World is at its close to rely on the renewable sources to harness energy production at its best capability. Talking about renewable way of energy, solar is what hints major of our minds and that’s quite a fact too. The past twenty years had a lump-sum solar installation across the globe owing to its reliable, one-time investment and eco-friendly approach to light and breeze homes. Solar valuation in the world holds steady in its colossal compound annual growth at a rate of 20.5%. Its hurdles of installing and storage of power have gone worthless now, and many innovations and updates had enabled the market to be bullish.
You will get to know the innovative & interesting breakthroughs that happened in the Solar field in this article.
Well before that, lets have a quick overview of Solar Power harnessing. Solar power is the end product of converting sunlight (light source) to electricity. This generation of power is done by using either photovoltaic cells (PV Cells), simply called solar panels or Concentrated solar power, which employs mirrors and reflecting surfaces to concentrate the reflecting solar to the focal point, where a liquid line runs through a tube and on heated liquid, energy is generated by imparting turbine in the plan. Solar gets achieved either any of these two or both. With this, let’s head to the body.
Pavagada Solar Park in Karnataka, India holds the largest Photovoltaic Power generating station in the world, producing 2050 MW of power.
7 Solar Innovations at its Best
Solar Skins
Good bye to the old kind of installing solar power, demanding wide space for set-up. Here comes the Solar skin, the photovoltaic cells that can be annexed to your roofs without compromising its efficiency and production. The solar skins can have custom designs and are accustomed to the consumer’s solar power model & space. It’s similar to the ad wraps on the bus windows. The falling sunlight is filtered by the skins to reach the solar cells beneath it.
Sistine Solar, leading manufacturer of these skins is testing the technology at United States to increase its efficiency as well. The skins can be laid on your grassy lawns, on your roof tops & in business and government offices too, for various applications.
Solar Fabrics – (Cloth)
Solar Fabrics, as the name itself indicates, is just a fabric that has tiny solar panels stitched along it. It’s hard to imagine, but in an era of technology and innovation, it’s real. Like other solar wearables such as solar watches, researches had made possible to design a solar-cloth that powers your phone and provide energy for other needs while you’re on the go. The fabric is stitched along with tiny solar filaments and hence embedded into your t-shirts, woolen coats and any other clothing. This emerging solar technology is credited to textile designer Marianne Fairbanks and chemist Trisha Andrew.
Well, the solar fabrics are entailed to be used as window curtains, windshields and building facades catering both shadow and power.
Solar realm companies are in talks with US army to manufacture solar-powered robotic tents.
Solar powered Roads
Its quite interesting than others. Can you imagine that even roads are solar-powered? An US company started testing it in the footpaths of Route 66, US interstate highway. The roadways are heralded for its ability to generate energy and light up the LED lights on the road and for also their thermal heating capacity to melt snow at winter times.
These roads can be an origin to extend all around the world. Solar roadways has a lot more to inscribe and develop to match out the solar power generation and the ability to withstand the vehicles on the road simultaneously.
While solar roadways had an immense capability to fetch electricity to nearly 80% of the energy needed in US, if entire US roads are solar-powered.
Solar Batteries – Tesla Powerwall
A concerning hurdle while switching to solar installation accounts to its storage. While if you want to go for off-grid projects, to harness completely your solar power, here is Tesla’s Powerwall, simply a rechargeable Li-ion battery with liquid thermal control that can store solar energy and access it, when prompted. The solar storage solution helps you to avail a sustained power supply during the day & night.
It is usually paired with the home solar panel system and is modelled to meet out the day-to-day frequent recharging & discharging of energy.
Tesla Powerwall has a 10 years warranty on its product, but limited to certain places and conditions and hence not accessible worldwide. However, you can contact on a dealer, if your location can be accessed.
Solar Tracking Mounts
Solar tracking mounts are just upgrades to the conventional solar panel installations. The photovoltaic panels are mounted to a certain direction, that can’t be altered, even over a course of time. PV tracking systems tilt and shift the angle of a solar array as the day goes by to best match the location of the sun. Though this panel add-on has been available for some time, solar manufacturers are truly embracing the technology. GTM Research recently unveiled a recent report that shows a major upward trend in the popularity of tracking systems. GTM projects a 254 percent year-over-year increase for the PV tracking market this year. The report stated that by 2021, almost half of all ground mount arrays will include solar tracking capability.Quite Interesting!
Flexible Solar Panels
Flexible solar panels involve small solar panels interlinked with one another and facilitates you to power your mobiles and other gadgets. The flexible panels are pinned on the back-pack and seems to be a great treat for tourists and campers.
Designed by Brad Brister, the innovation is the runner-up of James Dyson Award 2019. You can find more info about the product at its designer’s website.
Read also: 10 Latest Tech Gadgets/Devices that would amaze you
Solar Water Purifiers
Stanford University collaborating with Department of Energy works on a new solar device that can purify water, when exposed to sunlight. Contrast to conventional solar water purifiers, a big size purifier requiring UV rays & hours of solar energy to get the needed ability to purify water, these tablet-sized purifiers can access visible light and demands only few minutes for purification.
The purifiers are manufactured to attack campers, trekkers and hikers as its ideal first-line consumers.
Epilogue
Innovations lining up, as we have seen it above, there are still more to embrace the solar field. It’s no doubt that Solar Power Generation would be the largest source of electricity generation in 2050 and the statement gets proved by the International Energy Agency’s prediction. Also, Allied Market Research concluded that the realm would value $223 Billion in 2026, more than 20% annual growth rate.
Have you made your mindset to install solar in your homes? Comments welcomed!
References:
- https://news.energysage.com/tesla-powerwall-complete-review/
- https://news.energysage.com/solar-roadways-what-you-need-to-know/
- https://news.energysage.com/solar-panel-technology-advances-solar-energy/
- https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/solar-panel-technologies-that-will-revolutionize-energy-production
- https://www.powermag.com/blog/future-of-solar-energy-brighter-than-sun-rapid-innovations-pave-the-way/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power
