The extreme drought of recent years has led to the most violent fires we have ever experienced.
Although a greatHow to prevent extreme bush fires?
The extreme drought of recent years has led to the most violent fires we have ever experienced.
Although a great many people have lost their belongings and well, and far too many have lost their lives, there is no question of abandoning the coal industry.
After all, even a worldwide total renunciation of coal would not bring more rain, but would only endanger more economic livelihoods.
So perhaps something should be done directly about the droughts. But how do you irrigate a few hundred million hectares of scrubland?
One possible solution to this comes from the other side of the globe. A start-up from Germany, a country whose last drought was a laugh to us, has
has developed an amazingly simple solution to this problem. Its solution is called IrrigationNets and distributes the water through the air.
But how is such a thing supposed to work? A practically water-free irrigation ?!?!!?!
Nature shows us how to do it. Normally, a large amount of water vapour rises from the rainforests, which are then regularly irrigated with
Supply morning dew and occasionally rain. In Brazil these cloud bands are also called the flying rivers.
In the course of climate change there is actually more humidity in the atmosphere, only this humidity is above the oceans.
Due to the rising air masses over the land, the humidity is pushed away from the land. As soon as the humidity over land
moved, so mostly in very large quantities. More and more heavy rainfall is formed and this washes away the good layers of earth. This is then called erosion.
So we need much more moisture in the countryside.
To achieve this, IrrigationNets equips photovoltaic power plants with their special seawater cooling system.
IrrigationNets consists of special nets where billions of small and smallest saltwater drops hang in the air with low wind resistance.
This creates a very large evaporation surface. Further millions of water droplets constantly run slowly over these nets and fill the
old drops and carry off the salt. As the drops do not break, no salt is released into the air. In this way you can
bring large quantities of drinking water into the air with a very low energy input. The air is simultaneously cooled down by up to 15°C and
the relative humidity increases to 99%.
Solar power plants are the first to be cooled with this cold humid air. The photovoltaic modules produce up to 20% more electricity due to cooling and the
Service life of the modules increases by approx. 30%. This is more additional power than the cooling system consumes. Since the solar power plants operate contact-free with cold
cooled by humid air, no expensive installations on the individual modules are necessary.
But why has this not been done yet?
That is quite simple. Such cooling of the modules is associated with a very low efficiency of less than 30%. That means I have to cool 4 times as much,
as is actually necessary. However, since IrrigationNets is made of a very inexpensive and durable material, it is possible to cost effectively reduce the cooling according to
over dimension. However, the remaining generated cooling is not lost, but helps the surrounding agriculture within a radius of about 5 km and provides
better microclimate, reduces the heat stress of the plants and lowers the water demand.
The cooling system is economical due to the dual benefit for the solar power plant and the surrounding agriculture.
Seawater desalination thus provides cooling and humidification. While in the local area of agriculture about 70% of the cooling is used and has a very positive effect on the environment.
effect, but only 10% of the moisture arrives there. The biggest part is already carried by weak winds of wind force 3 = 11 km up to 250 km further inland.
Thereby the air spreads and mixes more and more and in larger distances the effect is almost not noticeable anymore. The relative humidity is then only 1% higher than usual.
But even this humidity precipitates in the morning in the form of morning dew and regularly increases the amount of morning dew every day. This is just one additional drop per blade of grass.
But during a drought, the plants live largely on the morning dew. On the border between death and survival, this regular little help makes a huge difference.
Even if the wind direction changes occasionally, the plants have a slightly better supply on 3 out of 10 days, for example, which can make a big difference over several months.
A single power plant naturally has very little effect. However, since these plants are profitable, hundreds of such power plants could be built, which together can make a decisive difference.
In order to make this happen, the startup is currently looking for further investors via www.Fundernation.eu, as well as further solar projects from 500 kW in Australia. More ...
The extreme drought of recent years has led to the most violent fires we have ever experienced.
Although a greatHow to prevent extreme bush fires?
The extreme drought of recent years has led to the most violent fires we have ever experienced.
Although a great many people have lost their belongings and well, and far too many have lost their lives, there is no question of abandoning the coal industry.
After all, even a worldwide total renunciation of coal would not bring more rain, but would only endanger more economic livelihoods.
So perhaps something should be done directly about the droughts. But how do you irrigate a few hundred million hectares of scrubland?
One possible solution to this comes from the other side of the globe. A start-up from Germany, a country whose last drought was a laugh to us, has
has developed an amazingly simple solution to this problem. Its solution is called IrrigationNets and distributes the water through the air.
But how is such a thing supposed to work? A practically water-free irrigation ?!?!!?!
Nature shows us how to do it. Normally, a large amount of water vapour rises from the rainforests, which are then regularly irrigated with
Supply morning dew and occasionally rain. In Brazil these cloud bands are also called the flying rivers.
In the course of climate change there is actually more humidity in the atmosphere, only this humidity is above the oceans.
Due to the rising air masses over the land, the humidity is pushed away from the land. As soon as the humidity over land
moved, so mostly in very large quantities. More and more heavy rainfall is formed and this washes away the good layers of earth. This is then called erosion.
So we need much more moisture in the countryside.
To achieve this, IrrigationNets equips photovoltaic power plants with their special seawater cooling system.
IrrigationNets consists of special nets where billions of small and smallest saltwater drops hang in the air with low wind resistance.
This creates a very large evaporation surface. Further millions of water droplets constantly run slowly over these nets and fill the
old drops and carry off the salt. As the drops do not break, no salt is released into the air. In this way you can
bring large quantities of drinking water into the air with a very low energy input. The air is simultaneously cooled down by up to 15°C and
the relative humidity increases to 99%.
Solar power plants are the first to be cooled with this cold humid air. The photovoltaic modules produce up to 20% more electricity due to cooling and the
Service life of the modules increases by approx. 30%. This is more additional power than the cooling system consumes. Since the solar power plants operate contact-free with cold
cooled by humid air, no expensive installations on the individual modules are necessary.
But why has this not been done yet?
That is quite simple. Such cooling of the modules is associated with a very low efficiency of less than 30%. That means I have to cool 4 times as much,
as is actually necessary. However, since IrrigationNets is made of a very inexpensive and durable material, it is possible to cost effectively reduce the cooling according to
over dimension. However, the remaining generated cooling is not lost, but helps the surrounding agriculture within a radius of about 5 km and provides
better microclimate, reduces the heat stress of the plants and lowers the water demand.
The cooling system is economical due to the dual benefit for the solar power plant and the surrounding agriculture.
Seawater desalination thus provides cooling and humidification. While in the local area of agriculture about 70% of the cooling is used and has a very positive effect on the environment.
effect, but only 10% of the moisture arrives there. The biggest part is already carried by weak winds of wind force 3 = 11 km up to 250 km further inland.
Thereby the air spreads and mixes more and more and in larger distances the effect is almost not noticeable anymore. The relative humidity is then only 1% higher than usual.
But even this humidity precipitates in the morning in the form of morning dew and regularly increases the amount of morning dew every day. This is just one additional drop per blade of grass.
But during a drought, the plants live largely on the morning dew. On the border between death and survival, this regular little help makes a huge difference.
Even if the wind direction changes occasionally, the plants have a slightly better supply on 3 out of 10 days, for example, which can make a big difference over several months.
A single power plant naturally has very little effect. However, since these plants are profitable, hundreds of such power plants could be built, which together can make a decisive difference.
In order to make this happen, the startup is currently looking for further investors via www.Fundernation.eu, as well as further solar projects from 500 kW in Australia. More ...