Green Living
ISDN2001/2002: Second Year Design Project
Technical Indepent Study: Howard
The study focus is on the set-up of solar panels and reflectors in order to maximize energy yeild, i.e. oreientation, angle, location.
Solar Panel Set-up
In this section, possible set-ups of solar panels as well as their energy output with or without reflectors will be listed out. The reasons of investigating implementation of reflectors will be explained below.
Reasons of
Using Reflectors
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Reduction of Solar Panels Required
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There are a lot of toxic chemicals and materials used in solar panel production
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Boost Solar panel productivity
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Several researches have shown that reflectors can help boosting solar panels output
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Easy add-on
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As reflectors are reletively easy to install
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Optimize economic performance
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As reflectors are cheaper than solar panels, the value of addiing reflectors will be discussed
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Location - Tuen Mun Pier
The highlighted area in yellow is the possible area to install two kinds of solar panels, i.e. solar panel array & solar panel walkway. The total area of solar panel thus would be around 6000 meter square. Assuming the solar panel output would be 0.8 kwh/m^2, this could provide 4800 kwh for the pier operation.
Our
Story
Orientation - Towards South
This is a picture showing the solar path on the Tuen Mun Pier. As from the picture, the sun is shining from the East through South then West of the Tuen Mun Pier. Thus the solar panels would be facing South to maximise the solar irradiation recieved and to maximise the energy output.
Angle : Angled Solar Panel & Angled Reflector
Reflector / Solar Panel | Flat | Angled | Vertical |
None | 100% | 100% | 100% |
Angled | ~126% | ~125% | ~108% |
Flat | ~116% | ~106% | ~94% |
The experiment is done twice at different location and both showed similar results - the highest output of all tested set-ups is angled reflectors with angled solar panels. The boosted energy output is around 25% and could be higher depends on the situation. Taking 4800 kwh energy output as an example, the increased energy yeild would be 1200 kwh, which could supply around 2 trips more.