Solar Greenhouse
Life Synthesis, in Norway is building the project illustrated, which is a "test bed" for our Agri POD product. This project is an example of DIY Food Projects that we anticipate will be commonly built by DI Yers. I invite those in our community who would like to participate as "pioneers" in our DIY Food Campaign, which is now focused on for 12.12.12 as the date for a global celebration of solutions for Eco Living that we can present at a number operational Sola Roof sites. We hope to have multiple Agri POD projects in multiple countries by this date..
Solar Greenhouse - provides an ideal Solar Controlled Environment for growing horticultural and food crops and maximizing production while requiring minimum energy and conserving water resources. Our purpose here is to share DIY applications such as Back Yard Project or a Sun Space that is attached to your home; there are also Family Farm and Commercial Grower applications. All of these Sola Roof Apps need to be studied to document the best practices for operation and growing various crops as well as sharing operational experiences in various climates. The structural methods and other technical aspects are covered in the Sola Roof Tech section; this section is more about using our technology to get the best results for our personal or business purpose.
A solar greenhouse has never existed until the emergence of the Sola Roof Greenhouse. I say this because previous greenhouses require a whole lot of energy to maintain the climate steady and create what is called a Controlled Environment. The present methods use boilers and steam or hot water heat distribution or furnaces for heating air that is recirculated in the greenhouse. Forced ventilation, sometimes with evaporative cooling is used for cooling together with curtain systems for shading. The Sola Roof technology enables the breakthrough energy efficiency and capacity to capture and use PAR and solar thermal energy effectively. The Vertical Greenhouse is especially efficient and presents a very special opportunity for the Family Farm and household based enterprise. Sola Roof will make the Vertical Greenhouse accessible to DI Yers - with the plan to establish the Sola Roof Coop.
Our very different approach is presented by Harvey Rayner in these great graphics at solarbubblebuild.com. - please refer to this site while our Gallery is not opperational - but I hope for some new improvement soon.
The Sola Roof Greenhouse has the heating and cooling processes built into the transparent building envelope to collect, use and reject (cooling) solar energy. These Liquid Solar Tech processes include the Bubble Tech system which greatly reduces the tendency of a transparent building envelope to overheat or chill very quickly. These systems do require a small amount of electrical power for pumps and blower operation (for Bubble Generation) and this energy use has a COP of 20 for cooling and 40 for heating, which means that our solar greenhouse uses only 5% and 2.5% of the normal consumption for cooling and heating, respectively. Such low energy reqirements can be supplied on a renewable basis from conversion of organic biomass into Bio Fuel or from Photo Voltaic systems that can be integrated into areas (less than 5%) of the roof.
There are many types of solar greenhouses applications that can use Sola Roof Tech. Our community will develop practical, "how to" guides to building and operating all versions of Sola Roof Projects.
These applications below are priorities that deserve detailed description and ongoing development in Wiki Chapters?(pages that are linked by an Wiki Index? also known as Wiki Trails):
all the gallery links below are down - (4/12/10)repairs coming soon
- BackYard and LeanTo structures
- Tunnel Greenhouse (sorry gallery is down) structures for serious personal and small scale Commercial Grower applications.
- Double Tunnel Greenhouse structures (sorry gallery is down) solar greenhouses as built by Batu Now of South Korea for home and commercial applications
- WideSpan for large projects and Commercial Grower applications
- SpaceFrame systems for combined use such as a "home & garden"
<< | Sola Roof Apps Index? | >>