A Good Example of a Bad Idea in Solar PV
Each month, I come across a couple of dozen cleantech business concepts, and, when I refer to some of them as “silly” or some such, I’m sure readers think that perhaps I’m being rash or unfair. OK, check this out: a solar-powered attic fan. The value proposition: pay $700 for the hardware, and God-knows-how-much to pay someone to chop a hole in your roof to install it. Then sit around and pray your roof doesn’t leak as a result.
This thing runs on an extremely small amount of power (10 -15 Watts). Couldn’t you have plugged a power adapter for a cell phone or laptop charger into a socket in your attic, and run a light gauge tiny wire to a small fan (available at a hardware store) mounted in one of the vents in one of the gables (which already exist insofar as they are part of the building code)?
Sorry to be so judgmental, but we have plenty of problems that actually exist; it’s hard to get excited about solutions to those that don’t.
In the UK there are off the shelf solar extractor fans on the market such as this one designed to be built into conservatories.
http://www.solarshop.co.uk/solar-powered-ventilation/hipower-solar-fan-kit-14cm.html
Cost around $110.00
Or this one designed for wall mounting which could ventilate a loft via its end wall.
http://www.solarshop.co.uk/solar-powered-ventilation/solar-wall-vent-101-white.html
Cost around $125
The item listed for $700 seems rather too costly.
Too costly and too invasive. It’s like trimming one’s nose hairs with a weed eater.
Here’s a greater solar folly.
There is road at a school where the buses and cars go and kids cross at the south side (of the school in California). This summer, somebody came up with the bright idea to put very large solar panel/parking shades directly south of the road (I believe they paid too much, too).
Now, it hasn’t happened yet, but winter will come, the snow will fall and there will be NO sunlight to melt the road ice with. On all these panels, the snow fall and will pile up “in front of the shadow” and cause it to become even colder in the shadowed areas. Cars will slip and slide into the heavy steel (energy intensive) framing. Furthermore, these things block the view that the kids have. Also, they will become mass vandalized as soon as the kids rebel against “the thing that caused harm to a friend”.
I would like this concept FAR more if they were put on a less energy intensive frame out in the desert (and on the rooftops). I bet more energy was put into the making and installation of the giant framework than in the panels themselves!
Sorry about the bad grammar (There IS a road.., the snow WILL fall..). I guess I’m spoiled by the edit feature from other boards. Also I should have said “it MAY become vandalized…” Already (at another school) some kid through a rock on one – it’s still there, and too high to deal with.