Posts Tagged ‘solar power’
Solar Energy from Existing Structures: Free Calculator
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on November 11th, 2011
Source: Renewables International
Image from SEES Manual
From New software calculates a city’s potential by Sven Ullrich & Craig Morris:
Researchers at the University of Göteborg in Sweden have come up with a new computer program to analyze the potential of solar power generation and solar heat for entire cities. The program supports a wide range of data formats.
Called Solar Energy from Existing Structures (SEES), the new software collects, stores, analyzes, and graphically displays geographical data for roofs to determine their suitability for solar arrays. It calculates both the angle of solar incidence and shading from trees and nearby structures. In addition to this data, the roof angle and climate data are included with a resolution of up to an hour. The program shows building roofs in their actual environment. In the model, the sun shines on the building’s three-dimensional surroundings to correctly reveal shading, which can also be calculated for individual months and the year as a whole.
Read the full article by Sven Ullrich & Craig Morris on Renewables International.
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DIY Solar-Powered Indoor Kitchens
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on August 26th, 2011
Source: No Tech Magazine
From “Build a Solar Powered (Interior) Kitchen“:
Solare Brücke is an organisation that promotes the distribution of solar thermal technology, both in developing countries and in the first world. They offer detailed construction manuals, which can all be downloaded for free.
One example is the Scheffler-Reflector: “To make cooking simple and comfortable the cooking-place should not have to be moved, even better: it should be inside the house and the concentrating reflector outside in the sun. The best solution was a eccentric, flexible parabolic reflector which rotates around an axis parallel to earth-axis, synchronous with the sun. Additionally the reflector is adjusted to the seasons by flexing it in a simple way.”
The Scheffler-Reflector can be built in steel or aluminium, and there are additional manuals available for the mechanical tracking system, a stove and a baking oven. There are also plans for a solar tunnel dryer and a smaller solar cooker.
Read the original article at No Tech Magazine.
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Retrofitting Solar Panels to Existing Structures: High Speed Rail
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on June 15th, 2011
Source: guardian.co.uk
From “High-speed Euro train gets green boost from two miles of solar panels” by Damian Carrington:
A two-mile-long Belgian rail tunnel, built to shelter trains from falling trees, will from Monday provide a double environmental benefit by hosting a unique solar power project. The high-speed line running from Paris to Amsterdam passes Antwerp and a nearby ancient forest. To avoid the need to fell protected trees, a long tunnel was built over the line which has now been topped with 16,000 solar panels. The electricity produced is equivalent to that needed to power all the trains in Belgium for one day per year, and will also help power Antwerp station.
“For train operators, it is the perfect way to cut their carbon footprints because you can use spaces that have no other economic value and the projects can be delivered within a year because they don’t attract the protests that wind power does,” said Bart Van Renterghem, UK head of Belgian renewable energy company Enfinity, which installed the panels. “We had a couple of projects lined up around London with train operators and water utilities, but they have been put on hold.” Van Renterghem said this was due to the UK government’s controversial review of subsidies for large-scale solar power projects, which will lower the returns available.
The UK government argues that solar technology is too expensive, but Van Renterghem said he had seen the cost of cells halve in the last two to three years thanks to economies of scale in Germany, France and Belgium. The new Blackfriars station in London, which will span the River Thames, will host the largest single collection of solar panels in the UK when it opens in spring 2012. The roof of the new station will have 4,400 panels and a capacity of 1MW, enough to provide 50% of the station’s electricity. However, the development is not dependent on the level of government subsidy for solar power as the £7.3m bill was paid by the transport department’s environment fund.
Read this article by Damian Carrington on The Guardian.
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Ecopolis video – featuring Australia’s John Lasich and his solar technology
Posted in Models by fedwards on January 30th, 2009
Check out this Youtube video (3 minutes) which features John Lasich, Co-Founder of Solar System, who believes that we can access enough energy for all the world’s megacities (more on sustainable cities!).