Pretty hot sculpture, pretty cool power

September 27, 2010

Image: Decker Yeadon LLC

Solar panels are becoming common sights in our daily lives: from our backpacks to the tops of our neighbourhoods. But one thing that nobody’s accused solar panels of being, thus far, is pretty. But that’s going to change if one project has its way.

The Light Sanctuary would be a solar plant with style. Using 80,000 square km of incredibly thin solar panels, the installation would look like a giant, deep brown maze placed in the middle of desert, producing up to 4,592 MW-hours annually.

Designed by the American firm Decker Yeagan, the sculpture is an entry into the Land Art Generator Initiative, a contest sponsored by none other than Masdar, the body responsible for the United Arab Emirates’ energy showcase. The contest is designed to reward installations that also happen to provide large scale clean energy generation. According to the initiative’s website: “The works will serve to inspire and educate while they provide renewable power to thousands of homes around the world.”

The UAE also recently announced a similarly ambitious project: the Shams 1 solar power plant. At 100 MW, the Shams 1 has a far a higher capacity than its more artistic brother. At this stage, it’s just not practical to sacrifice functionality for attractiveness, leaving the Light Sanctuary as more of a visual demonstration than a bona fide power plant.

And while the Light Sanctuary and the Shams 1 are baking in the sun, researchers in the UK are finding ways of cooling power down.

Researchers at the University of Leeds in the U.K. and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have proposed using excess electricity to chill nitrogen and oxygen. The idea is that the stored gases could be reheated by waste heat, and their gaseous forms could drive turbines. Like a smart grid, this system would directly address one of the most fundamental problems with the way we currently use electricity: peak demand. In those periods where we have more energy than we know what to do with, we’d simply cool it down.

So whether we’re trying to put a pretty face on our solar power, or using our excess power to keep things cool, one thing’s clear: If the future’s certainly going to look different, it’s nice to know that it might look prettier too.

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