Home owners associations in the USA have been known to object to solar panel installations purely on the basis of aesthetics.
The dark monocrystalline solar panels usually aren’t so much a problem, but some home owners have faced solar panel snobbery when they have wanted to install polycrystalline panels; specifically those that are blue.
A company called Solar Botanic may have another solution for sensitive home owner associations – artificial trees that make use of renewable energy from the sun and wind. The artificial trees are covered with "nanoleaves"; a combination of nano-photovoltaic, nano-thermovoltaic and nano-piezo generators converting light, heat and wind energy into green electricity.
Solar Botanic claims that in a residential application, the artificial trees will generate 50% more power than conventional solar systems while blending in with the neighbourhood. Depending on size and location, the company says a single tree can produce between 2000 and 12,000 kWh of electricity annually.
On a larger scale, Solar Botanic believes that a kilometre of trees would be able to generate approximately 350,000 kWh per year, enough electricity to power approximately 60 average size houses.
The company uses an example of Highway 1 between Adelaide to Perth, which is 2700 kilometres long. 189,000 solar trees "planted" along the road would generate over 1.2 GW of electricity; reduce our carbon footprint by more than 900 thousand tons of CO2 per year and produce enough electricity to power over 118,000 average size homes.
So where can you buy a Solar Botanics artificial tree? You can’t just yet – the company is still looking for potential JV partners who have the required sector expertise and funding to take this project from the R&D phase to full commercialisation.
