This project proposes a solar energy collection system using photovoltaic solar panels arranged in a manner similar to the south side of a coniferous tree. The rationale for this approach is the fact that the sun tracks across the sky at the latitude of the city of Calgary from a southern direction. A new method of alternative energy collection in this generation is absorbing light energy from the sun. Currently, solar energy collecting systems require motors to allow panels to follow the sun as it moves from east to west in the sky. The panel must align itself at an angle perpendicular to the sun’s rays as the earth tilts throughout the year from south to north and vice versa. Attempting to track the sun is impractical due to the cost of the mechanical assembly and energy required to accomplish this task accurately and consistently every day, morning to night and season to season. Or to say it more simply, this cost outweighs the cost of a simple mechanical assembly that would be required for a stationary system that could function every day without requiring energy input to track the sun.

Collecting solar energy is an important task to continue to improve on, as it proves to be environmentally conscious and self-perpetuating with minimal maintenance most of the time. There is no pollution generated from such a method, and solar energy collection is slowly becoming more cost-efficient, since the energy itself is free. It has allowed small countries to use solar energy as a local resource, therefore decreasing the reliance on foreign energy suppliers. Rural areas of the world can also set up solar energy collectors, making energy collection easier. Strategically, this would make lifestyles become more secure. Common technology for solar panels is the use of photovoltaics, which has proved to be useful on a large and small scale, and helping the decrease of society’s reliance on oil and gas industries. In this generation, an energy crisis continues to grow due to the fact that such non-renewable resources are becoming more difficult to obtain easily. Society is highly dependent on such resources for needs such as heating in buildings, fuel for transportation vehicles and many others. The use of oil and gas pollutes the atmosphere and causes global warming effects, potentially leading to disease and other problems that may arise on the planet Earth. (Figure 7.5) If an efficient arrangement for solar panels can be found, then such potential problems have a less likely chance of occurring.

This system proposes a design in which photovoltaic solar panels would cover artificial branches facing the south to attempt to solve the problem stated above. This would collect more solar energy because it is naturally-adapted after the effective mathematics of a Picea glauca tree. This artificial tree would be better than a rotating solar panel system, since the panel system may not absorb the optimum amount of energy. This is because it covers a smaller area than the tree system, which is more able to absorb light from different angles. On average, there is one kilowatt of energy per square meter. A maximum of 15% of this energy (15 watts) can be absorbed by an individual solar panel. If there are more panels spread out in one area, then more than 15% could be absorbed. This system would be designed so there would be minimal or no shading of lower panels by upper panels and the spacing would be even so that there is no bare ground between any artificial trees in any direction. The spacing of each individual “tree” will not shade any other tree until the sun is very low in the horizon. In this view, the tree is an ideal model to study for this project because it has developed while being affected by various environmental conditions that the solar collecting system must be able to handle as well, such as snow load, gravity, flexibility and other factors.

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