Homely Scientist

 Think of all the small, free-standing structures you see in a given day.  Bus stops, small sheds, fixed awnings.  They are put there to keep sun (yes and rain, I know) off people.  What about the roofs of those structures?  Looks like there could be a product that will let us take advantage of a lot of small surfaces and use them as solar collectors:

Soliant’s primary customer is commercial building owners but the company’s product design is flexible enough that it has developed a specialized solar-power generator for car parks, or roofs that shade cars during the day.

“One thing we realized about a year ago was that we could make very large panels, which is something that ordinary solar panels can’t do,” said company CEO Brad Hines.

The company’s traditional “heliotube” concentrator, which is meant to be the same size as traditional solar panels, has 10 tubes that shine light onto solar cells.

To make a product to shade cars it used the same basic design, but by stringing together 16 tubes, Soliant makes the panel a little over 8 feet long, said Hines. The company is planning to ship its commercial products by the end of this year. Source: Solar power while you park the car | Tech news blog – CNET News.com

I know I’m sounding like a broken record here, but it’s these kinds of simple innovations that can add up to the big stuff.  Heck I saw one today on GearLive’s unboxing–instead of having a screensaver come on after five minutes, just have the screen turn off then.  Simple, easy and will save a lot of power … a lot.

Let’s just brainstorm and think of more things … like what about micro-hydropower generators in downspouts?  Out here when it rains, it rains.  Why not use the power of the water going down the drain pipe generate a little power.  If nothing else they could charge batteries to power outside lights.

Together I know we can work through this.

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