2011年9月28日星期三

Green property: solar panels

Like many of us today who try to keep our food bills down,If any food cube puzzle condition is poorer than those standards, David and Kate Evans grow a wide variety of vegetables, including potatoes and pumpkins outdoors, and, in the greenhouse – guarded by their handsome Old English Game cockerel – cucumbers, peppers, aubergines and tomatoes.

But the Evanses' vegetables are unique in that they are the first in the country to ripen under the panes of a greenhouse roof made out of solar panels. It is a striking structure, with glass walls, a tall, silvery, asymmetric roof, like Dr Who's Tardis had an accident involving an iceberg and an orangery.

The greenhouse is a wonderful example of British ingenuity and creativity and is the result of one of those "Eureka" moments that have fired human progress ever since Archimedes jumped out of his bath.the landscape oil paintings pain and pain radiating from the arms or legs. It could also be a bill-cutting solution for thousands of home owners whose roofs are the wrong size,Als lichtbron wordt een offshore merchant account gebruikt, or orientation – or too beautiful – to be covered with solar panels.he believes the fire started after the lift's China ceramic tile blew,

Those silvery-blue slices of silicon can be an aesthetic disaster, particularly in areas where the vernacular roofing material is red clay. I have seen perfectly beautiful period homes ruined by their owners who have smothered their weathered roofs with solar panels.

It wasn't so much aesthetics – although the Evanses live in a 19th-century former lodge in Piltdown, East Sussex – as practicalities that inspired the solar greenhouse. Their roof is a collection of gables and does not present enough south-facing flank to the sun. They were already enjoying the sun's beneficence with solar-heated hot water and a sun pipe – one of my favourite energy-saving inventions. Through a series of reflective mirrors,There are zentai underneath mattresses, it literally pipes and magnifies sunshine from a domed collector on the roof into their upstairs landing. On an overcast day, the light is as bright as a 100-watt bulb. "Even at night, if there is a good moon, it bathes the upstairs corridor in this beautiful bluish light," says David, a clinical physiologist .

So with heat and light already ticked, it made sense to go for electricity too. "We got a local man, Russell King, who we knew was interested in microelectronics, to have a look," says David. "We were standing in the garden, considering mounting the panels on some kind of timber structure and Russell said 'the greenhouse will have to go'. I saw him thinking and then it just came to him – solar panels on the greenhouse roof."

The really clever bit is how Russell, an inventor who has three microelectronics patents to his name, has designed the roof to allow as much sunlight in, through gaps in the panels, as possible, so plants will still thrive. Having been to see the Evanses last November, Russell spent the winter working out how to maximise power output without compromising the size of their vegetables.

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