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We've already talked about this giant floating solar thermal power plant that the UAE has its eyes on. But now a new kind of solar island is floating down the river of possibility. Peter Richardson's Solar Lily Pad proposal for the International Design Awards ‘Land and Sea’ competition, pulled in first prize and the city of Glasgow seems to be seriously considering making the proposal a reality.
Some would say that there's plenty of space in cities for distributed solar power on roofs. However, this isn't entirely true. Solar thermal plants, which focus the sun's rays to create extreme heat in order to turn turbines, cannot be used in cities. Because of the extreme heat, and the danger of someone stumbling across (or into) one of them, they have to be carefully guarded and separated from passersby.
However, I'm not sure if Richardson wants to use photovoltaics or solar thermal. If he wants to use photovoltaics, then I don't really see the advantage, aside from having large areas of contiguous, in-city solar potential. In America, we find that on the roof of the local Wal-Mart...not in our rivers.
I would want some assurance that the River Clyde would not be harmed in any way. I'm not familiar with Scotland's ecology, but it seems pretty obvious that the water temperature would be lowered by this project, potentially impacting the species that live in the river.
The solar pads would be rotated throughout the day, so that the slanted panels could track the sun, and power would be delivered to shore via tethers. Glasgow's city council is considering a small pilot project in conjunction with the Glasgow Science Centre. If that ever gets off the ground, you know EcoGeek will let you know.
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written by Bob Wallace, May 13, 2008
Look at all that available roof top space in the left hand picture. You can put racks there, get a lot more energy per watt of panel, and not uglify the river.
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written by steven montain, May 14, 2008
Roofs are out of the way and out of sight. Often AC units or water towers are up on roofs- utilities- so why not solar?
Solar panels on rivers... hahaha.
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written by spfl49, May 14, 2008
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written by gerda, May 14, 2008
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written by Bob Wallace, May 14, 2008
And they are talking about rotating the panels on a horizontal plane to track the sun during the day. That's not the path the sun follows most of the year.
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This is only true when you get near the focal point. The mirror sites themselves are barely over ambient sunlight temperatures, so in fact, you COULD do rooftop mirrors for a central solar thermal site in cities.
The problems with a rooftop model lie mainly in mirror maintenance, land owners, and several other nontechnical issues.