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by waterlesscloud
5415 days ago
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Last paragraph sums up the possible advantages- Aidan wrote: "The tree design takes up less room than flat-panel arrays and works in spots that don't have a full southern view. It collects more sunlight in winter. Shade and bad weather like snow don't hurt it because the panels are not flat. It even looks nicer because it looks like a tree. A design like this may work better in urban areas where space and direct sunlight can be hard to find." |
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The tree takes up less "floor area", but it takes up considerably more volume because it is significantly taller. That's why, in most places, you probably don't want to replace large panels with a single tree, but with a forest of mini-trees.
Trees also have a "concentration of weight" problem, which can be an issue for roof-top installations. The entire weight of the tree is on its trunk, which has a lot smaller cross-section than a comparable panel. Roofs that can handle weight that is spread out often have problems with concentrated weight. Again, the solution is a forest of mini-trees.
Note that the optimal spacing for solar-panel mini-trees is different from tree spacing in nature because nature's trees aren't just trying to optimize energy collection, they're also trying to crowd out their neighbors.