Cool Power's Solar Pavilion is a low-cost multi-purpose structure made of sustainable timber, which has solar PV panels that track the sun. This means that the panels rotate during the day to follow the sun, allowing them to generate more electricity than a fixed array.
It provides a perfectly oriented, well designed, sustainable supporting framework for our solar modules in your garden or grounds. The Solar Pavilion also doubles as a car port, bike or garden shed, or a space to hang a sheltered washing line.
Cool Power's standard solar PV array consists of six 165 Wp mono-crystalline PV modules - a total of 990 Wp - mounted on Cool Power's prototype single axis tracking system. The array is connected to a Fronius IG15 inverter. The output from the array is managed by an EMMA controller.
In our test site, the surplus power from the solar pavilion goes to storage heaters when the test house is unoccupied and to a single 3kW immersion hot water heater when it is occupied.
Cool Power has been collecting data on its solar pavilion at its test site in West Cork since November 2007. For research purposes, the test system is operated in both fixed and tracking modes to get comparable data.
The array was kept in a fixed (non-tracking) position initially to provide "base" site data. The system generated a total of 594 kWh during the first half year (29th December 2007 to 30th June 2008). This is equivalent to 1178 kWh over a full twelve months or 1189 kWh per kWp per year. We believe this represents a "record" output for PV cells in Ireland. This may be related to the increased density of photons in coastal areas such as our test site.
The array was then allowed to track the sun. Data collected to date indicates that the system's output increases by an average of 22% when the tracker is operating. This suggests that the annual output from the tracking system will be in the region of 1450 kWh per kWp per year i.e. almost 1.5 times what the array is rated to produce, or 50% more than what would be expected.
These figures are all the more remarkable when you think of the weather in 2008, the initial year of testing. Data collection is ongoing.
Cool Power can provide tracking array systems for both ground and roof mounting. The Solar Pavilion has been designed by a leading Irish architect for flat-pack production and simple self-assembly. It can be erected in a couple of hours and connected up immediately.
It can also be used as:
Contact us for more details about the Solar Pavilion and whether it is the right system for you
Solar pavilion.