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Michigan Tech's Open Sustainability Technology Lab.
Wanted: Students to make a distributed future with solar-powered open-source 3-D printing and recycling. |
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Pearce Publications: Energy Conservation • Energy Policy • Industrial Symbiosis • Life Cycle Analysis • Materials Science • Open Source • Photovoltaic Systems • Solar Cells • Sustainable Development • Sustainability Education
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This Open Source Appropriate Technology has been designed but not yet tested — use at your own risk. |
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This Open Source Appropriate Technology has been modeled. |
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This Open Source Appropriate Technology has been prototyped. |
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This Open Source Appropriate Technology has been verified by MOST |
Source
- Pierce Mayville, Neha Vijay Patil and Joshua M.Pearce. Distributed manufacturing of after market flexible floating photovoltaic modules. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments. 42, 2020, 100830. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2020.100830 open access
- For a literature review on FPV see: Solar floatovoltaics lit review
Abstract
Floating photovoltaic (FPV) technology is gaining prominence as a means to alleviate land use conflicts while obtaining large solar PV deployments and simultaneously reducing evaporated water loss. In this study, an open source after-market distributed manufacturing method is proposed to be applied to large flexible PV modules to make flexible FPV systems. Specifically this study considers surface floating of flexible thin film solar PV using three types of closed-cell foams: i) neoprene, ii) mincell and iii) polyethylene. The fabricated FPV underwent indoor and outdoor tests for flotation, wave resistance, temperature and resistance to algae accumulation. The average operational temperature was reduced by 10–20 °C for the FPV compared to land-based mounting indicating substantial increases in electricity output compared to ground-based deployment of any type of PV (2–4% for amorphous silicon used here and 5–10% for crystalline silicon based PV). In addition, foam-based FPV racking were also found to reduce costs of racking to $0.37–0.61/W, which is significantly lower than raft-based FPV as well as conventional land-based racking. The results of this preliminary study indicate that foam-backed FPV is exceptionally promising and should be further investigated with different foams, larger systems and more diverse deployments for longer periods to increase PV deployments.
Keywords[edit | edit source]
Floating photovoltaic; FPV; Flexible; Closed-cell foams; Sustainable development; Open-source; Photovoltaic; Racking
See also[edit | edit source]
- Total U.S. cost evaluation of low-weight tension-based photovoltaic flat-roof mounted racking
- Distributed manufacturing with 3-D printing: a case study of recreational vehicle solar photovoltaic mounting systems
- 3-D printable photovoltaic module spacer
- Design of Post-Consumer Modification of Standard Solar Modules to Form Large-Area Building-Integrated Photovoltaic Roof Slates
- 3-D Printing Solar Photovoltaic Racking in Developing World
- Water Conservation Potential of Self-Funded Foam-Based Flexible Surface-Mounted Floatovoltaics
- Geographic potential of shotcrete photovoltaic racking: Direct and low-concentration cases
