Vertical Solar Farms - Tropical Zone Skyscrapers
The shocking truth about glass buildings!
Skyscrapers hold within themselves a huge potential of becoming solar energy farms.
A typical 30 story building will have about 100mtrs * 100mtrs of surface area on each side of the building. In a country like India, where Sky scrapers are not close together, the potential of generating solar energy could be significant.
Germany has the worlds largest concentration of solar farms. The govt. buys back generated electricity from these farms @ approx 50 euro cents/kWh(Rs 25/kWh).
The CIS Tower is the second-tallest building in Manchester, England is a live example of a vertical solar farm. Constructed with a cost of £ 5.5 million generates 1,80,000 units of electricity every year.
In new Indian metropolitan cities, glass building have replaced the conventional designs. Several such building have come up in Gurgaon itself. These buildings though better looking than concrete building, are not well suited for the weather. During summers, the bright sunlight converts these buildings into heating ovens requiring 40% additional power for air conditioning as compared to buildings with concrete exteriors.
Covering the glass panels with PV cells should will be a dual benefit these buildings. Firstly to reduce the extra heat captured in the building due to green house effect caused by the glass panels will be significantly reduced if another layer is present outside the glass panels, reducing the air conditioning electricity requirements by 15-20%.
Additionally the electricity generated will be sufficient to replace 10-15% of the electricity requirement of the building which is currently being done using polluting diesel gensets.
As of now, the Indian govt. does not provided any direct incentives for multistory buildings to go solar, but hopefully someone will read this.
Lets go solar!!
thanks,
-Simply Geniass.