The world is immersed in the Renewable Energy Revolution. China is the Great powerin Europe we are seeing The sorpasso of renewables And even states like Texas have Uploaded to wind and photovoltaic car. However, there is a region in which bet on solar panels It looks like a contradiction: the Arctic. The reason? With a sun that for much of the year is up to the horizon, traditional panels sound like a waste. The trick is to stand up.
And in the city of Troms the largest installation of bifacial solar panels in the world has just finished.
Tromsøterminalen. North of the Arctic Circle is the city of Tromsø. Is at the upper limit of Norway And in a storage installation the world installation record of vertical photovoltaic units has just been exceeded, known as VPV. The roof of the trumsøtermine has hostel 1,600 VPV units that, in total, have 6,400 individual solar panels.
It covers an area of about 2,670 square meters and the installed capacity is 320 kWp. As they point in Interesting Engineeringthe CEO of Over Easy Solar (Norwegian company that He was in charge of the installation) comments that it is the vertical solar system located on a larger roof in the world. Too many ‘asterisks’, but the truth is that the orientation is impressive responds to a need.
Vertical panels. Northern Norway has some Very capricious solar patterns. Focusing in Tromsø, from May to July there is a period known as the ‘midnight sun’. The sun remains visible 24 hours a day with different intensity, but there is also the opposite phenomenon: the ‘polar night’. From the end of November to mid -January, the star barely rises above the horizon.
Depending on the area in Norway, there are between two and four months of continuous sunlight and another two to four at polar night. Traditional panels could not capture virtually anything when the sun affects too sharp angles, and that is where the VPV come out. If a traditional panel would reach 485 kWh yields in suitable conditions in this region, verticals can generate up to 55% more energy: about 750 kWh per year.
Sun … and snow. In the winter months, that difference can become three or four times higher, but in addition to being more suitable to capture the sun when it is in the horizon line, these vertical solar panels take advantage of the Albano effect caused by the snow that accumulates between the ranks of panels and reflects the sunlight. That is: VPVs are capturing light from both the sun and what is reflected in the snow.
It is estimated that this can increase energy production by more than 30% and, obviously, the advantage of vertical orientation is that snow does not accumulate on top of the panels, facilitating so much cleaning (The snow either Dust are enemies of photovoltaic plates) as ensuring a more continuous production.
Tromsø is not the first system of this type and, in fact, is inspired by the success of the 1,200 VPV units installed a few years ago at the Oslo Ullevaal Stadium. In addition, it is an easy installation to perform (it was installed, according to The company, in four days for three people) and the CEO of Over Easy Solar trusts that that of tromsøterminate is an example for other cities of extreme latitudes. Although, really, they are not only useful in these conditions and there are already those who explore this solution on roads or in the Agrovoltaic facilities.
Scalability. In fact, Over Easy is performing tests in which they measure the production of vertical panels not in extreme areas: but in one of the paradises of the photovoltaic: Spain. In the video below we see how a cluster of these panels produces on a roof in Elche:
And that is on a roof is interesting because a problem that solar panels can have is their measured weight in kg/m². A traditional panel can weigh Between 15 and 25 kg/m² taking into account both cells and structure, hardware and other units.
The one installed in the trumsøterminalen has a weight of 11 kg/m², which facilitates both the assembly work and the being able to fill roofs with panels.
Images | Over Easy
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