By: John Barker and Garry Baverstock
A book to inspire and surprise you is A Golden Thread: Twenty-five Hundred Years of Solar Architecture and Technology
Twenty-five hundred years! For example, back then, Socrates said: “Now, supposing a house to have a southern aspect, sunshine during winter will steal in under the verandah, but in summer, when the sun traverses a path right over our heads, the roof will afford an agreeable shade, will it not?”[1] Roman baths had south-facing windows, middle-eastern and Mediterranean houses were whitewashed to reflect summer heat and passive ventilation was developed to a fine art. These were innovations- ideas that were made to work!
Wind power has a similarly long history- Wikipedia describes examples of sailboats and windmills going back to Babylon and before[2]. There were radical innovations- major changes to design- and incremental innovations- slow improvements by serendipity, trial and error and conscious calculation. Wind-powered water pumps were important in opening up agriculture in both the USA and Australia in the 19th century and wind-powered electrical generation started in the late 19th century and was very popular by the 1920s[3]. Unfortunately, rural electrification schemes wiped out most of these systems in the post WWII era.
The innovations weren’t just passive solar and wind power: Archimedes is claimed to have set fire to invading boats at the siege of Syracuse in 212BC[4]. There is little doubt that he invented this prototype power tower- what is debatable is whether he got it to work- was it innovated?
Even Aristotle got into the act, describing the sweetness of distilled water in his book on meteorology[5]. There were many re-inventions and developments in solar desalination between Aristotle in the 4th Century BC and the construction of a very large system in Chile in the late 19th Century.
In those ancient times, not everyone thought there was scope for new solar ideas. The author of Ecclesiates, in the Old Testament wrote in about 250BC: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”[6]
Way back then, before the widespread use of coal and oil, most of the world’s economic activity was based on direct and indirect power of the sun, mainly from biomass. Necessity was the mother of invention, and innovation turned those ideas into practical realities.
While there certainly has been a lot of re-invention of solar technologies over the centuries, there are indeed new things under the sun. It is true that most of these innovations were sporadic and other than passive building design in the Mediterranean region, none of these developments really took off until the 1950s when solar water heating became popular. By the 1960s the general public caught on that solar energy had a myriad of possibilities. Using solar heat to air opened up imagination as many systems of enhanced air-drying began to appear in some industrial processes.
Of course, with the development of photovoltaics from the 1950s onwards and particularly in the 1980s where massive advances were made[7], the world started to see that the sun was not just useful for heating water, drying clothes and wind mills for pumping water.
Innovation and solar-e.com
Innovation is one of the main focuses of solar-e.com. But what is innovation? Basically it is taking an idea- usually a new idea, but not always- and making it work. We distinguish between the important initial process of creativity- generating ideas- and the process of transforming that idea into something that works- innovation.
Innovation occurs all the time, but, surprisingly, there is not a great deal written about the process of taking ideas and innovating them. solar-e.com intends to improve this situation, particularly in the area of sustainable technologies and processes.
The questions are:
Has everything been invented? Definitely not!
Has every product now in existence be in existence forever in the future? Definitely not!
Will all products and services need adaptation and improvement? Definitely!
Here are a few innovations awaiting attention by inventors and innovators in the opinion of solar-e current experts:
- Development of a long life solar water heater that requires minimal maintenance
- Development of a bio fuel boosted solar water heating system for multiple dwellings both horizontally aligned and vertically placed as in the case of high rise
- Development of cost effective PV systems for small scale grid connection
- Refinement of remote PV/hybrid systems for remote villages
- Development of very low-cost solar cookers for deforested regions
- Development of large-scale solar thermal plant that is compatible with coal fired power stations
- New state of the art geothermal plants where feasible
- New efficient large scale concentrating PV power plants
- New state of the art steam turbines using specialized feedstock of biomass
- Growing GM products for feedstock for ethanol and bio-fuels
- New integrated roof and wall mounted PV systems for buildings
- New low energy night ventilation systems for buildings
- New efficient an cost effective solar air collector systems for buildings
- Integrated green roof and wall systems for buildings
- New cost effective external shade systems to enhance passive solar performance of buildings
- New phase change chemical systems and products to enhance thermal inertia characteristics for lightweight buildings.
But there’s more to innovation than getting the technology to work. There are innovations required in implementation- getting the idea to work on a widescale is the ultimate goal.
This will require innovation in:
1. Education- this includes innovations such as
- Education modules for schools, including useful experimental kits.
- Multi-media modules on solar concepts – Most of the stuff on You Tube is of very poor quality.
- Training for installers of all kinds of systems- the recent insulation scams in Australia highlight this.
2. Finance- Solar systems vary in size and are capital intensive- i.e., most of the cost has to be met up-front, often by the consumer.
- This requires a different view to financing than the present large producer/ small consumer models of financing.
- More people need to be aware of the dynamics of financing innovation.
Where to from here?
This is just the start. solar-e.com would like to know your views on:
What ideas need to be innovated to realize our sustainability visions?
How do we best innovate these ideas?
What can you personally do to innovate?
solar-e.com is the venue to take these ideas forward- into innovation!
FORUM
Click here for our forum to join and share ideas with like-minded people and gain further insight on the topic. It will be a win for you as well as a win for the community.
If you are interested in this topic and want to contribute in discussion, research or business, please follow the links below.
Book in for a Consultation or Advisory Service
Send in your Intellectual Content to publish
[1] Xenophon (1979). The Memorabilia (Book III, VIII ed.). New Rochelle, N.Y.: Caratzas Bros.. ISBN 0892410000.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wind_power.
[3] Dodge, Darrell M, Illustrated History of Wind Development, http://www.telosnet.com/wind/
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes#The_Archimedes_Heat_Ray_.E2.80.93_myth_or_reality.3F
[5] Aybar, HS and Assefi, H, A Review and Comparison of Solar Distillation, Desalination and Water Treatment, 10, (2009), pp 321-331.
[6] Ecclesiastes 1:9 (New International Version)
[7] See, for example http://www.pvresources.com/en/history.php
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.