OF LETHAL PINK BATTS AND OTHER FANTASIES

Last week, we attended the national conference of Building Designers Australia, on the shores of Lake Macquarie, NSW. It was labelled the ECOnomical conference, and there were some really outstanding presentations. I will share just two here, quite different from each other, but both powerful in their own way.

The heart warming story involves Envirotecture’s solar power demonstrator, Moondog, the solar powered catamaran. We use it to demonstrate solar power in a very tangible way. The problem with solar electricity is that it is hard to see it at work. Sure you can see reduced power bills, and you can tell the fridge is cold, but there is nothing like locomotion – physical movement – as a way of ‘moving’ people from non-understanding to a strong understanding. So this is how we did it. Moondog took passengers from the wharf on a short trip around the bay, starting off at slow speed using about 100w of power.

“We are moving now under the power of a 100w light globe” I explained, and people would nod as they accommodated the connection between speed and power. “But the solar panel can output at least 400w, so let’s see how fast that will move us”, as I pushed the ‘throttle’ forward until just over 400w was being drawn by the motor and the speed went up to a low cruising speed of 4 knots. Many people grew a little wide eyed at this point, saying things like “So we are running on sunlight – that’s all!?”

That’s right – pure sunlight, 5 people, 4 knots, all day. You could see the light globes going on above people’s heads!

After several minutes of getting used to this, I then pushed the throttle all the way forward, drawing 2.4 kilowatts, Moondog leapt forward to her maximum speed of about 8 knots, causing more than one person to grab on for fear of losing their balance. Once again eyes grew wide at the notion that electric power could be so – powerful! At these speeds Moondog is drawing on both panels and batteries, but between bursts is fully recharged and ready to go – all from the sun.

In spite of what the decreasing number of sceptics say, solar power is in fact powerful, and practical. There are now many more people with a more ‘motivated’ awareness of that fact, thanks to Moondog, which is now back to its weekday job of powering the computers at Envirotecture.

The uber-powerful story is in the next blog post – it’s about LJ Hooker and how they are making the real estate industry – sustainable!