Planet Solar

I already wrote () about it last year: the Planet Solar (), the first ship in history that will travel around the world () solely on solar power. The ship has been built in the past year, and it was launched in Kiel (Germany) a few days ago. Several images () are available.

According to the specifications () the total solar cell surface is 536 square meters. The ship is propelled by two 10kW electric motors. According to a Scientific American () article the worlds largest lithium-ion battery was installed in the ship, with a weight of 13 tons and a capacity of 1300kWh. As a comparison: the yearly electricity consumption of our house is about 1000kWh per year! Not counting self-discharge and other effects, this battery when fully charged could run our household for more than a year.

After the record-setting trip, which should start in early 2011,  and is expected to last about 160 days, the owner will use the ship as a luxury yacht, a task at which it no doubt excels.

Continue reading →

Continue reading →

Solar Impulse in flight

Solar Impulse, the airplane which is slated to circumnavigate the world on solar power alone, has made its first ‘real’ test flight of about an hour and a half yesterday. According to the website () the test flight went perfectly.

From watching the movies of the flight I guess that they’ve picked a very calm day, as the plane doesn’t seem very robust to me, and probably can’t handle heavy gusts.

Just like with some of the racing cars participating in the World Solar Challenge the individual solar cells of this plane can be adopted () for prices which range from € 35 to € 6650 (!).

Below a few movies of this first test flight:

Continue reading →

Yesterday was the first full day with the new 660Wp installation in production. The graph below shows the energy production throughout the day (click for a larger view):

Production solar power 2010-04-06

It’s clear that the new installation, which is orientated at ENE, starts producing early in the morning. Yesterday morning was a bit cloudy, so the new installation wasn’t able to show its full potential. The clouds disappeared in the cause of the day and the other installations on the other side of the house start producing in earnest around 11:00-12:00. Even the 100Wp-awning does its best!

Two of the four panels

After having spent way too much time in the shed, the solar panels () I received last october finally saw daylight again as I installed them last Easter weekend. It took me a while to gather all the extra stuff I needed (installation materials, ballast, cabling) but I managed to get everything I needed and last monday was the day. The weather on Easter Monday sort of cooperated, at least it was dry and not too windy.

Although installing solar panels on a low flat roof is not very complex, it’s still a lot of work. Especially carrying all the necessary ballast (fifteen sidewalk tiles of 30x30cm and weighing about 10 kg) up a ladder was hard work, but the panels themselves were not very easy to carry up a ladder because of their size. It took me about three hours to install the entire installation, starting the clock when I had collected everything I needed in the backyard and stopping the clock at the moment I plugged the inverters in a wall socket. Despite the heavy overcast the system immediately started producing about 80 Watts.

The inverters - temporarily set up

Our solar installation now has a total size of 2125Wp (which was 1465Wp up until this weekend), so this is quite a sizeable addition. As the extra panels are not orientated optimally (ENE at an angle of twenty degrees) they’ll lose about 25% of their theoretical maximum yearly yield, according to this diagram. I estimate that the new panels will produce approximately 400kWh per year. That will increase our yearly surplus, which takes a nice bite out of our natural gas bill.

It’s clear that the addition wasn’t necessary, but ‘unfortunately’ having solar panels is a bit like an addiction: even if you have enough you want more – ever more. I regularly fantasise about useful purposes for the surplus – I am still contemplating buying an electric bicycle or even scooter. I haven’t completely discarded the idea of installing a heat pump yet, but the chance of that happening is small. A heat large heat pump needs many far-reaching modifications to our house (radiant floor heating throughout the house, or replacing all convectors with low-temperature versions, and much piping). A small heat pump, on the other hand, requires much less work to be installed but can only heat one room, which will cause the rest of the house to cool down if we don’t invest in a complex central heating control system. I keep thinking about it, though, and extra information is always welcome.

The solar panels were supplied by a subcompany of my employer, Beldezon, and the flatfix mounting system was supplied by Harrems zonnepanelen. Many thanks to both!