Giant Duck to Store Solar Electricity
Carl Brahe Storing solar energy has always been its biggest drawback. There have been some methods of storage developed that include batteries and storing heat from solar collectors or concentrators. The simplest and most interesting solution is offered by a design team in Europe. They have proposed a twelve story high floating duck to reside in Copenhagen harbor. This duck would be covered in solar panels that would supply power during daylight hours to the grid. It would also use power generated during the day to pump water into the duck. At night the force of gravity would pull the water through turbines to generate electricity.
The designers say the duck could be scaled to different uses. They claim a ten foot model could power an individual home. Some doubt the design will work. I’m not an engineer, but the only detractor I saw who offered math to show it can’t work and will only produce enough electricity in 8 hours to power a 100 watt bulb. Practical experience tells me you can probably produce enough electricity to power a 100 watt bulb using a car alternator and a garden hose. The force of a large 80 foot column of water is going to produce a lot more energy. Of course the mathematician did leave out how long 8 hours of operation would operate a 100 watt bulb. Maybe he is saying it would operate a 100 watt bulb for a long, long time.
I don't know if it will work or not but it is the most simple, elegant solution I seen for solar energy storage. It even looks good. If this actually works it seems like adapting it to a two chambered, underground water tank operate as a storage battery. Liquid could be pumped into the top of one chamber. At night the full chamber could be metered through a generator at the bottom of the chamber into the empty chamber. The same theory could be adapted to air, compressing it into storage tanks during daylight hours and running generators with air driven engines like those used in India’s Tata like this taxi.
People will continue to find new ways to store energy from the sun. As solar PV panels get cheaper and access becomes ubiquitous garage tinkerer will adapt them to their own lives in unforeseen ways. Maybe the next great solar technology will come from someone’s garage or from big energy. It will be interesting to see if the best solutions turn out to be old, mechanical technology or new electronic technology that perhaps has not yet been invented.