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Solar Tree Bears Fruit
Hugh Pickens writes "A prototype solar tree that recently went on display on a busy street in Vienna, Austria has passed a key test by providing light during the night-time even when the sun had been blocked by clouds for four days in a row. The branches of the solar tree were decorated with 10 solar lamps, each one powered by 36 solar cells. The tree included rechargeable batteries and electronic systems to measure the amount of light in the atmosphere and trigger the solar lamps to go on. 'Not just trees but other objects could be decorated with solar cells and so keep streets well lit at night time,' said Christina Werner from Cultural Project Management. Google uses a similar concept to light their parking lots with 3,000 solar panels that provide up to 10 percent of the Googleplex's power demand. We discussed Google's solar initiative last year."
How much non-renewable energy does it take to produce each solar tree?
gosh, I mean, it's ugly.
really.
oh my.
With a few minor changes, this "tree" could collect the rain water that runs off the solar panel and store it in its "trunk." Then, it would slowly release the water during the night to water the plants around the base of the tree. The result would save water and create a literally greener environment.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
How big are their parking lots?
I believe Vienna is in AUSTRIA.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
how much energy is going to be wasted on replacing the stolen cells ?
Telperion and Laurelin?
how much does it cost and how long till some asshats destroy it?
As a citizen of Austria, I find it quite astonishing that this thing was able to provide light for a couple of days, although I have to admit that compared to now October still had plenty of daylight. I don't know whether or not they have been removed from the streets, but it would be pretty interesting to see for how long they can go in December/January, when it's quite dark throughout the entire month.
Apart from the energy savings, though, I wouldn't necessarily want to see them implemented throughout the city. Most of the 1st district's lighting is quite dim, giving the whole city with its many historic buildings a bit of a romantic flair, which - in my opinion - would be lost with all those bright lights everywhere.
:/- spoon(_).
... or heard or read about it. Anyway, this tree seems to be rather a piece or art than anything that is likely to go into mass production anytime soon.
So long as fossil fuels are being burned to make power during the day, it is far more efficient to take the daytime output of the most cost-effective possible panels (usually nice unimaginative rectangular ones that mount on existing roofs or new carport structures) and feed it directly to the grid to reduce the load on the inefficient plants that peak during the daytime. There is no reason to lose a major chunk of the power charging batteries, to build expensive battery arrays or to build bizarre structures to support the cells.
At night, the worst power plants are throttled back or shut down and the most efficient plants are handling the load.
When no further fossil fuels are used to make daytime power, then storing electricity from daylight becomes interesting and, even then, batteries are a loser.
So it sounds like we are producing solar cells equivalent to a few power plants every year. (Yes I realize that solar panels are rated in peak watts.) That's a lot but solar won't replace coal any time soon.
Aren't trees already solar powered?
Remember that Simpson's ep. where Mr. Burns blocked the sun? That's EXACTLY what happened here.
I am surprised by the design. I would think that the horizontal solar collectors would soon be covered with dirt from the rain, decreasing their power generating capacity. And I have a LED light bulb on my front porch. It cost about $20 and is bery dim, about as much light as a 15 watt incandescent lightbulb would produce. Even with 10-20 of these, it would not produce as much light as one of the regular street lights produce. If you notice in the picture, the real street lighting is produced the regular way. This is just and interesting sculpture to have in front of the opera house.
So I guess whether it's beautiful or ugly is a subjective value judgement.
This is immaterial anyway, since the shape and design can be changed at will. More important is the principle that street lights capture their own energy.
Why bother going to the trouble of milking high quality renewable energy from the environment if you're just going to waste it on something frivolous like keeping an empty expanse of pavement lit up for eight hours a day!? If we stopped frittering away energy on pointless things like lighting empty parking lots, we'd have a lot less to worry about in terms of energy security. Even the big G doesn't get it.
The sun is in your hand!
flamebait ??? fact ! mods on crack... it's a real pain, simply read, don't let your fanboyism get the better of you.
From the photograph I'd love to see these effective at a 20 - 30 degree slop from horizontal so as us folks who get SNOW could still utilize these without them becoming a catcher's mitt for heavy snowfall.
I thought this was going to be a story of a genetically modified tree that used it's own energy to emit light, or power a light source. turn out the "solar" tree merely functions as a substitute lamp post, just something to hang real solar panels on. shit they could have just used any old object to hanf things on, like a horse, a ladder, a wax sculpture, etc. the same result would have been attained.
There are commercially available solar street lights in the US. 5-day battery backup, resistant to 150MPH winds. "During the 2004 hurricane season in Florida, SLV models withstood ground zero wind conditions from category 5 hurricanes and typhoons." Just what's needed to provide light during emergencies.
The "Solar Tree" is more of an art project.
I'd buy arguments on the value of light in dim areas -- deters crime and reduces accidents and so forth. Energy conservation? Well and good.
But what's with the design? The things are straight out of some 70's hipster's living room; they'd look at home next to pod chairs and fuzzy wall paintings. Does nobody today ever step back and think, "what will these look like in 15 years?"
Blech.
[Preview captcha "futile." True, how true...]
When will those fucking assholes stop polluting just about every square millimeter of our planet with artificial ugly light?! It's totally outrageous that just about nobody alive today has actually ever had the chance to experience why we call the milky way the milky way.
0x or or snor perron?!
Enough with the light pollution already.
And somewhere, another astronomer is rolling over in his grave.
It's sad that there are very few places left in the world where one can experience a dark night's sky. I don't think we want to be going MORE in that direction.
These solar-powered city lights look practical only for cities where it doesn't snow. Those flat panels set parallel to the ground will collect piles of snow in the winter, possibly for weeks on end. After the batteries drain, the street below simply is not lit, which is a safety hazard. And for you suburban dwellers who assume street lighting's purpose is to show drivers where the curbs are: its primary purpose in cities is to cut down on street crime. Unlit city streets are a safety hazard not as a matter of potential stubbed toes, but as a matter of life-or-death situations.
Pigeons will also find these nice flat surfaces a great place to land and, um, leave deposits. Adding a few spikes to each panel would cut down on that, or angling the panels to make them less of a landing zone.
But these are solvable problems. There is great hope that engineers and artists can combine forces to create practical but beautiful solar-powered city lights.
when someone invents a cheap way to illuminate a whole city during nighttime, amateur astronomy will die :(
...at 45 degrees. Sure, you'd lose efficiency but this could be made up for by having a few more panels. The payoff would be the self-cleaning action when rain falls, plus birds would be less likely to roost on them.
Works fine up north. My personal solar dealer is located in upstate new york, they get plenty of snow and the panels work fine for him, albeit he runs a hybrid system, windcharger plus solar. My use of solar and snow indicates to me that the dark panels tend to melt the snow quickly, plus the winter settings (you adjust the angle a few times a year if on a separate array rack), helps the process from the steeper angle in the winter. At most a slight touch with a broom gets all the snow to slide off once a thin layer of melt forms at the surface.
Solar has been affordable for a long time now, the hundreds of thousands of working installations out there prove it. Renting your electricity from the local monopoly will never result in a payback, never, all you do is keep paying for their infrastructure over and over again, while they get rich and you get constantly rising energy bills that will never stop. The choice right now is, eventually get to own the system, that is a variable but it does happen well within the warranty time range, after that all the electricity is free, or never own the system, just pay for it, and pay their bill forever, and that bill is guaranteed to always go up. Build equity-or rent, your choice.
Solar cells are expensive. These things could become an easy target for thieves.
All that needs to be done is to make a law around the world so that all new houses, premises, businesses etc have to have solar panels. The old houses will take time but at least it is a start. With the law, the price of solar panels will go down due to increased demand and older houses will be able to afford solar panels.
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Please use solar power to replace fossil fuel based power plants. And after these have all been replaced, replace the fission plants. We don't need to light the streets at night. Most street lights are badly designed, and most of the light goes up into the sky, being wasted for nothing. From the pictures of this one, it looks no different. Streetlights waste a light of light, thus energy and often illuminate the street badly. Right beneath it, you are basked in light so that you barely see what is happening a meter/3 feet to the side of you. It blocks out the stars, and in many cities you are already happy if the planets are visible. All these lights are also bad for nature. Night animals need the dark, day animals too. Our cities our drowning in light, offering no security, no health benefits, no starry nights, and only waste energy. Please, just turn them of.
This tree is neat and cool and all, but would you mind not putting it right outside my apartment window!!?!?!?
>:(
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
what's that bright thing near the shore of Argentina in South America? did anyone nuked the Falklands? :)