It was a busy week. From the NREL talk to the Solar Decathlon, I spent a good deal of time sharing our LEED project. I was one of 33 poster presenters at the solar conference.
Conference goers looking at my poster
It was great to see the young people especially sharing their research projects and data. One of my favorites was a research proposal to study wind catchers made of tensile materials to improve ventilation and cooling in hot arid climates.
Tensile wind catcher
Several homeowners also had posters of their projects like me.
New Jersey Solar Home
A solar architect who has been designing solar homes for over 30 years had a poster displaying the tools she uses to plan for building energy efficiency.
Solar Architect’s Energy Use Tools
I brought the video I made for NREL and played it in a loop on the photo frame.
Solar conference posters
I also brought along the signs from the solar house tour and several conference attendees took time to read some of them.
Signs from open house near poster
I enjoyed a day at the conference, attending sessions and viewing demonstrations. The solar cooker information was really inspiring. Organizations are working to bring low cost solar cookers to those who spend a good deal of the day collecting material for fires to cook with. Solar cookers cuts that time dramatically and gives women especially more time to apply their other skills. Of course there were fancier cookers available too. This was one of my favorites.
Fancy Solar Cooker
And the solar chef uses a concentrator to aim heat at a cast iron pan then removes it to cook on it. Kind of amazing to observe.
Solar Chef
There were three concentrators in all and three cooking stations.
Solar Cooker Concentrators
At one session I learned that there is a local company that sells solar hot tub covers. The collectors are passive and have some black and some reflective areas of the polycarbonate PV panel to prevent over heating. They use a small 12v fan to transfer heat from under the panels to the surface of the water in the tub. They advertise that they can save about half the heating costs for a hot tub depending on location and shading. I’m pursuing purchase of one of these covers.
Aztech Solar Hot Tub Cover
It was an exciting and interesting day and I met several people who were passionate about solar power, including a very nice young woman from South Korea working on a project to bring solar power to Jeju Island a resort area where my daughter in law’s sister lives. More power to them all!