Retro solar technology stages a comeback in Boulder

October 19, 2009 · Posted by in Building 

In the world of solar, it’s just not that sexy.

It doesn’t make electricity like photovoltaic panels. It doesn’t warm water like solar thermal. It can’t run a giant steam turbine like concentrating solar power.

It’s just a big metal wall that relies on a ridiculously simple principle to harness the sun’s warming rays, massively reducing the building’s heating bills.  And it’s coming to Boulder.

You might ask, if this “solar wall” technology is so simple, why didn’t anyone think of it before? And you’d be right — because it was thought of before. Solar walls have been around since the early 1980s when the energy crises of the 70s spurred a first solar boom. But they fell out of favor when fossil fuels got cheap again.

But retro solar walls are cool again. And oddly, it may have taken Wal-Mart jumping on the solar wall bandwagon to resurrect the technology. The mega-retailer slapped solar walls on its new supercenter in Aurora a few years back, bringing attention to the elegant technology (which can pay for itself in half a dozen years without rebates, tax breaks or other incentives).

Solar walls are basically dark, metal sidings perforated with tiny slits. The building’s ventilation system pulls air that’s been warmed by the sun from behind the wall, reducing the demand on the building’s heating system.

Summit Middle School in Boulder is in the process of adding a solar wall to its new gym.

From the Daily Camera:

The solar wall being installed at Summit Middle School, which is being partly paid for through the district’s 2006 bond authorization, is largely happening because of the persistence of the school’s Net Zero Club, which has been campaigning for green features in the school’s new upgrades.

The club was also largely responsible for the decision to use a ground-source heat pump — which takes advantage of the constant temperatures below the ground to heat the school in the winter and cool it in the summer — in the extension built onto the school last year, according to Principal David Finell.

“We wanted the new gym to be green,” Finell said. “But without them, these two extensions would have been a lot less energy-conserving. We would have put in regular HVAC (Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning) units.”

Eighth-grader Maddy Searchinger, who’s been in the Net Zero Club since the sixth grade, shuddered as Finell said the words “regular HVAC units.” She and her net-zero classmates are well-versed in the benefits of going green, and peppered Scott with questions about efficiencies, payback times and wall placement when he visited Summit Middle last week.

“I wanted to help make a change,” she said of joining the club. “I wanted to see the school go green.”

 

Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.

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28 Responses to “Retro solar technology stages a comeback in Boulder”

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  2. Retro solar technology stages a comeback in Boulder … on October 19th, 2009 11:57 am

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