Sunflower Inspired Solar Farms

Jan-13-12 The shape of the sunflower has inspired the development of more effective Concentrating Solar Power plants, which use the more efficient design to allow them to be built with smaller footprints.

Researchers in Germany and with MIT realized that traditional arrangements of CSP plants cause the heliostats to be blocked by shade every day. By arranging the heliostats in the Fermat spiral model, such as the petals on the sunflower, the mirrors are each angled about 137 degrees relative to their neighbor. This allows the mirrors to be packed more closely together with blocking each other.

Using the new arrangement, the layout of the CSP plant could be reduced by 20 percents, cutting land usage and materials costs.

More Info about this Invention:

[GIZMAG.COM]
[MIT]

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