I keep kicking the idea around of a residential-area 'solar roof', a way of making a housing / commercial development into a solar power station, but I'm struggling to depict it. I wrote an article on my blog here:

http://blog.lolyco.com/sean/2011/03/15/sol...rea-solar-roof/

But as you can see the last photo, copy-and-pasted together in GIMP, just completely fails to do the idea justice. Does anybody fancy making some 3D models of a residential area, on the scale described in the article (about 50-100 houses, under 5-10 'sun roofs'), to give a better image of what such a project would look like? I have no commercial interest in this project, it just seems from my calculations that it's a plausible solution to the solar-power-needs-plan-area problem. I can give some technical input / do calcs, but my graphical design skills are shite.

What would be great for giving people an idea of whether the project is desirable (from a live-in-it perspective) would be some better renderings of what it would look like. What I'd like to see:
1. A view head-on of one house from the road showing the house, the gap, the solar roof, the absence of a rain-roof on top of the house (no need).
2. A view from the end of a road, showing link houses on either side of the road with a solar roof on each side.
3. A view of the residential development from a treetop just outside the development (I don't know how better to describe this viewpoint - it seems a common one for residential developments!)
4. A view from inside the house looking across the road to another house, showing deep shadows on both sides?
One of the main points to get across in the images would be (in my opinion) the depth of shade under the solar roof.

There's no money in this, just 'interesting' - and possibly a good idea for power gen in Malaysia. Who knows, if the idea takes off there might be some work (for you, not for me) in it? I'm sorry I didn't post this idea before - it might have made a decent FYP for someone.

Anybody interested? With skills and spare time?

IMO, will not really work well. Solar panel efficiency is still <30%, expensive and maintenance wise not so cost effective. If there're even a tiny layer of contaminant on the panel (such as dust, discoloration, etc), efficiency will drop even further, which of course means very regular maintenance which I don't think it's going to just cost a penny to clean up if you are talking about panel the size of a roof on multiple houses. Also, I don't think a power company will willingly bear the cost of the panels and pay you "rental" at the same time, unless you own bought the panels yourself.

For Solar panel to be commercially viable, efficiency vs cost need to improve first and provided the area you live in have constant sunshine to make it worthwhile investment which is not likely in this country with 50/50 chance of cloudy, It may work though in desert area, but proven to be costly due to regular sand cleanup on the mirrors.

Calculations or gtfo!

Can you produce a citation for 'dust contamination' as a solar show-stopper in Malaysia? The reason why I think solar would work well in cloudy, rainy Malaysia when it might at first glance be better in the cloudless, rain-free Sahara is precisely the prospect of regular 'washing'. I don't share your fatalism at the prospect of keeping solar panels clean. Unemployment is not a non-existent problem in Malaysia and window-cleaning does not require rocket scientists, nor Wayne Rooney's pay-cheque. Although your point is relevant when one considers the traditional deployment of a few solar panels on the house of a bungalow: that does present a maintenance problem. The whole point of the article is that a few solar panels on a few individuals' roofs are going to solve nothing. I'm going to add the point about dust to the article and credit you - I hope you don't mind.


I used an insolation figure in my calculations that takes into account weather and night-time. Raw equatorial sun is over 1KW/m², the insolation map I found appears to suggest that Malaysia gets an average of something over 200W/m², I used only 200W/m². I also used efficiency at 10% and retail prices for photovoltaics. Those are only the major factors, but using bad (from my point of view) constants is reasonable because costs like construction and maintenance are left out. If you get a 'feasible' result with bad-case factors for the major costs, it's a good sign. No power-generation technique is full-time, they all require down-time for maintenance, inspection and repairs. You wouldn't use only solar in the same way you wouldn't use *only* any other source. Solar downtime is at least grossly predictable on a 24-hour basis

Can you produce a 3D visualisation? I started working my way late last night through the Blender tutorial at wikibooks, but I doubt I'll be producing my own visualisation with Blender any time soon I ruled out doing it with Sauerbraten (the only other 'visualisation tool' I know) for now - I think the bloodstains and 'angry residents' might be counter-productive. What do you think? Is there a tool somewhere with which someone with next-to-no knowledge of visualisation can quickly produce an 'OK-ish' 3D model? I thought someone might enthusiastically pick up the idea, but that's a mistake I've made before.

try sketch up

What .... pen and paper? I'll try that later... since my GIMPed image is so atrocious, that's probably a good suggestion.

sketchup is google 3d software.

btw, dont just come here and ask for free service.

You don't quite get it. Try cleaning them all, you will see what I mean. It's not just dust and grime but also bird droppings, leafs and all sorts of unknown contaminant and those kind tend to be harder to clean if you leave them too long under hot sun. Also with that many panels covering almost the whole neighbourhood , surely you don't go around asking street cleaners and entrust them your thousand ringgit panels with soap and water. You get people who are adept to this sort of job and this sort won't come cheap if you intend to pay them regularly. Not to mention the panel you are suggesting are of horizontal angle, which makes it even harder (since you can't really go and step on them and water don't flow horizontally).

There's also the angle of the sun you need to think about as well which tend to make the efficiency vary (thus the rotating solar building in dubai which automatically faces the sun). Not forgetting the fact that by the time you finish installing the panel which cost a bomb, newer tech comes about and introduces better solar panel (or other alternative energy) at lower price, thus causing the payback in 10 years less desirable. It's like buying a portable computer 10 years ago which cost RM8 000 just to find you cannot do much with it and a significantly smaller more powerful one at just RM1k in 5 years time. Solar panel today is just up to par yet to be considered commercially viable.

But just so you know, you can actually store power into battery cells thus eliminating the need for constant power only during the day. But that too cost extra and battery cells tend to have lower life span than panels and also require regular maintenance like your car battery.

You don't just look at the result point of view but also other outside factors like conveniences, roof access for maintenance and other impact. Take wind turbine for example. Sure it's clean but to find clear land on top of mountain (unless you start chopping trees and clear away for road access) with enough wind is a headache. Not to mention, it produces a lot of noise pollution, bird killing and produces less energy for area that big. To make Prius, you need rare earth, and to get one, you have to willing to take the risk of radiation contamination around the processing area. Nuclear is clean but requires a lot of water to cool the reactor, thus increasing temperature at nearby lake which eventually kill the fishies. They can try for man made lake but that will cost extra. Need I mention radioactive waste produce? Every yin has a yang, and if one neglect to investigate the drawbacks it tend to produce more problem than solution. And speaking of yang, you can't expect designer, no matter how free they are, to produce a 3D image for your mini project for free since this sort of work will at least take a whole day even for a pro?

This post has been edited by LeechFever: Mar 16 2011, 10:57 PM

It looks good, I didn't know about it before. Thanks for the suggestion (and to bugijun) I would have searched for it earlier if it had been all one word! I'll download that and try it out later.