Solar daylighting to offset LED lighting in vertical Farming: A Techno-Economic study of light pipes

Vertical farming is a controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) approach in which crops are grown in stacked layers under regulated climate and lighting, enabling predictable production but requiring high electricity input. This study quantifies the techno-economic impact of roof-mounted daylighting in a three-tier container vertical farm using a light-pipe (LP) system that delivers sunlight to the upper tier. The optical chain, comprising a straight duct and a tilting aluminum-coated mirror within a rotating dome, was modelled in Tonatiuh to estimate crop-level photon delivery and solar gains. These outputs were coupled with a transient AGRI-Energy model to perform year-round simulations for Dubai. Tier-3 strategies were compared against a fully LED benchmark, including daylight-only operation, on/off supplementation, PWM dimming, UV–IR filtering, variable-transmittance control, and simple glazing. Ray-tracing predicted a crop-level LP optical efficiency of 45%–75%, depending on solar position, quantifying the fraction of incident daylight at the collector aperture delivered to the target growing zone. Daylight-only operation reduced the total three-tier yield by 17% and was not economically viable despite 27–29% electricity savings. Hybrid daylight–LED strategies preserved benchmark yield while reducing electricity use. PWM dimming combined with UV–IR filtering achieved the lowest specific electricic energy consumption (6.32 kWh kg-1), 14% below the benchmark. Overall, viability remains CAPEX-limited because achievable electricity savings are insufficient to offset the added investment and thus improves mainly under high electricity and carbon-price contexts, although the LP system delivers a 15–38% lower light cost than an optical-fiber reference under identical incident daylight.