From Slashdot, something so obvious you wonder why nobody tried it before: arrange solar panels like tree leaves for better efficiency. See the story and graphs I’ve provided below.
13-Year-Old Uses Fibonacci Sequence For Solar Power Breakthrough
An anonymous reader tips news of 7th grader Aidan Dwyer, who used phyllotaxis — the way leaves are arranged on plant stems in nature — as inspiration to arrange an array of solar panels in a way that generates 20-50% more energy than a uniform, flat panel array. Aidan wrote:
“I designed and built my own test model, copying the Fibonacci pattern of an oak tree. I studied my results with the compass tool and figured out the branch angles. The pattern was about 137 degrees and the Fibonacci sequence was 2/5. Then I built a model using this pattern from PVC tubing. In place of leaves, I used PV solar panels hooked up in series that produced up to 1/2 volt, so the peak output of the model was 5 volts. The entire design copied the pattern of an oak tree as closely as possible. … The Fibonacci tree design performed better than the flat-panel model. The tree design made 20% more electricity and collected 2 1/2 more hours of sunlight during the day. But the most interesting results were in December, when the Sun was at its lowest point in the sky. The tree design made 50% more electricity, and the collection time of sunlight was up to 50% longer!”
His work earned him a Young Naturalist Award from the American Museum of Natural History and a provisional patent on the design.
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Good for him! Here’s the output graphs:
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Now that sounds like a job and research well done. Guess it doesn’t have to be done only in Ivory towers!
That is really cool.
Nice idea, but i think it will go the way of Solyndra – complicated structures are more expensive than simple ones, so the simple one wins in the marketplace (yes i know the solar market is distorted by subsidies, but within those conditions, technologies still compete against each other).
Now that’s cool.
It’s an interesting result, but I’m not sure the data presented support the conclusion of “20-50% more energy.” He measures voltage, not energy. Solar panels have to be loaded to their maximum power point (MPP) to get the most energy. The voltage x current is maximum at MPP, but voltage is well below the peak (open circuit) voltage.
With his design, each cell has a different angle to the sun. There may not be a well-defined MPP.
The point of PV arrays is to create energy. The measurements are for voltage. He’s demonstrated that a range of angles generates voltage for longer than a flat panel array with a single angle. He has not demonstrated any increase in energy harvest. There is reason to believe that the energy harvest from his array will be lower.
It is a good idea and great study.
In practice, I expect the cost of the structure would outweigh the increased output especially as panel costs continue to fall. And, it could be argued that some solar panel systems already mimic nature by tracking the sun – just like some plants.
Young, bright, minds unfettered by agendas and paradigms?
Excellent and congratulations to such a young and brilliant mind. Hope to see more good things come from our younger generations.
Oops, should have said that “The point of PV arrays is to harvest energy.” Energy can’t be created or destroyed.
Good for him.
I had always understood that to maximise the input energy, it was necessary for solar panels to be steered much the same way as a movable satelitte dish. Indeed, I believe that there are already mechanisms on the market which allow panels to be steered so as to track the movement of the sun.
Clever and cute, but the siting of the tree seems to be influenced by the house.
Also I count 10 panels on the house and at least sixteen on the tree. Sixty percent more panels might actually produce 20% more power.
“The pattern was about 137° and the Fibbonacci sequence was 2/5” is gibberish without context. Couldn’t you maximize generation even further with panels that track the direction of light and use low input, high efficiency motors to orient themselves (like sunflowers)?
Anyone who likes Fibonacci numbers has a promising future.
Very clever idea. Needs bigger panels that can work while partially shaded – trees do a good job of intercepting nearly all the sunlight.
BTW, a great place to watch a partial solar eclipse is from a tree. The leaves make a lot of pinhole cameras, and you can control the number and size by climbing up and down.
Not to be all hard-assed on a really AWESOME bit of work, but that ‘typical’ solar array in the picture really ought to be at the same height as the ‘tree’ solar array. Otherwise it will be hit by shadows significantly earlier than the ‘tree’ solar array.
OTOH, that picture may very well be only for display purposes and doesn’t reflect the actual experiment.
great work … for static arrays that may be the way to go … a solar tracker is really the ideal but this is some great work from a 13 year old …
Clever but what happens if the flat panel can be moved and trace the sun? This is only good for static installations?
I can see at least 16 panels on the “tree” and 10 panels on “control”… no wonder.
Simply brilliant. Well done Aidan.
Very interesting. When I bought panels on my house a couple of years ago it was like pulling teeth to get the contractors to do anything other than all panels on the same roof, at the same angle, facing the same direction. I wanted to add a couple more panels on perpindicular roof slopes, but they all insisted that they couldn’t do it because of limitations of how the inverter dealt with incoming load (couldn’t handle wide variance between the two circuits). Pretty frustrating and poor design, if true, although I never could ascertain whether it was a true design constraint or if they just had their “warranty” installation instructions they couldn’t deviate from.
One question about the teen’s experiment above: Is it just me, or does it look like the tree version has way more panels than the flat version? If so, was that taken into account?
The backing wall of the building has an off-white surface with a strong albedo. The “oak-leaf-like” solar panels appear as though they might benefit from this. The “linear” (flat) solar array appears not to benefit from the reflected light.
As an aside, the WSJ recently ran an article on “bottle trees” and if you search on that phrase you can find many hits. Blue is a preferred color – keeps evil spirits away. It was noted that some folks find such structures unattractive.
What a brilliant young man. It makes sense that nature is using its own type of fractal antenna since it is collecting electromagnetic radiation.
“A fractal antenna is an antenna that uses a fractal, self-similar design to maximize the length, or increase the perimeter (on inside sections or the outer structure), of material that can receive or transmit electromagnetic radiation within a given total surface area or volume.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_antenna
While it does make sense to me in principal, I wonder what effect (if any) the sunlight reflecting off the white paint in the picture above would have had on the experiment. The tree-arranged panels are closer to it than the traditionally arranged.
This really doesn’t seem like it should make that big of a difference, but it is hard to argue with data (as it should be).
A cute idea and well done for a 13 year old. Uses panels in a 3 dimensional tree-like rather than normal planar arrangement. But produces LESS power per panel as they are occasionally shaded by other panels and structure. So totally useless given that panal costs are the primary cost in PV installations and economics (the land area is almost free in comparison).
Nature spends millions of years evolving efficiencies. We just need to get past our selves.