Artificial light plant factory using LED lighting
June 06, 2023
In July, Doha City, Miyagi Prefecture, the 311 earthquake-stricken area in Japan, showed the media an artificial light-type plant factory using LED lighting. This is the largest plant factory in the world that uses LED lighting. It is expected to harvest about 10,000 a day. Lettuce and so on. For a time, LED plant lighting has become the hottest topic in the industry. Not only GE, Siemens, Philips and other overseas lighting manufacturers are investing heavily in plant lighting, but domestic lighting companies have joined the trend without exception. However, Yang Guoqing, general manager of Shenzhen Ruisipu Lighting Technology Co., Ltd. said that LED plant lighting is still only a virtual fire. Under the constraints of lack of comprehensive talents and high cost, LED plant lighting has not been industrialized, and only Can target the high-end market. Investors are optimistic about market growth. From the global market, the LED plant lamp sales market is mainly concentrated in Japan, South Korea, the United States, Europe and other countries and regions with less agricultural personnel. At present, there are many LED plant factories in foreign countries, which can realize the mass production of plants. In Japan this year, about 40 vegetables are produced through automated factories such as LED cultivation, and the products are mainly supplied to medium and high-end supermarkets and stores. According to a global industry survey, the global LED plant growth lamp output has shown rapid growth since 2013. It is expected to exceed US$35 million in 2014 and reach US$300 million in 2017. Some international companies have increased their investment in LED plant factories. Not only foreign lighting companies, but also a domestic wind market. The author understands that China's current LED plant lighting industry is growing rapidly with a market growth rate of 20, and more than 50 LED lighting companies are doing LED plant lighting related research and development. In the past 10 years, the horticultural area of facilities in China has developed rapidly, and the light environment control technology of plant growth has attracted attention. The greenhouse cultivation and flower industry development in Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Henan and other areas are quite mature, so LED plant lights have great market potential. Compared with fluorescent lamps, LED lighting can save not only 40% of power but also increase the amount of light by adjusting the wavelength of light. Plants can perform 16 hours of photosynthesis per day, but the natural light time is very limited, making plants grow slowly. If you use LED lights, you can continue to add light to plants, and use LED light instead of natural light. The fastest ripening period of vegetables can be shortened by one-third, which can increase production. The original 15 days of mature vegetables can be harvested in just 5 days. A typical example of promoting plant growth by irradiation with LED light. Only the plant factory breeding industry has provided a huge consumer market for LED light sources. According to the calculation of the Nanjing Agricultural University research group, the export of seedlings alone reaches nearly 10 billion plants per year, and the annual domestic consumption is larger. If LEDs are used instead of traditional light sources in plant factory nursery, the one-time total market size will reach 200 billion yuan. The key technical difficulty of talents is not great. At present, the market model of domestic plant lighting is based on the cooperation between enterprises and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, that is, the research institutes are looking for some professional LED plant lighting enterprises, and we jointly draft some standards for product development. The domestic LED plant lamp market is still in its infancy, and there are still problems such as high cost and poor light penetration ability in the field of plant growth. Agricultural lighting fixtures also have problems such as product clutter, irregular production design, lack of uniform product standards and quality management. LED plant lighting technology is not very difficult, the key is the lack of comprehensive talents who understand biological cultivation knowledge and LED technology. The technology and production process required for LED plant lighting is no different from general lighting. The key is the choice of chip spectrum. Take the largest plant lighting fixtures in the current application market as an example, although LED light bead configurations based on red and blue light are selected according to plant requirements. Yang Guoqing said that in fact, many LED plant lighting companies can do, as long as you understand the relevant wavelengths of sunlight required by plants, and then go to the market to buy chips of similar bands, package and assemble, you can make LED plant lighting products. Although the related chip technology for plant lighting has matured, different plants have different requirements for light irradiation and different living environments, which requires enterprises to have a deeper understanding of different plant spectra, living conditions and culture environment. And this is where the many companies are currently plagued. In response to talent issues, many international companies have chosen to cooperate with research institutes to establish laboratories or plant factories with the support of policies. However, for domestic companies, this investment is too large and the cost is too high. At present, some enterprises cooperate with agricultural research institutions, basically discussing relevant technical issues, and rarely involve the experimental application stage. Most of the SMEs' investment in plant lighting only stays on the independent research and development of a few plants such as tomato and Chinese cabbage, that is, simple illumination of related plants with LED lamps. The author visited several LED companies in Shenzhen, they all have research and development related to LED plant lighting, but they also admitted that similar to this market segment, if there is an order, they will produce, if there is no order, they will not go to production. The author understands that there are not many enterprises that can mass-produce LED plant lighting products at present. There are only a few of them, and there are only a few in scale. The market has gaps in many areas. The attitude of most companies is that LED plant lighting is not the company's main product, and the company just regards it as one of the strategic markets of the future. The price is mainly used in the high-end market. However, LED plant lighting is currently used to cultivate high-end products such as marijuana and mustard, which are expensive, but the cost is high, but the return is fast and the profit is high. Not only that, but LEDs can also control the growth rate of plants, which can extend the flowering period of flower plants, so that economic crops can be free from seasonal restrictions and accelerate the results. Although ordinary vegetables can be cultivated with LED plant lighting, the economic benefits are not high. Take a Chinese cabbage as an example. It can be matured in 45 days. It can be grown in 15 days with LED plant lights. However, from the perspective of economics, the price of a artificially cultivated Chinese cabbage market is more than 40 yuan, while the traditional sun-lit Chinese cabbage requires only a few yuan, and the price difference between the two is very different. In addition, the price of LED plant lighting products itself is relatively expensive, which inhibits the large-scale promotion of the market to some extent. The current cost is still high. A common LED lamp for leafy growth is generally 400,500 yuan. It is hard to say when it will be able to usher in the future. Shi Guangdian, deputy general manager of Shenzhen Wright Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. said that the cycle and wavelength of plant growth are different, the process is different, and the price is also very different.
