By now just about everyone on the planet has some familiarity with solar energy systems as they exist on the rooftops of homes and other buildings, as well as in the form of large solar farms. So this website is skipping right over these two forms of solar, and going on to applications that are less familiar to most people. Earlier in this website’s section on Emerging Technologies there is a “Hybrid Green Technologies” category which includes the use of solar energy devices used in partnership with other green power systems. The category we are now introducing is more about solar, not so much used with other technologies, but located in unusual or unexpected locales and situations.
Solar Farms on Closed Landfills. This is not exactly new ground, but if you are not familiar with this method of gaining new life from dumps, then you should read these: “How to Turn Trash Into Treasure: Put Solar Panels Over Landfills”. www.canarymedia.com 11/30/21. And “The Future of Landfills is Bright”. www.rmi.org 2021.
Solar on the Side of Highways. “Attach Solar Panels to Highway Noise Barriers in Lexington”. www.pvbuzz.com 6/27/22. “Massachusetts Plans to Use Solar Panels as Highway Sound Barriers in Suburban Boston”. www.pvbuzz.com 12/10/21.
Solar Thermal in Industrial Applications. “Solar Thermal’s Massive But Under-appreciated Decarbonization Potential”. www.solarflux.co 6/7/22
Community Solar a.k.a. Solar Gardens. This is something like a mini solar farm, usually located in or close to a neighborhood location, and often owned and managed by a community residents organization. Take a look at the “Community Solar” entry at Wikipedia. It looks at community solar operations in California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Utah, Vermont, Washington DC, and in the UK. In the Cape Cod town of Brewster MA, Brewster residents founded the first cooperatively run solar garden in that state. Owned and operated by the Brewster Community Solar Garden Cooperative Inc. www.brewstercommunitysolargarden.com Not far from Brewster, along the Mass. South Coast area, is the Sippican Community Solar Garden, in the town of Marion. www.sippicancommunitysolargarden.com The companies involved in getting Sippican up and running are: My Generation Energy www.mygenerationenergy.com; Suntility Electric www.suntilityelectric.com; and Enphase Energy www.enphase.com . Some further community solar sources: “How to Scale Roof Top Community Solar in Cities”. www.canarymedia.com Dec.’22; “US Community Solar Market Faces a Near-term Peak”. www.woodmac.com 7/27/21; “Community-scale Solar”. www.rmi.org/category/electricity/community-scale-solar/ ; and, re. financing community solar when there are income and credit restraints: “Community Solar Can Help Revitalize Communities”. www.canarymedia.com 10/3/22.
Islands of Green Energy. “Denmark’s $34 Billion Green Energy Island”. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFtDgw2tgW8 and “The World’s Largest Floating Solar Farm” located near Shanghai, China. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAEGNL56sEM
Building-Integrated PhotoVoltaics (BIPV). BIPVs are photovoltaic materials that are used to replace conventional building materials in parts of the building envelope such as the roof, skylights, or facades. Can be used in new construction or building retrofits. Sometimes called BAPV – Building-Applied PhotoVoltaics. See Wikipedia: “Building-integrated Photovoltaics”. Other BIPV info sources: “Platform for BIPV Solutions With Click & Go Technology”. www.solarimpulse.com Nov. 2022. bipv.world is a Dutch company specializing in BIPV software. “Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV)”. www.technopedia.com
AgriVoltaics. Agrivoltaics combines the use of solar farm-types of solar arrays located on active farmland. Agrivoltaic installations are also found in areas otherwise devoted to bee-keeping, and where livestock are grazed. The combining of solar panels with the growing of fruit and/or vegetables provides the farmer with two sources of income on his or her land: edible goods and kilowatt hours of electricity. Serious R&D in this area has been going on for a while now at some major U.S. universities, including the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, the University of Arizona, and Oregon State University. One of the premier private examples of agrivoltaics is Jack’s Solar Garden in Boulder CO. “Largest Agrivoltaic Research Project in U.S. Advances Renewable Energy While Empowering Local Farmers”. www.solarpowerworldonline.com 6/10/21. Concerned that erecting solar panels above a field of beets or squash is going to stunt their growth? Think again: “Video: How Solar Panels and Crops Can Thrive Side-by-side” www.canarymedia.com 11/21/22. “Agrivoltaics Proves Mutually Beneficial Across Food, Water, Energy Nexus”. www.phys.org/news/2019-09-agrivoltaics-mutually-beneficial-food-energy.html “Solar PV Power Potential is Greatest Over Croplands”. www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-47803-3 Our own research on agrivoltaics has found that there is a wide range of crops that grow very well while beneath the partial shade of solar panels. And there are those that provide an even better harvest when grown this way. And the solar panels themselves often produce power at a higher than normal level, as they become slightly cooled by the moisture created by the transpiration of growing vegetable matter.
Floatovoltaics (FPV) This is what it sounds like: a solar farm floating on a body of water. Sounds radical, but it’s a field that is beginning to experience some real movement. Solar panels are floated on various versions of styrofoam rafts. By being situated on water, they are not competing with other uses for land. In some situations the body of water is a drinking water reservoir. In others it might be the widened area of a river originally designed to be the holding area for a dam fitted out as a hydroelectric generating facility. A couple of the secondary benefits put forth in favor of FPV include, in the cases of reservoirs, less evaporation, and less algal growth due to less sunlight reaching the water. And the heightened efficiency of the solar panels themselves is frequently mentioned. Learn more about FPV and how it might be fitted into your community’s Climate Action Plan: “Why Floating Solar Has an Important Role to Play in the Energy Transition”. www.woodmac.com 6/8/21. “California’s River Canals”. www.pvbuzz.com (FPV on canal surfaces). “Ciel & Terre” ( French company doing pioneering work in FPV): www.ciel-et-terre.net . “Floating Solar Panels Could Unlock Clean Power Without Wasting Land”. www.canarymedia.com 12/15/22. In 2016 a company called Lightsource Renewable Energy successfully completed and connected Europe’s largest floating solar farm, installing 6.3MW on the Queen Elizabeth II Reservoir near London. “Floating Solar Powering Thames Water”. www.lightsource.com/uk/projects/queen-elizabeth-ii-reservoir-solar-project/
Flat-on-the-Ground Solar Panel Installation. Solar panels, in the northern hemisphere, are considered to be installed at the best possible angle when they are oriented full south, at a pitch of local latitude plus a few degrees. The further north you go, the steeper the pitch ought to be. The further south, the shallower the pitch. And south of the equator, in the reverse. At the equator, panels would probably be best arranged flat on the ground. There has recently been a claim made that when it comes to generating the greatest amount of solar electricity per acre of land, solar panels everywhere should be installed flat on the ground. Learn more about this at www.erthos.com/earth-mount-solar-pv-technology-assessment-summmary Also see “A Firsthand Look at a California Solar Farm With ‘Earth-Mounted’ Panels”. 4/18/23. www.canarymedia.com Flat, or earth-mounted solar panels arrangements are said to reduce solar development costs by 20%.
Multi-Family Solar. “Unconventional Way For Apartment Dwellers to Save Money on Their Energy Bills”. 4/22/23. www.thecooldown.com Re. the SolShare System from Australian startup Allume Energy. Allows sharing of solar energy between multiple units, and distributing any excess solar power back to the grid. From www.allumeenergy.com/us/how-it-works/
Solar Panels Orientation. In the northern hemisphere, solar panels are normally arrayed along an east-west line, and tilted back at an angle best suited to maximizing solar gain year-round at your particular latitude. (And the reverse in the southern hemisphere.) There are those who are now making a case for arranging panels along a north-south line. Instead of being angled back some degree, they should be installed standing straight up vertically. And for this to work, the panels themselves should not have just one photovoltaic surface, but should be what is termed bifacial – able to generate electricity from both sides of the panel. Curious? “Models Show That Installing Solar Panels Vertically Reduces the Need For Gas Imports and Electricity Storage Systems”. www.pvbuzz.com 7/23/22. This article asserts that this system is better suited to agrivoltaics than the traditional method of setting up solar panels.
Seasonal Solar Thermal Storage. When there’s an abundance of sunshine during the summer, and not all that much in the winter, and you want solar thermal heating in your home, the answer is seasonal storage. Heat enough water using solar thermal panels during the summer to carry you through the winter. This is what is going on at the master planned community of Drake Landing, in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. Drake Landing is the world’s first residential subdivision utilizing district heating, with the heat being provided, at community scale, by solar collectors. (When solar energy is accumulated in thermal rather than electric form, the correct term is solar collectors, not panels.) “Drake Landing Solar Community: Financial Summary and Lessons Learned”. www.dlsc.ca/reports/swc2019-0049-Wong.pdf There was a home in Waltham MA that was fitted out, in either the late 1960s or early 1970s, for seasonal solar thermal storage, by designating a large area of the home’s basement for use as an insulated tank that held 16,000 gallons of water. As the summer months proceeded, site-built solar collectors on the home’s roof raised the water temperatures in the basement tank, reaching a point in the fall where they were able to heat the home, which had been fitted out with a heat distribution system capable of providing adequate space heat at lower than standard temperatures. As the temperature at the top of the tank dropped below that which was sufficient to provide adequate heat all by itself, there was a small electric heater in place to get the water up to the needed temperature level. This system provided about 95% of the home’s space heating needs each winter, as well as nearly all of its domestic hot water. The home and its solar specifics are described in the book SOLAR HEATED BUILDINGS OF NORTH AMERICA; 120 OUTSTANDING EXAMPLES, by William A. Shurcliff (Brick House Publishing Company, Harrisville NH). At this moment, a copy of this book is available online at Amazon.
Solar Panels Produced On-site. From just sand. See Terra Box. Terra Box is a process that turns sand into fully operational solar panels in an on-site mini-factory. The company: Maana Electric, in Luxemburg. “Maana Electric’s TerraBox Makes Solar Panels Out of Sand and Electricity”. www.canadiancor.com and www.maanaelectric.com The cost of producing solar panels in this way is said to cost much less than purchasing them.
Solar Shingles – Mass Produced. Manufactured by GAF Energy, which is a spinoff of Standard Industries, the world’s largest roofing materials business. www.gaf.energy/timberline-solar/ A winner of Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas Awards, Energy category. Also selected for inclusion in TIME Magazine’s “Best Inventions 2022” edition. Video: “GAF Energy’s Timberline Solar Shingles” www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpCngw-30ec
Night-time Solar Power. Sounds like a scam, but maybe not. “Australian Researchers Announce Major Breakthrough That Could Lead to Solar Power at Night”. www.pvbuzz.com 5/18/22.
Super-Efficient (close to 50%) Solar Cells. “Inverted Metamorphic Multi-junction (IMM) Cells”. www.youtube.com
Perovskite. (ABX3). It is believed from numerous credible sources that this material can push solar’s maximum efficiency from 20% up to around 45%. Swift Solar. “Solar 3.0: This New Technology Could Change Everything”. www.youtube.com . “Perovskite Solar Cells” www.energy.gov/eere/solar/perovskite-solar-cells And “Perovskites Can Make Solar Panels More Efficient Than Silicone Alone”. www.canarymedia.com 10/19/22.
Organic Solar Cells, aka Organic PhotoVoltaic Cells (OPV). OPV cells are incredibly powerful when it comes to absorbing sunlight. It is a solar cell technology that is rapidly increasing in terms of technological advancements and popularity. Advantages of OPV are: very light, can cover a large area, and has low manufacturing costs. OPV are thinly filmed solar cells which have the potential to store much larger amounts of solar energy than other solar technologies. www.renewableenergyhub.co.uk/main/solar-panels/organic-solar-cells/ “Everything You Need to Know About Organic Solar Cells”. www.solarreviews.com 3/10/22.
SolarAPP+. SolarAPP+ is a free software program that streamlines and significantly shortens the solar permitting process. Can save several thousand dollars per install. It is a web-based platform that automates solar permitting for local governments and other authorities having jurisdiction. “Streamlining Solar Permitting With SolarAPP+”. www.energy.gov and www.solarapp.nrel.gov And looked at from the solar installer’s viewpoint: “SolarAPP+ is Revolutionizing Solar in the U.S.” www.dealerstore.freedomforever.com
Solar Panel Recycling. Solar panels are projected to have a working life of between 25 and 30 years. At the rate that solar panels are being produced and installed around the globe, that will result in a huge glut of materials coming into the waste and/or recycling markets in the near to mid-term future. “What Will We Do With All Those Solar Panels When Their Useful Life is Over?”. www.ensia.com/features/solar-recycling/ And a company that already well into helping to create a circular economy for solar panels: “Solar Cycle”. www.solarcycle.us