Sun Is The Future

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Considering the fact that about 71% of the earth’s surface is covered by water, it does make sense to explore our future energy generation in association with the water.  Our previous post was affiliated with water (World’s First Canal Solar Power Plant in India), and so will today’s post: manmade islands for the production of renewable energy.

The concept of solar islands originated from Thomas Hinderling. Now there is proposed works that could result in rotating, sun-tracking, solar-power gathering islands on Lake Neuchatel in western Switzerland. The company Viteos is planning to build three islands, each 25 meters in diameters and with PV panels that will be in operation no later than 2014. Take a look at this concept of solar islands in the video below:

The key principle behind this rotating solar-power gathering islands involve the platform being on top of an “impermeable membrane resting on a cushion of air at a slight overpressure”, according to the company Viteos press release. Apparently this enables the platform to rotate 220 degrees in the direction of the sun during the day and return to its initial position during the night. Placing this mechanism on an island increases the effectiveness of their rotation mechanism according to the lower resistance offered by the water. The plan is to anchor these islands to concrete blocks at the lake bottom and place them about 150 meters from a wastewater treatment plant in an area where boats are not allowed.

The energy produced by the PV panels atop these rotating islands will be sent ashore via cable. According to Viteos, “The goal is not to produce kilowatt or mass at the best price, but to look for alternatives and original innovative deployment of solar panels.” But as earth’s population increases, I will not be too surprised that one day this type of manmade islands may be the alternative that will provide the answer to both  originality and cost effectiveness.

~have a bright and sunny day~

gathered, written, and posted by sunisthefuture-Susan Sun Nunamaker

any comments or suggestions are welcomed at sunisthefuture@gmail.com

Homepage: http://www.sunisthefuture.net

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Tags: islands, Lake Neuchatel, PV, solar, Sun Is The Future, sunisthefuture, sunisthefuture.net, susan sun nunamaker, Switzerland, Thomas Hinderling, Viteo

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 12th, 2013 at 5:11 AM and is filed under Educational. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.