UK's CIS Solar Tower garners 390-kilowatts from the sun

We're not entirely sure if Manchester's CIS Solar Tower will be the world's grandest solar tower, but in terms of buildings have moved beyond the drawing board, it definitely packs a punch. Reportedly, the flaky construction led to dilapidating walls, which were then replaced by a much greener solution -- 7,244 Sharp 80W photovoltaic panels, to be precise. Curiously, only 4,898 of the modules are actually functional, but they still soak up enough sunlight to generate 390-kilowatts of energy, or in layman's terms, enough juice to "power 1,000 PCs for a year." Additionally, the roof is home to two dozen wind turbines that generate 10-percent of the total power used in the building. Of course, such an endeavor did ring up at a steep £5.675 million ($11.4 million), but we're pretty certain this solar panel makeover was concerned with matters other than dollars and cents. Click on through for a top-down shot.

[Via MetaEfficient]

[Archietype @ Apr 21st 2007 5:16AM]

Nice idea...can't remember the last time I saw much sun in Rainchester though.

[Richard @ Apr 21st 2007 8:15AM]

I think your confusing power with energy there... unless you are taking the solar panels lifespans into account.

[Nick @ Apr 21st 2007 5:35AM]

Wouldn't see something like that in NYC.

[gary @ Apr 21st 2007 6:04AM]

I live and work in Manchester and the tower has been complete for some time, CIS's headquarters are located in this building (New Century Hall). There are other CIS buildings with bigger wind turbines on them, I think it's a really good idea, and it's made the horrible looking building much more easier on the eye.

[Jonesy @ Apr 21st 2007 6:29AM]

I agree, it looks much better than it did before, and at the least they are trying something with the wind turbines and panels unlike most of the other sprawling apartments that are being built in the city!

[damon @ Apr 23rd 2007 3:53AM]

thats not nice idea....into the tower hot, hot

[Robert @ Apr 21st 2007 7:23AM]

I suspect some of the panels are none functional because it isn't economically viable to connect them up. In the production process, there is a given failure rate in the cells. Be using these normally waste cells in shady areas (north side) or other problem areas they would provide an economical complete solution.

[Anon @ Apr 21st 2007 8:01AM]

Seems to be lacking a few windows!

[Matt @ Apr 21st 2007 10:14AM]

If I remember correctly, only one side of the building is without windows, and it used to be yellow or something. I guess the solar panels are on that side :P

[Macman @ Apr 21st 2007 7:49AM]

A few minor corrections:

"390-kilowatts of energy" - the Watt is a measure of power, not energy

"enough juice to 'power 1,000 PCs for a year.'" - that is a measure of energy

The confusion in the units is the reason these statements don't make a lot of sense.

[Graham McLeod @ Apr 21st 2007 9:02AM]

But when can I generates me some 1.21 GIGAWATTS!

[kent beuchert @ Apr 21st 2007 9:45AM]

With a cost of almost $6 million pounds for a measly 4/10ths of a megawatt fo sometime power, this building seems to hold the record as the most expensive electricity generator ever conceived. Apparently there is more money than intelligence involved. Geothermal HVAC/conservation would have acheived far more beneficial environmental effects than this monstrosity of crappy engineering.
I'm coming to the conclusion that people's concern about global warming is adversely affecting their ability to reason. Technology and clever ideas will win the day,
not misguided efforts like this pathetic endeavor.

[Shaun @ Apr 21st 2007 11:11AM]

Kent, there's mitigating reasons for using solar cells. The CIS building's old external tiled facade was gradually failing with tiles falling off. They had to retile the whole building to stop the concrete failing underneath. It rains *A LOT* in Manchester and the North West of England and it's cloudy *A LOT* too, hence the low power output for the number of cells used. They use failed solar panels on the North side of the building where they'd get almost zero power so using otherwise scrap cells and maintaining the building's uniform looks. That's just sensible. The cells would otherwise have been junked.

If you read the article you'd notice the building is over 40 years old too so installing any kind of geothermal HVAC or energy conservation system into an old building not designed for it would be more expensive and still not solve the problem of replacing the tiled facade. I'm not sure where you'd install a heat pump's loop field big enough to heat the largest office block outside London in the middle of Manchester too.

[Owen V @ Apr 21st 2007 11:49AM]

"power 1,000 PCs for a year"

putting the energy/power situation behind us I would say that in an energy conscious building like that they would be using efficient computers. The computers in use where I work have 170 watt power supplies and the fans on those almost never turn on. I would say that for the most part they don't draw over 130 watts which would allow 390kilowatts to power 3,000 computers at once, or 1,000 computers and still have 260kw left over for the other power needs for the building.

Also, for cost of building it, if these were running at full load for 12 hours a day 365 days a year the savings would be about $150,000 a year assuming 9 cents a kilowatt (the price in washington last time I checked) so the building will break even after 76 years-far longer than the lifetime of the cells.

[Fredster @ Apr 21st 2007 1:45PM]

I've been wondering about this for a longer time, and why people haven't done this before and more often. Sure, the break-even lies a bit high and so forth, but there are millions of stupid investments done every year! This one is a bit more trendier though and does something good for "free", plus the positive image it can create.

[i3c @ Apr 21st 2007 1:57PM]

funny. i thought you needed sunlight for solar power.

[Shaun @ Apr 22nd 2007 6:09AM]

Owen, Most PCs today have 300-400W power supplies, not counting the monitor, and you're assuming they actually have only a 1000pcs. I suspect they've got more in the two towers of 25 floors each that makes up the CIS building.

btw CIS themselves say it generates 180,000 'units' which they apparently think is 181MWh, not 390KW

http://www.cis.co.uk/solar
http://www.howtosavetheworldforfree.com/2006/06/co-op-green-qa.php

[paul poh @ May 4th 2007 6:20AM]

we got lots of sunshine here in singapore
unfortunately for us renewable energy is not
looked as an alternative source of energy
or given any encouragement by our govt.