Solar panel captures energy from an 800nm wide range (300-1100nm)
Plant captures energy from a 300nm wide range (400-700nm)
The solar panel could reproject and amplify the 300nm range at (800/300=) 2.7X more power than the sunI’m curious what is physically possible, if we assume we can achieve the max possible efficiency. I’m guessing there’s behavior like a Carnot engine, and the energy transfer can only be up to ~86% efficient (but please correct me if I’m wrong!!). In that case, conversion from light to energy via solar panels -> conversation back to light via leds should be 0.86*0.86 = 73% efficient in best case. And the full effect should be (800/300)*0.73 = 1.94, about twice as good as growing plants with the sun’s direct light. I’m surprised that seems possible!
p.s. My efficiency guesses are probably wrong. Please correct me.
And as you say the LEDs aren't 100% efficient either, though both deep red and bright blue are among the most efficient, about 85% there.
So that leaves you with about 50% overall just from those two.
So that would imply they are inherently more efficient just looking at the figures provided.