Springstone Farm
                                                                                                              
  • Home
  • Eggs
  • Honey
  • RESCUE
  • Volunteers
  • The Owner
  • Contact
  • KEAN Blog

Would love to combine heating water solar panels with electric panels? Sorry!

3/9/2018

1 Comment

 
Author: Emmanuel Henry, Outdoor Shower Group
​
​
Ever took a cold bath in an outdoor shower with no heat nor electricity?  If you had to and the only method of energy was the sun, wouldn’t you want to optimize the source?  This is the task we are faced with, as a group of students in a Capstone, Kean University course, in conjunction with Springstone Farm.
Our first thought was to apply a solar water heating system, since the owner of the farm already has a flat solar panel. Then, we thought of using the same source to generate electricity for the outdoor shower complex. Finally, what better way to optimize the source than to optimize the area of the collected source.  If we were to combine both systems that may help deter the necessity of additional panels. I have been trying to see if such an existing system exists, and I couldn’t find one. Our team would like to know how to make such a system, but we will first need to understand the dynamics of both individual systems. One encompassing total system, solar water heating and solar electric generating system, would increase the efficiency in use of an area, but think that it might not be worth the expenditure. I am willing to receive all the help I can get to make this idea happen!

In the meantime while such a system doesn’t exist, we will look to heat, a well sourced, water in a collected barrel and design the system for such an objective.  

1 Comment
Revi Sterling link
3/12/2018 05:46:54 pm

Hello team - this is really interesting. How would you be able to get the costs down and volume up for something like the https://www.amazon.com/Coleman-2000014865-5-Gallon-Solar-Shower/dp/B0009PUT20 - those sun showers work pretty well, but are tiny. A larger system would be excellent... is there any play for "biogas" here? Glad to have your minds on thus!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Sarah is a senior Kean University student graduating this may with a B.S. in Environmental Biology. She is the technical editor of her senior capstone project, which revolves around helping Springstone Farm become more sustainable.

    Archives

    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.