LATEST NEWS & EVENTS
Sunflower Inspires Solar Power Plant
Inspiration for new technological developments often comes from surprising directions and the solar power industry is no exception. So the recent news of sunflowers helping to improve solar power plant design shouldn’t sound so strange.
The sunflower has helped researchers improve the layout of mirrors used in concentration solar power generation, a slightly different technology to the solar PV panels most of us will be used to seeing. Concentrating solar power works by reflecting the sunlight off mirrors to focus it on a single point, in this case a tower. The tower contains water which is heated via the mirrors and then used to drive turbines.
The new sunflower layout is expected to increase the efficiency of these plants by as much as 20%, helping to bring the solar power industry closer to the efficiency of fossil fuels.
Image Credit:Â Sterling College (flickr.com)
Request a solar survey
Your enquiry has been sent, Thankyou!