species exist within a single country.

Co-author Dr Rikki Gumbs, from the ZSL’s EDGE of Existence programme, said: “Three-quarters of the world’s most unique animals are able to call only one country home, meaning that action from individual nations will go a long way to protect these incredible species from extinction.”

Very large areas of Southeast Asia have higher levels of EDGE species, which the researchers say reflects how the looming biodiversity disaster in this region is impacting the highly unique and wide-ranging species found within.

Human factors

The scientists also found that the vast majority of EDGE Zones face high levels of human disturbance and that the human populations found within many EDGE Zone countries face deprivation in education, health, and living standards. 

Dr Gumbs added: “We’re currently in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, driven by unsustainable use of natural resources; it’s shocking but not surprising that 80% of the zones we identified are under high levels of pressure from human activity.”.

Given these challenges, governments’ limited resources are often prioritised for dealing with human deprivation, leaving less for biodiversity conservation. 

Pipins said: “Given the global importance of the biodiversity found within these regions, high-income countries must mobilise funding to facilitate sustainable development that can benefit both humans and nature.”

Global goals

Just 20% of EDGE zones are under some form of protection. As countries look to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030, as per the Convention on Biological Diversity’s target, the authors call for the unprotected portions of EDGE Zones to be prioritised.

Dr Gumbs said: “With the COP16 Biodiversity Conference on the horizon, we need to see world leaders from across the globe scaling up their commitments and resources to support these efforts and restore the natural world that we all rely on.” 

The researchers argue that their findings demonstrate that large gains of biodiversity are possible with relatively small additions to globally protected areas. They also argue that their research offers the potential for extending the EDGE Zone approach to other important groups of wildlife, such as plants and fish. 

Using EDGE zone research

The EDGE Zones identified in this research will guide the activities of the charitable organisation On the Edge, directing their conservation grant-making, regional campaigns, and grantee-led storytelling.

They will also form part of the decision-making for resource allocation for ZSL’s EDGE of Existence programme, which has already funded work on over 50 EDGE species found within EDGE Zone countries, with a particular focus on the Gangetic Plains and Cameroon.

 

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-024-51992-5 

Article Title

Advancing EDGE Zones to identify spatial conservation priorities of tetrapod evolutionary history

Article Publication Date

5-Sep-2024

 

5 lessons to level up conservation successfully

Imperial College London

 

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Mangrove planting in Zanzibar

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Credit: Matthew Clark/Imperial College London

Conservation needs to scale successfully to protect nature. A new paper takes lessons from around the world to show how that might be done.

To reverse biodiversity loss and meet ambitious global targets, conservation programmes designed to preserve everything from forests to fish need to work ‘at scale’.

Scaling can mean three things. Scaling ‘out’ means expanding a programme to new people and places, while scaling ‘up’ means bringing in higher-level institutions, such as governments introducing policies or incentives that make it easier for individuals and private companies to engage.

Scaling ‘deep’ means changing hearts and minds – what is socially acceptable. A particularly good example of scaling deep is the ‘Don’t Mess with Texas’ campaign in the 1980s, which successfully made littering a social no-no.

But not every attempt to expand pilot programmes in one or more of these directions works. Now, the Catalysing Conservation team led by Dr Morena Mills at Imperial College London researchers have reviewed conservation initiatives around the world with global experts and come up with five lessons to avoid the pitfalls of ineffective expansion.

The study is published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution, and we spoke to two of the authors on the paper, Dr Thomas Pienkowski and Dr Matthew Clark, both from the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial.

Before we dive in, Dr Clark says: “There’s no magic bullet – it’s not a case of ‘do these five things and you will succeed’ – but we hope these lessons will allow reflection on what hasn’t worked, and where we need to go from here.”

Lesson 1: There must be a balance between what is effective and what is scalable

Say you have a pilot programme that works with coastal communities to protect fish and other marine resources, aiming to improve the local ecology and economy. Then lots of neighbouring communities take up the programme. Great! This is scaling out, but has it actually been effective? Did it meet the stated goals of protecting marine life and improving local livelihoods? If the answer is no, it has scaled but it is not effective.

Conversely, something can be effective but not scalable. Dr Clark works with communities to support mangrove conservation, which can involve planting programmes. However, many of the seedlings die young. It’s possible to use specialised tools and know-how to increase survival rates, which makes the planting more effective, but it is an intensive process, and so not very scalable across rural communities.

The team say these trade-offs between what’s scalable and what’s effective must be balanced.

Good example: Community-based forestry management in Nepal has been adopted for more than 20,000 forests since the 1980s and appears to have reduced both poverty and deforestation, showing that some initiatives can be both highly scalable and effective.

Lesson 2: Effectiveness can depend on scale

A pilot project that is successful in one area may not work when moved out to a new area. This is common, say the researchers, and can be for a number of reasons: pilots may be in optimal locations and have lots of oversight and investment that expanded programmes won’t have, for example.

But it can also work the other way. For example, says Dr Clark: “Where the goal is to protect land for wildlife, larger animals that move over larger areas will only benefit once enough land is conserved, and enough patrols are in place to enforce the protection.”

Good example: Cacao agroforestry in Belize became much more effective at scale when a clear market for sustainable cacao emerged and more international companies wanted to promote their use of these products.

Lesson 3: The effects of conservation can change the conditions for further conservation

Sometimes, conservation expansion can backfire even when it’s effective. For example, a 10-year project in Mozambique introduced ‘no-take’ zones for fish and mangrove timber, which increased food security. However, once these areas had regained their value as sources of food and income, conservation support declined, leading to the abandonment of the zones in some areas.

These kinds of feedback loops between environmental change and human behaviour can be negative, as in Mozambique, or positive, where the impact of conservation schemes in one area can lead to neighbouring areas taking them up spontaneously, or where grassroots actions become national policy.

Good example: on the island of Pemba, Zanzibar, protected forest areas initially led to more harvesting on the edges of these zones; but this in turn led to neighbouring communities applying for their own forest protection, spontaneously expanding conversation.

Lesson 4: Pressures to scale can lead to bad practices that undermine long-term outcomes

Ambition is needed to meet ambitious goals, but ambition without care can be harmful. Dr Pienkowski explains one way this can happen: “NGOs [non-governmental organisations] play a really important role in scaling out, providing technical and financial support to local communities. But there can also be blurred boundaries between assistance and coercion.

“This can take the form, for example, of NGOs misleading communities of the benefits they might get from engaging in conservation programmes, or only engaging with people in the community who are most likely to benefit, leaving more vulnerable members behind and widening inequalities.”

For example, the REDD+ scheme is designed to help developing countries manage their forests and improve carbon stocks, but its implementation in parts of Tanzania was marred by promised payments not materialising, leading people to abandon conservation efforts and be suspicious of other schemes.

Larger NGOs are often needed to scale programmes, but this can be at the expense of local knowledge and grassroots organisations. For example, ‘slash and burn’ agriculture is considered bad practice in Europe, so European NGOs may lobby against it, but in communities in Africa it can be well used and an integral part of local ecosystem management.

Good example: Eco-tourism in Costa Rica started locally with support from NGOs, but has now become self-sustaining, meaning it no longer relies on direct aid or other structures that may undermine its long-term success.

Lesson 5: More evidence is needed

Dr Pienkowski explains: “This one is really an appeal from us researchers, who are struggling to develop the evidence base we need to inform more effective scaling strategies. It’s very difficult to know which initiatives have gone to scale or not – this information isn’t collected in a systematic or rigorous way.”

This is particularly true after programmes have ‘ended’ – few NGOs routinely review whether a scheme is still working years after their intervention has ended, or whether it has been abandoned.

Dr Pienkowski concludes: “For those calling for conservation scaling, this is a valuable moment to pause and reflect: with these examples and these lessons, what do we need to change? If we do this, we’re more likely to be able to deliver impact at scale and finally bend the curve on biodiversity loss.”

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Journal

Nature Ecology & Evolution

DOI

10.1038/s41559-024-02507-4 

Article Title

Five lessons for avoiding failure when scaling in conservation

Article Publication Date

6-Sep-2024

 

Disparity in access to medications for opioid use disorder persist in criminal legal settings

University of Pittsburgh

Individuals involved in the criminal legal system have a high rate of opioid use disorder (OUD) and a high risk of overdose death compared to the general population, yet the most effective treatments—medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD)—are underutilized in criminal legal settings where treatment is mandated as part of a person’s probation or parole. Medications are often not provided due to stigma or lack of adequate funding for evidence-based care. According to a study published today in JAMA Health Forum, use of these lifesaving medications has increased only modestly in criminal legal settings in recent years, despite national, state and local efforts, and progress has varied widely across the country. Only six states successfully delivered MOUDs to at least 50% of people referred to treatment by the criminal legal system in 2021, a rate comparable to what people treated in non-criminal legal settings receive. 

“One of the groups at the highest risk of opioid overdose death is people leaving jails and prisons. If we want to save lives, we have to do a better job of connecting people to the most effective treatments when they are released from incarceration,” said says J. Travis Donahoe, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. “While there has been some progress in closing the gap, those gains have been uneven. States that have been the most successful—such as Massachusetts and New Jersey—can serve as models for states that are lagging behind.”

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Journal

JAMA Health Forum

DOI

10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.2807 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Disparities in Medication Use for Criminal Justice System –Referred Opioid Use Disorder Treatment

Article Publication Date

6-Sep-2024

COI Statement

Dr Donahoe reported personal fees from Greylock McKinnon Associates outside the submitted work. Dr Saloner reported grants from the Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program and the National Institute on Drug Abuse during the conduct of the study and personal fees from Susman Godfrey outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported.

 

New research from Swansea University shines a light on how solar power and farming can coexist

Swansea University

 

image: 

An illustration showing three applications of agrivoltaics. A protected cropping environment, such as an advanced greenhouse (right), in which lightweight, semitransparent PV cells are integrated into the roof and/or walls. Semitransparent PVs and opaque PVs can also be combined with open cropping environments and livestock, providing shade while also generating power (left).

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Credit: Austin Kay

Scientists from Swansea University have developed a new tool to help identify optimal photovoltaic (PV) materials capable of maximising crop growth while generating solar power.

In a recent study published in Solar RRL, academics from the University’s Department of Physics have been exploring the effect of semi-transparent PV materials placed over crops – an exemplary application of agrivoltaics (solar panels combined with agricultural settings).

As part of this work, the team has developed an innovative freeware tool that predicts the light transmission, absorption, and power generation of different PV materials nearly anywhere on the globe using geographical, physical, and electrical measurements.

Austin Kay, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate at Swansea University, said: “This technology, which allows us to compare many types of PV material, could help us determine how we balance food production and renewable energy generation.”

A key factor for optimising agrivoltaics is selecting the appropriate PV material, which requires an understanding of how the material absorbs different wavelengths (colours) of light, as well as its bandgap. A wider bandgap means the material can absorb light that is higher-energy and has a shorter wavelength (blue), while a narrower bandgap allows the absorption of lower-energy, longer wavelength (red) light.

By carefully selecting PV materials with specific bandgaps and absorption properties, researchers can fine-tune the ‘colour’ of light transmitted through semi-transparent PVs to hit the crops, which mainly absorb red and blue light to photosynthesise, reflecting green light.

Project lead, Associate Professor Ardalan Armin, said: “By optimising the combination of solar panels and agriculture, agrivoltaics has the potential to significantly contribute to the decarbonisation of the agricultural sector. This approach not only generates clean energy but also enhances food security.”

Solar panels or PVs can be introduced into agricultural settings in many ways to provide locally generated power with minimal effect on a farm’s output. They can be attached to the roofs of greenhouses or polytunnels and can also be used to provide shelter for livestock. In return, the livestock can reduce maintenance costs by eating vegetation around the panels. However, careful consideration of the type of livestock is crucial as some species, like goats, can jump onto the PVs and cause irreversible damage.

Read the paper On the Performance Limits of Agrivoltaics—From Thermodynamic to Geo-Meteorological Considerations in full.

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Journal

Solar RRL

DOI

10.1002/solr.202400456 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

On the Performance Limits of Agrivoltaics—From Thermodynamic to Geo-Meteorological Considerations