This image comes from what appears to be a roofing company in the Netherlands, so nothing to do with solar per se, but like the design, clean lines, elegant that we thought it was worthwhile posting the photo for future design inspiration. Could definitely work in many different ways, as a stand alone type shed, or maybe even converted in to some sort of solar canopy type thing, garage? Carport?
Most entrepreneurs have some sort of a vague plan as to where they hope to see their business in five, ten and even twenty years. Thinking ahead and envisioning where you want to be and how to get there is one of the distinguishing characteristics of being an entrepreneur. I doubt there is anyone out there who question our assertion that Elon Musk is one of the great entrepreneurs of the 20th and 21st century. Did he have a master plan all along that he’s been ticking off boxes of accomplishment every few years? Maybe, when he came up with the idea for the Tesla roadster and for Tesla in general he probably had a vision of where he thought it could go and how he might take it there. Did he ever imagine that it would include solar, batteries, storage, charging etc all sorts of things. Maybe, maybe not. Generally speaking an entrepreneur is also very adept at seeming opportunity and solving problems. Much of what Musk has accomplished can be chalked up to opportunism and problem solving. Looking for a better take on the subject than ours, there’s a long winded opinion piece over at Solar Tribune you should feel free to checkout, Elon Musk’s Complete Master Plan.
When we think of solar panels, most of us probably think of either roof installed or ground mounted solar that are set at an angle, or tilt, to the ground. But, panels can absolutely be installed vertically. There is an ideal tilt for solar panels which is dependent on latitude, but panels set flat at 180 degrees or completely vertical at 90 degrees still produce power, and reasonable so. In future posts we’ll find examples of these simply to be used as evidence that the practice is not so rare within certain circumstances absolutely works well. Since basically all of our existing built structures, building et cetera are boxes of one size, shape or another, exterior walls provide a lot of surface area that could be used for building integrated solar pv. If we're going to successfully address climate change, we're going to have to make use of lots of different solutions, vertical installation of solar pv, definitely needs to be one of them.
