# Solar collectors that emulate nature: Fibonacci solar panels



## hakamike (Aug 17, 2011)

Arranging solar panels like branches of trees.

http://www.squidoo.com/solar-collectors-that-emulate-nature

Trees are big solar collectors. Nature has perfected the art of solar design. Trees and plants have evolved to capture the maximum available sunlight in order to efficiently photosynthesize sunlight into energy. The way trees and plants grow follows a subtle mathematical sequence and this is known as phyllotaxis.

A 13 year old boy from New York State has developed an experiment which proves that solar panels arranged to emulate trees which grow according to the Fibbonaci sequence are in fact more efficient than flat panel arrays. This bright youngster arrived at the culmination of his experiment by fist observing that the braches of trees radiated off from the main trunk or branches of the tree in a spiralling upward arrangement that matched the famous mathematical sequence recently bought back to the minds of the public in Dan Browns best selling novel: The Da Vinci Code.

Read the story of discovery and experimentation of one very bright young man in this article.


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## Tyler520 (Aug 12, 2011)

that really doesn't make any sense at all. Firstly, most plant arrangements are not based upon the fibonacci sequence.

Flora phylogenetics is based upon maximizing average exposure in *less-than-optimum conditions*, whereas the materials and methods in which a solar panel is fabricated demands optimization - anything less will result in an exponential decay in efficiency. Solar panels must be oriented normal to average radiation exposure to generate maximum energy...its a basic mathematical equation. Just think: a solar panel facing north isn't going to do anything.

Due to the dimensional and spatial arrangement of the average plant, its leaves are not always optimally exposed to radiation, so they have developed shapes and orientations to make use of the little radiation they do receive. For instance, the phylotaxis arrangements prevent overshadowing - that is, one leaf shading another. Also, leaves tend to become much larger and horizontal at the bottom of the canopies because radiation becomes diffused and irregular as it works its way through the canopy and the leaf needs maximum exposure (notice that tropical plant leaves on forest floors tend to be massive). 

The average plant will only use 3-5% of the radiation striking it - most solar panels achieve 12-17% efficiency...much higher than any plant.


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