Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Rotating Sun-Catching Solar Roof


Here's a bit from Treehugger.com about a Spanish research team's novel approach to designing solar-powered home. More below:
The single-story house has a square design, which helps avoid energy loss in its layout. It's designed as a modest (45 square meters) home suitable for production as a prefab. It's been carefully designed to help make more efficient use of the solar power accumulated by the rotating roof: "a recirculation heat/refrigeration liquid capture system is responsible for redistributing all the energy captured through the walls storing it in raised thermal inertia
mass." Which means that the energy can be used to either heat or cool the house,
depending on the weather at any given time.


There are other efficient ideas implemented, like the use of "a skylight that illuminates the center of the house with diffused light," to save electricity, and passive design principles abound, but the star is most certainly the rotating, 2-ton solar panel laden roof


"The roof incorporates a carefully chosen combination of thermal and photovoltaic panels that emphasize its square design . . . it will be able to offer the necessary 30 or 45 degree angle according to the latitude where the house is located and the angle of the sun in each season of the year. At night the roof can be laid flat to offer minimum resistance given its balanced
design."


- Brewskie

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