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Solar car
How To Build a Solar Generator
Affordable solar power using auto parts could make this electricity source far
more available.
Demand for solar power is rapidly heating up. But constructing and deploying large
photovoltaic panels to generate electricity remains expensive. Now two groups at
MIT are working on alternative approaches to solar-based electricity that could
significantly cut costs -- and put the ability to harvest electricity from the sun into the
hands of villagers in poor countries and backyard tinkerers alike.
A set of prototype solar concentrators installed in Lesotho. (Courtesy of Amy
Mueller.)
During a stint in the Peace Corps in Lesotho in southern Africa, Matthew Orosz, an
MIT graduate student advised by Harold Hemond, professor of civil and
environmental engineering, learned that reflective parabolic troughs can bake bread.
Now he plans to use these same contraptions to bring power to parts of Africa baked
in sun but starved for electricity. His solar generators, cobbled together from auto
parts and plumbing supplies, can easily be built in a backyard.
The basic design of Orosz's solar generator system is simple: a parabolic trough
(taking up 15 square meters in this case) focuses light on a pipe containing motor oil.
The oil circulates through a heat exchanger, turning a refrigerant into steam, which
drives a turbine that, in turn, drives a generator.
The refrigerant is then cooled in two stages. The first stage recovers heat to make
hot water or, in one design, to power an absorption process chiller, like the propane-
powered refrigerators in RVs. The solar-generated heat would replace or augment
the propane flame used in these devices. The second stage cools the refrigerant
further, which improves the efficiency of the system, Orosz says. This stage will
probably use cool groundwater pumped to the surface using power from the
generator. The water can then be stored in a reservoir for drinking water.
The design uses readily available parts and tools. For example, both the feed pump
and steam turbine are actually power-steering pumps used in cars and trucks. To
generate electricity, the team uses an alternator, which is not as efficient as an
ordinary generator, but comes already designed to charge a battery, which reduces
some of the complexity of the system. And, like power-steering pumps, alternators,
including less-expensive reconditioned ones, are easy to come by.
As a result, the complete system for generating one kilowatt of electricity and 10
kilowatts of heat, including a battery for storing the power generated, can be built for
a couple thousand dollars, Orosz says, which is less than half the cost of one kilowatt
of photovoltaic panels.
"You can't afford something that's designed for solar. You have to buy something
that's mass-produced for something else -- that way the cost is reasonable," says
Duane Johnson, owner of Red Rock Energy, in White Bear Lake, MN, who
developed and sells thousands of the inexpensive LED-based sun-tracking devices
Orosz uses to orient the solar concentrators. Most of the devices are used to position
photovoltaic panels, he says, but some people are using them with old satellite
dishes to concentrate heat and make steam. Sales of his devices have been growing
25 percent a year, a rate similar to that of the solar photovoltaic’s industry.
Design of solar cars
Points to consider when designing a solar car:
1 - The car should be designed in order to maximize the area exposed to sun light in order to achieve maximum power. 2 - The car shape should be so-called an aerodynamic shape in order to achieve minimum wind resistance, or the so-called drag force. 3 - The car should be as light as possible, because the power expected from the solar cells is not that much. In addition, most of this power will be utilized to overcome friction and drag.
Aerodynamics and Drag:
A body immersed in a flowing fluid is acted on by both pressure and viscous forces from the flow. The sum of the forces (pressure, viscous, or both) that acts normal to the free-stream direction is the lift, and the sum of that acts parallel to the free-stream direction is defined as the drag. These definitions are perhaps one of the famous conclusions of the famous Bernoulli’s equation, which is one of the fundamental laws governing the motion of fluids. It relates an increase in flow velocity to a decrease in pressure and vice versa. Bernoulli's principle is used in aerodynamics to explain the lift of an airplane wing in flight. A wing is so designed that air flows more rapidly over its upper surface than its lower one, leading to a decrease in pressure on the top surface as compared to the bottom. The resulting pressure difference provides the lift that sustains the aircraft in flight. The velocity of a wind that strikes the bluff surface of a building is close to zero near its wall. According to Bernoulli's principle, this would lead to a rise in pressure relative to the pressure away from the building, resulting in wind forces that the structures must be designed to withstand. Another important aspect of aerodynamics is the drag, or resistance, acting on solid bodies moving through air. The drag forces exerted by the air flowing over the airplane, for example, must be overcome by the thrust force developed by either the jet engine or the propellers. These drag forces can be significantly reduced by streamlining the body. For bodies that are not fully streamlined, the drag force increases approximately with the square of the speed as they move rapidly through the air. The power required, for example, to drive an automobile steadily at medium or high speeds is primarily absorbed in overcoming air resistance. The following examples illustrate the importance of considering drag when designing a car
By comparing these three shapes, we notice that the shape of the airfoil is the one that shows minimum drag, because of its streamline shape. In addition, it shows less or almost no turbulence at the end.
The difference between GM sunraycer (above) and the other car is that the stream line design of the GM gives it the minimum drag among all other cars. Such a design enables it to move at higher speeds and make good use of its solar power instead of wasting it in resisting drag.
Photo Voltaic Cells
Solar cells made from thin slices of crystalline silicon, gallium arsenide, or other semiconductor materials convert solar radiation directly into electricity. Cells with conversion efficiencies in excess of 30 percent are now available. By connecting large numbers of these cells into modules, the cost of photo-voltaic electricity has been reduced to 30 cents per kwh, about twice the rate that the largest U.S. cities were paying for electricity in 1989. Current use of solar cells is limited to remote, unattended low-power devices such as buoys and equipment aboard spacecraft.
Design Process
In order to design the exterior shape of the solar car, we had to consider the previously mentioned factors, which are:
1 - The design must maximize the amount of surface area exposed to sunlight to obtain maximum power. 2 - The design of the car must have an aerodynamic shape to minimize the amount of drag to which the car is exposed. 3 - The car surface should have smooth gradual curves to have an aerodynamic body of low wind resistance.
Step #01: Deciding on a shape:
Solar cars have several unique shapes. The following figure shows the most famous and well-known shapes:
We finally decided to select the wing shape design. This is because we have found out that most of the universities tend to design this shape. In addition, it is perhaps the easiest one in manufacturing. In fact, our shape was not a simple copy for that one; we introduced some modifications. Following is the design we set for ourselves: Position Length (LTR) or Height from the ground Entire frame 5.8 m Wheels 25 cm diameter, 10 cm thickness Driver cabin height 38 cm Full height 1.48m Tail length 3.4m
The tail is taken to be a straight line. The cross section of the car is taken as an ellipse of changing dimensions. Thus, the main concern for us became the parts in the front and the driver’s cabin. Using AutoCAD, we estimated some key points along the x-y plane, considering the left side of the coordinates as the y-axis, and the x-axis will be the direction along the ground.
After defining these dimensions, a rough sketch was drawn by AutoCAD. By offsetting and dimensioning, the following values were obtained.
X coordinate (cm) Y coordinate (cm) 20 89.7261 40 98.296 70 107.2946 90 111.0367 110 113.8179 120 115.0542 These numbers were processed into the computer program, asking the program to: a - get the interpolations of every x point (with 1 cm increment from the first value). b - get the angle of inclination of the tangent at the point
Then the output data is used to plot the front section surface.
The same will happen with the driver cabinet. However, since the cabinet will not be covered with photo-voltaic cells, there is no need to calculate the angle of inclination.
X coordinate cm Y - coordinate cm 120 115.0542 140 136.0397 160 149.3282 180 150.6931 200 143.0437 240 130.2249 260 115.0293
Concerning the tail, the angle of inclination is known since it is a simple straight line relation.
Solar Energy Definition
Modern Age Solar Energy DefinitionSolar energy as we know it had actually existed thousands of years ago. It had been harnessed by human beings in various ways. One of which is heating up their homes. This is because it is one of the most abundant renewable energy sources that we have in the world today. In fact, everything that is here on earth have used up solar energy for its existence.
But the most basic and specific solar energy definition would simply mean energy that comes from the sun. It is now one of the most promising sources for our energy in the future as non-renewable resources like fossil fuels are fast disappearing. It is readily available for use and all we need to have are the right technologies to effectively exploit its use.
Modern solar energy definition would classify solar energy into two types: thermal energy and electrical energy.
The first one, thermal energy, is probably the most obvious energy that we could get from the sun. It is practically everywhere: from the highest mountains to the deepest trenches, the heat of the sun had touched every single corner of our world.
This energy lit us up every day. It heats up our planet so that we would not die from extreme cold; which could happen if we do not have the sun. It practically empowers everything that is moving and living here on earth. It makes our plants, most especially our crops, to produce the food that we need. Without it, everything would just simply perish away. Even the highly coveted fossil fuels would not be in existence that we are now using to power our homes, cars and industries today.
This had been the only energy that we could derive from the sun until the 1800s when some scientists and inventors had been trying to utilize solar energy to use it to directly power up machines by turning it into electrical energy. But it was not until the 1950s when the dream of harnessing solar energy to be used as electricity had been finally realized. They had discovered a way to capture the sun’s energy to turn it into electricity. It was through the invention of solar cells made into solar panels that made it possible. These
solar cells are called as photovoltaics in which these allow us to directly convert sunlight into electricity.
As of now, this had been the most exciting advancement made in the quest for new energy sources for electricity and even fuel. This had forever change solar energy definition in this day and age. It had been now applied in three different ways: stand alone, grid-connected and back-up.
Stand alone would be the installation of solar panels at homes or industries wherein they don’t need to be connected to a local utility because they could generate electricity on their own. Grid- connected means they are still connected to a local utility but the only difference would be that the distributor would be getting their power from ‘solar farms.’ Back-up would simply mean that solar panels would be installed to provide back-up power most especially in places where blackouts frequently occur.
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Panasonic HIT Solar Cells and High-Capacity Batteries to Support Tokai
University's Solar Car Team
Panasonic Corporation (NYSE:PC)(TOKYO:6752)("Panasonic") announced its sponsorship of Tokai
University's solar car team, the defending champion for the 2011 World Solar Challenge (WSC) in
Australia, one of the largest solar-powered car races in the world. Under the sponsorship agreement,
Panasonic will supply the Japanese university team with its HIT®*1 solar cells boasting the world's
highest level*2 of energy conversion rate, as well as high-capacity lithium-ion batteries.
The solar car race, first held in 1987, sees many teams from universities, corporations and other groups
around the world competing to race 3,021 km through central Australia from Darwin in the north to
Adelaide in the south. The Tokai University team, who won the last race held in 2009 with its solar car
using Panasonic lithium-ion battery cells to store its solar generated power, will look for its second
straight win at 2011 WSC, which will be held from October 16 to 23.
Panasonic HIT solar cells are hybrids of single crystalline silicon surrounded by ultra-thin amorphous
silicon layers. With high conversion efficiency, excellent temperature performance and high energy
output per unit area, the cells are ideal for obtaining maximum power within a limited space, such as the
rooftops of private homes. HIT cells are also suited for solar cars competing in the WSC because the
WSC regulations limit the total area of solar cells installed on the body.
The batteries Panasonic is providing are cylindrical 18650-type (18 mm diameter, 65 mm length) high-
capacity lithium-ion battery cells having the company's proprietary nickel-based positive electrode. They
will be mounted in arrays within a storage battery module. Featuring the industry's highest level of
energy density, the battery cell is light, high capacity and long-lasting and enables making battery
module lighter. As the WSC also limits the weight of the rechargeable battery module mounted on the
solar car, the high capacity and lightweight Panasonic battery cells are favored by many contenders.
This year, Panasonic will provide the high-capacity lithium-ion battery cells to five other solar car teams
including Delft University of Technology and University of Twente from the Netherlands, Stanford
University and University of California from the U.S.A., and Nanyang Technological University from
Singapore.
By providing energy solutions to create electricity from sunlight and store excess power using a
combination of its high-efficiency HIT solar cells and high-capacity lithium-ion batteries, Panasonic will
support the students' challenge in the solar car race that will be run under harsh weather conditions.
BMW confirms Megacity electric car for 2013
BMW has used the Beijing Motor Show to announce that it will have its much-talked-about Megacity electric car on the market by 2013. Previously, the German automaker had only hinted that it would produce the urban runabout in the first half of the decade. Also of note is that the Megacity EV will be launched under a new sub-brand, much in the same way that the automaker has used its Mini branch to enter into lower-market segments without taking the chance of tarnishing the well-earned reputation of its corporate roundel.
According to BMW, its upcoming electric vehicle will be the first mass-produced vehicle that relies heavily on the use of carbon fiber for its structure, which should help keep the vehicle lightweight, thereby improving its performance and range. BMW has indicated that it hopes to earn valuable information from its 600-plus vehicle fleet of Mini E electric vehicles, 50 of which will be delivered to Chinese customers before the end of 2010.
In related news, BMW has also said that it will show off an electric 5 Series sedan in Beijing. Called the Echo, the electric vehicle was assembled at BMW's Shanyang plant in China with cooperation from the government-backed Tongji University. There are currently no plans to put the vehicle into production, but the automaker hopes to gauge how advanced China's homegrown electric vehicle technology is at present.
Autocar is reporting that the Megacity will have a range of roughly 160 miles per charge, and
about 20 percent of that range will be due to an aggressive regenerative braking system (yet another similarity to the Mini E). Further, BMW does not plan to lease its battery packs separately, as some automakers have hinted is a possibility. Instead, BMW believes that its packs will still have 85 percent of their stated capacity after the car's lifespan is complete, making the power sources valuable on the used market to power companies. Interesting, no?