Recuperation of Energy From Lighting

So, let's put this in terms you will understand.

Let's say I've got a boat. Nice boat, cat, of course, but just not fast enough.

So, what if I put a wind driven generator on the front and use that to power an electric motor to drive a prop.

Think the boat would go faster?

Be nice.

From yellowcat's biography:"A most extreme (but not stupid unless you ask my wife ...) catamaran sailor."

I was putting it into context for a sailor. Wasn't that nice of me?

You are correct sir.

'...most or alot of the lit areas in a room is simply not used by humans at all time...'

Yes, they are. Unless the walls and ceilings are painted black, the scattered light off the walls helps the occupants see each other, see the floor, see the walls, navigate around the furniture, look at artworks and room decorations, read, find the remote to operate the media/entertainment system, etc.......

Some corporations minimize general office space lighting and increase localized task lighting for their employees to save money -- but general diffuse room lighting cannot be eliminated (in the office or the home) or the occupants get the feeling they are in a cavern.

You would be using the same device for "collecting" energy from two sources that are many orders of magnitude diferent, one of them is going to be poorly "harnessed".

Look for information on the worlds largest sun heat collector in Spain.

Your indoors harvesting will be limited to small solar cells for clocks, calculators and such stuff, and you'll sacrifice a lot of the devices aesthetics, portability and (worst yet) performance. Thats why you don't see "lighting powered" remote controls, hotwheels, lap-tops, nose-hair-trimmers, or sexual toys neither.

If you embark on such project, you'd better live alone, or the bulky artifacts you design, will make family life impossible, (and will embarras your wife as well).

I wish you luck on whatever you decide, just be prepared for hard times.

GA Yahlasit

in back to the future part 1 they did

Study Nicola Tesla for free electricity.

the ac guy. in the past, i had a little ventilator (fan) that worked with sun light, we tested it with a 100 w incandescent bulb and fres. lens. it turned but slow. the idea would be to find a glass that would let sone wave length usefull for light with reflecting surfaces but would bounce back the wave length usefull for pv silicon ... at the perimeter of a window casing capture at the casing. There are films that low-e and stop heat from sun light.

the test to be done is how much loss we have in transfering from a to b wireless from lights to lights, this is likely to be not very usefull with led or the other o forget the name ned ? they consume so much less recup. is not a factor. But with the new cpus coming up, we could think different.

would it make sence to use snow piles to ac a bldg , they last up to june in quebec city. thats off topic.

There are dynamo powered flashlights available. Why don't you invent a dynamo powered electric shaver, or maybe use a dynamo powered flashlight to produce enough light to power a PV cell to power a desklamp?

if the wall is dark then the light hitting it is turning to heat, so yeah it'll work for replaceing dark things. If ya wanna keep the dark colour.

i found something, it is called the solar window, from new energy technologies. this is the beginning of my quest for inputs on this topic, but ideas are popping up from friends and myself. The bldg aspect of energy recup is hard to grasp, being the easy way out with $ the sole per item code. But when it comes to boats, especially catamarans or other multihulls weight is a very if not the most important factor, cost is also for my project but for americas cup participants, it doesn't look finite ... but from those extreme expenses one can learn.

as an example, on my boat, i must have very powerfull light beams for various uses, i am considering putting the powerfull light at the top of the masts, one advantage is according to location, i can use them also for an "artificial sun" using mirrors deflectors. Numerous advantages, capable of recuperating the energy from the source, ie flip the mirror and have a PVCell at the back when diming. The LEDs spot lights we are using when night snowkiting have power diming functions simply from number reduction. One can even concentrate the beams via a lens or a parabolica creating a kind a laser beam. LB can be used for security, fun underwater lighting effects, etc.

I thought funny the comment about adding a fan to a sail boat that it would not make it go faster, liking slow stuff especially slow winds, it is totally forbidden to add such fan during a race ie it will make you go faster. it is also forbidden to "pump" the sails but it is permitted to slant the hull. Sometimes what is not easy to grasp at first glance becomes a good idea from another angle.

one can evaluate the cost of manufacturing a textile partition vs a PV thin film , could the spayed on window PV idea be used backward at night ? The costs of running manufacturing plants bldgs make it feasible for 3 shifts, ie artificial lighting 24h.

I designed air makeups using the hot air created by colored metals on industrial bldgs, at first, the owner thought i was half crazy, but it works so well that in every bldgs he has i was asked to repeat, he is awaiting my research on this possible light recup thing.

cheers

http://www.solatube.com/

Install these, then you won't need the lights on during the day and you can use the energy savings to turn them on during the extra night shift.