Company Wants to Produce Solar-Power Trees

What’s green and leafy and full of solar energy? If you guessed a tree, you’re right, but this tree isn’t quite like any you’ve seen before.

Solar Botanic Ltd., a London company, founded last year from an idea first conceptualized in 2002, aims to create fake plastic trees (no comment on if they received inspiration from Radiohead) that can generate real solar power. The company looks to create more attractive solar power, laying to rest complaints concerning the aesthetic shortcomings of wind turbines or traditional solar panels.

It’s worth noting that Solar Botanics is not the first to come up with the concept “solar trees” -- UC San Diego created “trees” – solar panels with trunks. However, Solar Botanics aims to take biomimicry to new heights, actually making solar-generating trees actually look like trees, complete with leaves.

The ambitious design places three power generating devices in each “nanoleaf”. In the leaf’s petioles (the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem) rest tiny piezoelectric nanogenerators, capable of capturing the wind’s kinetic energy and transforming it into electricity. A second device, a layer in the leaf, consists of thermoelectrics to convert solar heat into electricity. Finally, a third device, a photovoltaic layer in the leaf, transforms light from the sun into electricity.

Solar Botanic claims that a single solar tree with a 20 feet (appr. 6 meter) canopy could generate enough power to satisfy the needs of an average home. Further, the company claims the tree could produce 120,000 kilowatt-hours over a two decade lifespan. The envision a scenario where city streets are lined with the trees, powering electric vehicles.

These are big claims and a bit hard to believe without seeing a finished product. However, Solar Botanic can’t be faulted on their enthusiasm and innovative approach. If they can create a production version of their solar tree at a reasonable price, they just might change the solar industry.

Email this

Comments (14) Add Comment

Subscribe to this comment's feed

...
written by solargroupies, June 01, 2009

Seeing new innovations such as this in the renewable energy field leaves me with the feeling that we are just in the infancy phase of what can emerge if funding and political leadership sustain the effort on a fast track for more than a couple of years.

This is a GREAT idea!
written by E. Sheppard, June 01, 2009

I like the idea of having a solar power generator on my property. Especially if it looks like a tree. If it is sturdy, it should be so practical - - giving energy AND shade. Now to have it be inexpensive...

Innovation Needs to Belong to the Small
written by JosÃƒÂ© Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D., June 01, 2009

The power industry investor owned utilities (IOUs) architecture framework (IOUs-AF), that is being extended once more through the large smart grid stimulus, is unable to integrate demand side innovations (DSIs) like those of solar power trees. The IOUs-AF is a bubble that is bound to explode in the future. Please take a look at the EWPC article "Innovation Needs to Belong to the Small" to get a better idea of what I am talking about in the link http://www.energyblogs.com/ewp...-the-Small

...
written by Mike @Advorec, June 02, 2009

Great idea - finally we have a potential self powering Christmas tree!

Seriously, this kind of inventions can be applied everywhere, already we are installing solar panels as window sills, shades and fake windows. The use of the softer type of cells makes for a less efficient conversion but equally increases the ways we can use it.

SNAKE OIL
written by Andrew Young, June 03, 2009

I've seen like 5 of these sites from different "companies".

The one time i called one of the out for putting random stress strain equations over a picture of a leaf, they ever mailed me back.

I'm a Mechanical Engineeering student and am doing research in the MEMS/NEMS fields. These people are full of it.

There is snake oil and also disruptive t
written by JosÃƒÂ© Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D., June 03, 2009

If I remember correctly, initially IBM's market research department thought they could only sell 5 computers. I have seen at least 5 other disruptive technologies like those: the first telephones were simple toy examples vs the giant telegraph systems. Now we have iPhones, which combine computers and telephones. Even Dick Tracy's wrist watch is already available.

Will solar energy be snake oil or the key disruptive technology that looks like a toy today in front of the huge utilities?

Potential Solar Disruptive Tech.
written by JosÃƒÂ© Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D., June 04, 2009

The answer to my question is not limited to one particular potential disruptive technology that may be a fake. The answer is that there is a need to shift away from the supply side obsolete business model and demand side management of the IOUs-AF incremental extensions to open the power industry to business model and demand side innovations in the making.

In addition to the EWPC article "Innovation Needs to Belong to the Small," whose link is in in my first post, readers should also look, for example, at the highly read http://www.energyblogs.com article "Nanosolar Breakthrough and the Old Paradigm, that has at this moment 3028 hits. This is the link http://www.energyblogs.com/ewp...d-Paradigm

...
written by andrew young, June 04, 2009

I agree completely.

I have high hopes that with things like solar Sterling engines, solar water heating, conventional solar panels, dye sensitized solar cells, etc that there will be no need for large electric grids.

Hopefully I'll be able to do some sort of research in MEMS or NEMS that will directly help with reaching that goal.

how about simply directing the solar ene
written by Thomas Taylor, June 09, 2009

you could catch energy in the leaves, and transport it down to a small pv unit built to withstand the heat.

The future is Bright - But we gotta Figh
written by Mark J, June 10, 2009

we have to push push push these innovations and such quickly and forcefully, to keep the big old energy corporations from buying up the new technologies in order to stifle them until coal, natural gas and oil are used up(bad idea!). Remember how they killed the electric car? and how General Motors was, in effect, allowed to fester in the past for decades? Battery patents are another example innovation stifling. It's a WAR! for our future, why pay for energy when it drops out of the sky everyday?

We need these solar trees in EVERY yard around EVERY building in the world. A new frontier has begun. Its a new "Sunny" day today!

-1

Everything is possible!
written by russ, June 22, 2009

However - most of these ideas are fruitcake! To read the comments about how wonderful & how innovative the crazy ideas are leaves one in doubt about the intelligence of the average individual.

Good ideas are one in thousands - great ideas are one in millions