DIY Green Solar Energy

Join Dahl Winters, from the Research Triangle Institute, as she explains the fundamentals of solar photovoltaics and gives a hands-on demonstration on how to build a solar iPad charger. Part of the NCSSM Renewable Energy Seminar series, this presentation was recorded at NC School of Science and Math, March 29, 2012. For more information on professional development opportunities in STEM education, visit: www.dlt.ncssm.edu

www.greenpowerscience.com The reflective film is here: This is a dish conversion.

www2.dupont.com Title: City of Science, City of Hope While our world holds many high hopes for solar energy, comprehensive city-sized applications remain few and far between. Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s stunning new sustainable development, is a living laboratory dedicated to proving the viability of green technologies at a citywide level. The city looked to Suntech to provide this photovoltaic technology. When it came to manufacturing the thousands of panels required for the landmark project, Suntech turned to DuPont to deliver a number of crucial components to ensure maximum efficiency and reliability. This collaboration is already yielding results—Masdar is currently consuming only 40% of the energy they are generating. NOURA AL DHAHERI PHD STUDENT, MASDAR INSTITUTE After having a son, I began to be more concerned about his future. The way we live now, burning the fossil fuel, we need to step up and do something about it. TITLE ABU DHABI MAIN TITLE CITY OF SCIENCE, CITY OF HOPE ALAN FROST DIRECTOR, MASDAR CITY Masdar, for me, is like no other project in the world. The idea of the city itself was to be carbon neutral. The architecture is based on all Arabic cities. The narrow streets are very important to keep out the sun during the day. At the moment, we’re testing a personal rapid transport—that’s a driverless electric vehicle and it’s powered from our solar farm. NOURA AL DHAHERI We’re kind of living in our laboratory, and we know that, but we are happy because this is what …

I’ve mounted the panels and ran the wire. It was at least a two person job, but since I was by myself it became an all day one person job. I started around 9:00 or 10:00 am Extremely tiring for one man working in the heat, but it got done. Because it was a one person job, I had to mount the rail system 1st then place the panels, one by one, onto the rail-system. If you tilt the rails at an appropriate angle you can get one panel on by resting it on two holding screws at the bottom until you secure it properly. The instructions call for mounting panels to large rails 1st, then mounting the unit as whole to smaller rails, thus making it weigh well over 100lbs that you’ll have to lift in the air. If you can get someone to help you, do it, I highly recommend it. I also recommend fishing the wire through the conduit “before” setting it in the concrete. In this case I used multiple layers of aluminum tape to secure the 10 AWG, USE rated wire (Underground Service Entrance) to the pole. This is tape I had left over from a previous project. It is very sticky and the multiple layers (5) gives me the securing affect I need for the wire. All in all, I believe I have a stable structure. The structure as a whole is insured against loss, theft, or vandalism. I checked into fasteners an such, but I’m still up in the air on it. If I have to service the panels, they may prove very difficult to deal with. Also, having performed the install myself, I know it would take some time to remove …

DIY Home Made Solar Circulating Water Heater. 12-10ft x1in and 24- 1in el’s PVC. Circulating solar water heater. If you like What you see please give it a thumbs up.

Missouri Wind and Solar website www.mwands.com Our Ebay store http This video shows the MWANDS solar hot air home heater that can be built by you with some basic knowledege of carpentry tools. Two of these can heat a typical ranch size house. We sell the dvd on how to build these on our website, here’s the link www.mwands.com We now sell the complete solar hot air heater assembled at our store for 98.00 plus shipping. These units can easily pay for themselves in the first year, then it’s FREE heat from there on out. See the hot air heater installed at our store Missouri Wind And Solar 332 Cobblestone Drive Seymour, Mo. 65746 email wyatt@mwands.com

Burning Man is filled with hackers, artists and makers of all walks. We thought we would search out the energy geeks and see how they were utilizing resources out in the middle of no where. The obvious, most abundant source of energy in Black Rock City is the Sun. Solar arrays ranged from the milk crate supported to the 10000 watt, “could (and did) power a small village” variety. It was great to see electric art cars charging off the sun! Waste Veggie Oil diesel conversions were also a favorite among burners for powering art cars and generators too. Thanks to Maestro, David and Nick for sharing their desert energy oases with us!

An alternate way of using the Sun’s energy other than using expensive and fragile Solar Panels.

www.greenpowerscience.com This is a 64″ spot Fresnel Lens with a max temperature above 3000f. The concrete and rock shatters from the temperature shock. Slowly adding heat allows for melting. The rock was exposed for 60 seconds and the two pieces heated 8 ounces of water from 68f to about 130f within seconds.

Update, shortening the cable length from the solar panels to the grid tie inverter. This video shows a simple solar panel setup using Galvanized Steel piping and threading for my solar panel stands. It also shows the solar panels connected in parallel using MC4 connectors and 10-2 or 12-2 wire. Connected to a 600 Watt Power Jack Grid Tie Inverter.