by TRC_Admin | Mar 31, 2022 | Codes, Solar Structures, Technology
“A floating solar array on a pond in Orlando. Florida has thousands of lakes and ponds where floating panels could be used”. Photo: Paul Hennessy, SOPA Images, ZUMA Press in WallStreet Journal
SB 1338/HB 1411
State requirement for amendments to local land regulations to promote floating solar panels
Backgrounder: “Where to put solar panels? How about on the water?”
“Floating solar panels are still a small part of the energy mix. But they have some advantages over land-based systems.
As befits its location in the Sunshine State, Orlando International Airport looked at installing solar panels on its property to help it reduce its electricity costs. But ultimately it decided not to commit land for such a purpose.
The airport’s land is too precious to use it for solar development, says Mark Birkebak, director of engineering for the airport.
Its water, however, proved to be a different matter. In December [2020], the Orlando Airport and the city’s main power provider rolled out floating solar panels on one of several ponds on airport property. Now, almost a year in, the water-based array provides energy equal to what 14 homes would consume, and the airport earns credits for the energy it pumps back into the grid.
As an extra flourish, Mr. Birkebak says, the panels are arranged in a stylized ‘O’—the Orlando airport emblem—illuminated at night by LED lighting and visible to passengers on jets and trams.
‘You can add a little artsy-ness to this and still have a great benefit,’ Mr. Birkebak says…
The number of solar-energy installations grew 23% world-wide in 2020, according to an International Energy Agency report, and are expected to keep growing globally through 2022 as power providers continue to fulfill mandates to add renewables to their energy mix. A small but increasing portion of that growth is expected to come from water-based solar arrays.
While land-based panels are the more popular choice for solar by far, largely due to higher installation costs for water-based systems, developers and scientists increasingly agree there are situations in which water-based arrays have advantages.
Continuing to find new places to accommodate solar panels is becoming more of a challenge. In the U.S. and elsewhere, opposition has been voiced by residents in some communities where large solar arrays have been proposed—by farmers who don’t want to convert food-crop land to solar farms, and by conservationists who don’t want forests cleared for panels.”
“Mayor Buddy Dyer walks past a floating solar array at Orlando Airport after a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the installation last December.” Photo: Joe Burbank,Associated Press
“Floating solar arrays, by deploying their panels on man-made reservoirs or lakes that aren’t used for recreation, can alleviate such concerns. The state of Florida, for instance, has thousands of lakes and ponds where floating panels could be used…
In addition to overcoming land-related issues, it is also possible that water, due to its cooling effects, could make solar panels work more efficiently. A study by Brazilian scientists published by IET Renewable Power Generation found that floating arrays generate as much as 12.5% more electricity than ground or rooftop solar installations. The panels can also slow evaporation, protecting essential water sources already affected by increased demand and climate change…
Asia is expected to account for more than 80% of floating solar through 2026, Europe an estimated 7% to 10%, and the U.S. 1% to 2%…
Many of the bodies of water highlighted in the NREL study were in regions with high electricity rates and high land prices. In such areas, floating solar, despite its higher installation costs, could still be the cheaper solar option, in part by removing the need for expensive land purchases.
To be sure, water-based solar does have some disadvantages, such as higher installation costs due to the need for floats, moorings and waterproof electrical components. Such items tend to cancel out any savings that water-based arrays might offer in terms of requiring no earthmoving or vegetation removal, says Evan Riley, chief executive and founder of White Pine Renewables, a company that has installed both floating solar and land-based systems.
Because of its higher installation costs, developers of floating solar tend to target reservoirs that already host hydropower and have connections to the grid in place.
‘For commercial or industrial-size floating solar, access to transmission can easily make or break a project,’ says NREL’s Mr. Macknick.
Another disadvantage for floating panels is their inability—so far—to track the sun’s movement. In the U.S., most ground-mounted solar panels are installed on trackers that allow the panels to turn and absorb the sun’s rays at the most favorable angle throughout the day. This isn’t possible yet for floating solar. So, despite having better efficiency, floating solar panels can’t produce as much energy as trackers allow.
‘We either need a technological innovation so that the panels can track the sun while floating,’ Mr. Riley says, or floating solar will have to ‘take off in markets where it doesn’t have to compete with a ground-mounted tracker.’…
‘We just now have the price of solar panels low enough that the business case is really getting to pick up.’ Mr. Lehner says. ‘It’s just a matter of time that floating solar will conquer many of these markets.'”
— Jackie Snow, WallStreet Journal
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by TRC_Admin | Mar 31, 2022 | Codes, Solar Structures, Technology
“SB 1338 (Diaz) and HB 1411 (Salzman) would require that a floating solar facility be a permitted use in the appropriate land use category in each local government’s comprehensive plan. Each local government would be required to amend its land development regulations to promote the expanded use of floating solar facilities.
Senate referrals: Regulated Industries (approved 2/1); Community Affairs (approved 2/8); Rules (approved 2/15)
House referrals: Tourism, Infrastructure & Energy Subcommittee (approved 1/25); Local Administration & Veterans Affairs Subcommittee (approved 2/7); Commerce Committee (approved 2/17). PASSED HOUSE 2/24 PASSED SENATE 3/2″
From 1000 Friends of Florida
by TRC_Admin | Mar 31, 2022 | Solar Structures, Technology
Photo: Sembcorp Industries in Euronews.green
Background article published 2021:
“Singapore’s floating solar farm on the Tengeh Reservoir has officially been opened.
Made up of 122,000 solar panels spanning 45 hectares, it is roughly equivalent to the size of 45 football fields. The 60 megawatt-peak solar photovoltaic (PV) farm is now officially one of the largest operational inland floating solar PV systems in the world.
The solar farm, installed by Sembcorp Industries, was deployed as part of Singapore’s goal to quadruple solar energy capabilities by 2025, in a bid to help the country do its part to tackle the global climate crisis.
Read article about large scale project in Euronews.green
by TRC_Admin | Mar 31, 2022 | Nature, Planting, Technology, Trees
Photo: Alana Holmberg, The New York Times
“A program in Melbourne, Australia, that tracks every public tree — and even gives each an email address — is seen as a way to manage climate change.
High in the branches of a 122-year-old Dutch Elm, two workers in a bucket crane framed by the city’s skyline used a chain saw to slice large limbs from the top of the tree.
Office workers strolled past, seemingly enjoying the afternoon sunshine of Flagstaff Gardens, the city’s oldest public park, while the workers carried out their ‘reduction pruning’ aimed at controlling the tree’s bulk to help improve its vitality and extend its lifespan.
It is one of the most time-tested forms of tree maintenance, but at ground level the workers’ supervisor, Jake Shepherd, added a high-tech wrinkle.
Mr. Shepherd, a 27-year-old Englishman, touched a yellow circle on a portable electronic device. The circle was within a map of the park that is part of the city’s elaborate tree database and it instantly turned green to register that this specific elm was back in top shape…
New York, Denver, Shanghai, Ottawa and Los Angeles have all unveiled Million Tree Initiatives aimed at greatly increasing their urban forests because of the ability of trees to reduce city temperatures, absorb carbon dioxide and soak up excess rainfall.
Central Melbourne, on the other hand, lacks those cities’ financial firepower and is planning to plant a little more than 3,000 trees a year over the next decade. Yet it has gained the interest of other cities by using its extensive data to shore up the community engagement and political commitment required to sustain the decades-long work of building urban forests.
A small municipality covering just 14.5 square miles in the center of the greater Melbourne metropolitan area — which sprawls for 3,860 square miles and houses 5.2 million people in 31 municipalities — the city of Melbourne introduced its online map in 2013.
Called the Urban Forest Visual, the map displayed each of the 80,000 trees in its parks and streets, and showed each tree’s age, species and health. It also gave each tree its own email address so that people could help to monitor them and alert council workers to any specific problems.
That is when the magic happened.
City officials were surprised to see the trees receiving thousands of love letters. They ranged from jaunty greetings — ‘good luck with the photosynthesis’ — to love poems and emotional tributes about how much joy the trees brought to people’s lives.
Members of the public were subsequently recruited to help with forestry programs such as measuring trees and monitoring wildlife, and politicians were left in no doubt about how much Melburnians valued their trees…
Gregory Moore, an expert on ecosystems and forests at the University of Melbourne, said another major problem was that planning laws controlled by the state of Victoria did little to protect greenery on private land, allowing development that contributed to the annual loss of 1.5 percent of canopy cover across the greater metropolitan area.
‘A good tree cover can save you an enormous amount in health spending alone by reducing deaths in heat waves and getting people outside and taking more exercise,’ he said. ‘Politicians and bureaucrats seem to think that all of these benefits from planting trees are simply too good to be true, but I think they will eventually get the point when economists keep telling them how much money they will save.'”
— Peter Wilson, New York Times
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by TRC_Admin | Mar 12, 2022 | Billboards, Controversial, Interactive Advertising, Technology
Photo: Ocean Outdoor in Washington Post
“A new form of outdoor advertising is slowly taking hold. But experts warn of overload…Anamorphic advertising is coming — usually right out of a building. (
It all began with a floating cat.
Photo: Independent UK (click photo for article
The giant feline suddenly appeared suspended over Tokyo’s Shinjuku train station. Throughout the summer, it stretched awake in the morning, meowed at passersby during rush hour and curled into a sleepy ball after midnight.
The cat, along with a cresting ocean wave above the streets of Seoul, wasn’t a biology experiment gone awry. It was a 3-D anamorphic outdoor ad, a proof-of-concept from several Asian design firms. The pieces would inspire principals at British ad company Ocean Outdoor, owner of many public screens across Europe, to create tools for a 3-D ad platform called DeepScreen. Part art installation, part ‘1984’-esque vision, the results hint at what our commercialized outdoor spaces might soon look like…
In just a few months, Ocean Outdoor’s Piccadilly Circus location and others across Europe have attracted advertisers including Fortnite, Netflix, Vodafone (the ad has 25-foot rugby stars and their ball bursting through a building), Sony, Amazon’s Prime Video (for its new ‘Wheel of Time’ fantasy series) and food-service company Deliveroo. Two weeks ago, the British agency that worked on the ‘Wheel of Time’ spot, Amplify, brought it to Times Square…
‘This is exciting and it’s attention-getting,’ said Arun Lakshmanan, an associate professor of marketing at the University at Buffalo School of Management and an expert in immersive advertising. ‘It also could really start getting intrusive…’
Production is expensive — it can cost upward of $500,000, several times a 30-second TV spot — and labor intensive…
Nir Eyal, an author and expert on the attention economy, called this in an email the ‘shiny pony’ problem. New forms of advertising lose their luster. Customers could lose interest.
But these ads may not be aimed only at them. Teixeira notes that the appearance of innovation could be equally important for what it telegraphs to investors, retailers and competitors.
Even the skeptical would admit there’s something cool about dynamic images occupying the space around us. But is it scary in the hands of corporations? Could advertising get ‘Minority Reported,’ where we are all Tom Cruise, assaulted by airborne ads tailored to us every time we leave our homes?
Could a political demagogue even use the tech to loom large in public?
‘How we want to regulate this is a very good question,’ said Buffalo’s Lakshmanan. ‘Unfortunately, in the history of advertising, it tends to be answered only after something has gotten popular.'”
— Steven Zeitchik, Washington Post
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by TRC_Admin | Dec 29, 2021 | Billboards, Controversial, Legal, Sky, Technology
Photo: Scott Kelly/NASA via AP
“Plans to advertise from space have been around for decades, but the latest proposals have met fierce criticism.
In August, the Canadian company Geometric Energy Corporation (GEC) announced that it wanted to launch a small satellite with a billboard on it on a SpaceX rocket. The story immediately went viral, and SpaceX and GEC received a barrage of criticism.
In 2019, Russian entrepreneur Vlad Sitnikov got caught up in a similar controversy. ‘I’m an ad guy’, Sitnikov told Al Jazeera. ‘So I thought it would be cool to see a new type of media in the sky…’
‘A big wave of hate crushed me. I decided to halt the project, because people around the world started hating me.’ His start-up, StartRocket, has been in limbo ever since.
A key objection to space advertising proposals is that they will contribute to light pollution from space, a problem that is growing even without ads in orbit.
Advertising in outer space might seem like a vulgar idea, but it’s one with a long history. It’s also getting more popular because the cost of going to space is falling. But the side effects, such as light pollution and space debris, might not be worth it…
Not in my low earth orbit
With space becoming more accessible, and less costly to access, proposals for using space for advertising or entertainment purposes have been increasing. Besides the GEC and StartRocket projects, Japanese start-up ALE wants to use satellites that drop small balls to create artificial shooting stars on demand – a proposition that raised close to $50m in venture funding.
One key objection to these proposals [space advertising schemes] is that they will contribute to light pollution from space, a problem that is growing even without ads in orbit.
‘Until recently most of our work had been on ground-based light pollution’, said Jeffrey Hall, director of the Lowell Observatory, and chair of the American Astronomical Society’s Committee on Light Pollution, Radio Interference, and Space Debris. ‘The issue of light pollution from space is new territory for us, and it only started in 2019 with the launch of the SpaceX Starlink satellites,’ he told Al Jazeera.
Large, so-called ‘constellations’ of small, low-flying satellites have boomed in recent years. For example, SpaceX Starlink wants to launch tens of thousands of satellites to offer internet connections all over the world.
For astronomers, however, to observe space they need relatively dark skies. Yet bright outdoor lights on land, or satellites that emit or reflect light, like the Starlink constellation, can ruin what they do. And Hall fears space billboards might make the problem worse.
‘Satellites leave very bright streaks in images’, he said. ‘The streaks can saturate pixels in the image, and completely ruin it…’
‘Things are moving so fast it makes sense to slow down until we understand the impacts of what we’re doing’, said Hall. Space law
It is possible that space law will prevent satellite billboards. Space is subject to the 1966 Outer Space Treaty, which sees space as a global commons.
‘There is nothing specific in the treaty about space advertising’, said professor emerita Joanne Gabrynowicz, director of the International Institute of Space Law. ‘But article 9 does require signatories to exercise ‘due regard’ of other signatories’ interests and to avoid ‘harmful interference’ to other nations’ space activities,’ she told Al Jazeera.
Satellite billboards that impede astronomers from observing space could be subject to this. On top of that, the US passed a national law during the 1990s that prohibits space advertising that might be deemed ‘obtrusive…’
Of course, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation was reviewed and approved by US authorities, even though it impacts astronomy. International law also depends on how treaties are applied at the national level. The Russian state would, for example, need to decide whether it sees a Russian space advertising startup as being in line with the Outer Space Treaty. Yet there is a legal argument for blocking space advertising if it would cause too much light pollution…”
— By Tom Cassauwers, Alazeera
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