Page 184 - CW E-Magazine (22-4-2025)

Free to Die

Vertical installation of solar panels

his monthly column is all about permission of my wife). I also bought
openly sharing expertise and some LED lights operating at 12-Volts,
Tknowhow with our readers, re- connected them to the panel directly and
gardless of industry, product or service. was surprised to see that these could
The aim is to plant the seeds of inspi- produce light all through the day and up
ration, strengthen the knowledge base, to late evening even after sunset.
and hopefully, lead to new opportuni-
ties and innovations. I further invested in a battery that
would charge during the day and the
While the column is being rolled stored electricity could be used during
out with the ideas of Prof. V.C. Malshe, the nights. But this was not a very
an academician, researcher, innovator, effi cient unit. So, I contacted my friend
consultant and businessman, it is open Arshad Mooljee, an electronics engineer,
to one all. Simply write to editorial@ to suggest a solution. He very kindly
chemicalweekly.com. assembled a devise with input from the
solar panel and output to be connected to
Installation of solar panels is a two 12-Volt lithium-ion batteries (12 V,
scientifi c procedure. Presently, solar panels 10 Ah). The unit also provided an output out the effectiveness of vertical solar
are installed only on rooftops. Even for 9 W, 12 V LED lamps. The lights can panels. They did not have much data
the government is promoting rooftop function for four hours every evening. because their purpose was to save glass
solar plants for households. Typically, for the façade. Solar panels were only a
the panels are installed facing south, This was some time in 2011. Till way of meeting this goal. There is another
because we in the northern hemisphere then there was no talk of vertical instal- installation close to Kurla Station along
receive sunlight for most of the day on lation of solar panels. the Ghatkopar-Sion Road. The solar panel
surfaces facing south. The angle is a Of late, the prices of solar panels appears to be powering the LED display
function of latitude of location. In have fallen, effi ciency has gone up and partially (seen in the picture on the left).
India it may be +10° degrees over 23°as more people are recommending verti- I now see several publications re-
we are about 10° above the equator. To cal installations. Because the panels commending vertical installations. I saw
get the best results, installers fi nd out are cheap, two-sided panels are also the fi rst such paper about two years
the direction of the sun, an angle where being used (even though these have very ago. The logic is the same as growing
maximum sunlight can be captured poorer effi ciency). I have seen two large plants on vertical surfaces – multi-sto-
during the day for most of the year.
installations on the roads of Mumbai. I rey cropping using the limited amount
met owners of one unit and tried to fi nd of light.
I moved into a multi-storey build-
ing post-retirement. During my career
as Professor and Hostel warden, I used
solar energy for water heating and saved
lakhs of rupees in the electricity bills for
my employer, Mumbai University. The
memory was fresh, so I wanted to install
solar water heating in our society. (The
discussion is on even today, after 18
years.) In the meantime, I had acquired
a 17-Watt solar panel and was looking
for a place to install it. It could not be
done on the roof as the roof did not
belong to me. One day, I placed it verti-
cally in one of the east-facing windows
of a relatively less used room (with the

184 Chemical Weekly April 22, 2025

Contents Index to Advertisers Index to Products Advertised