Thursday 29 April 2010

give us our daily sun...

...and everything will be okay!

While the subjects we blogged on recently are all but sustainable and immensely inefficient (for us normal people, at least, and unless you are involved with rats over banksters) we would like to remind you (and ourselves) that there are indeed real and proven ways to boost efficiency and narrow the gap on sustainability; here is one we "follow" and are about to install in the North of Scotland!


PV [photovoltaic] panels (do not mix those up with thermal solar cells for heating up water) are mounted on a tracking device that follows the sun's path (altitude and azimuth) from East to West and from dawn to sunset; with other words, it awaits sunrise in the East looking vertically into the fire following it until it sets in the West, every day, summer and winter, year in, year out.

The below chart explains the difference between fixed PV panels (fixed slope type), a system that would follow the sun over one dimension (single axis) and the system that makes the most out of the "sun's shine" and follows same over both dimensions, altitude and azimuth.


The overall electric output of the PV panels increases by 40 to 55%!

Now, that is what we call "efficiency meets sustainability"!

Or, to go with Oscar Wilde:

Everything will be okay in the end.
If it is not okay,
it is not the end!

Carpe diem!

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