Research that a sunboom farm simulates in a coastal forest in South Korea, it turned out that sunboom structures could preserve 99% of the forest covering compared to a fixed solar farm built in the same area without sacrificing the power.
A researcher from the Korea Maritime Institute in South Korea has discovered that Sun trees have the potential to generate the same power of a sun farm and at the same time reduce the loss of forest covering to 99%.
In the newspaper “Superior energy output from Zonnebreen compared to flat fixed panels in coastal forest installations“Published in Scientific reports, Researcher Dan-Bi UM writes that solar trees simulate natural tree orphology with arrays of solar panels that work as branches and leaves. “The vertical design makes a photovoltaic generation in the upper canopy possible, while it is possible to maintain sufficient light penetration to maintain the Understory -Vegetation,” she explained.
In her studies UM 3D-Gospatial data used to simulate a sunboom plant in a forest landscape on the coastal area in the Geoseong County in South Korea on the basis of photos of 2012. A flat-fixed PV factory was built at the same location in 2014, with a surface of 22,856 m2, on a litigation of to 25 ° with a maximum with a max Satellite images of the factory from 2021, it has 4,347 solar panels, with each panel having a capacity of 230 W under standard test conditions for a total capacity of 1,000 kW.
UM used Google Earth Pro satellite images of the area dating from before the construction of the flat PV site to create a photo montage of solar trees on the site using Adobe Photoshop and 3D site modeling. The research paper says that a photomontage is “a generally accepted method in academic and professional contexts for visualizing proposed landscape adjustments, in particular in the field of environmental planning and design.”
Solar trees simulated in the photo montage were based on the size of a solar tree that was installed in 2017 outside the National Assembly building in Seoul by Hanwha Q cells Korea. The Zonneboom is 4.8 m by 4.1 m and has branches that are able to retain 35 solar panels of 330 W each, equal to a capacity of 11.5 kW per tree. The study also considered similar trees with more advanced 450 W panels, for a total capacity of 15.8 kW per tree.
In the photo montage, the solar trees were inserted along the border area and on a hiking trail in the middle of the study area. A distance interval of one tree per 20 m was assumed, allowing the installation of 97 trees to be installed in the same area.
The study showed that 87 solar trees would be needed to reach the target 1 MW when using solar trees with 300 W panels. When using trees with 450 W panels, 63 trees would do the work.
The research paper says that linear regulations of solar tree structures can retain 99% of the forest cover, while conventional fixed panel installations require that 98% of the forest cover is eliminated to achieve equivalent power generation capacity. “Although our study centers in South Korea, the methodology is a broad applicability for other countries that want to expand renewable energy while retaining forest ecosystems,” the research paper adds.
In 2022, another research team of the Korea Maritime Institute proposed the use of solar trees to build photovoltaic plants in mountainous forest areas in Land-Scarce South Korea. It defined the new concept as a forest photovoltaic and explained that both carbon absorption activities under the solar trees would maintain and produce solar energy on the upper part of Bosland.
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