return to homepage

PV Powered Fountain
 

Water fountain at work.

"...simply shading the PV module would cause the level to alter considerably from a 4 foot column to a trickle."

 

Solstice has been involved in a couple of projects and demonstrations with the higher colleges of technology in the United Arab Emirates. We have given demonstrations on solar power at Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai & Ras Al Khaimah colleges and attended the open days at Ras al Khaima and Abu Dhabi colleges.

The open day for Ras Al Khaima college in April 1997 was attended by the ruler’s brother and the Chairman of the UAE university. who inspected various projects carried out by the students. Solstice had a few solar powered demonstrations which included an operating "Solastar" deep well water pump (manufactured by DIVWATT ); Solar powered TV/video system; solar powered LED based Traffic warning lights and a solar powered fountain arranged so that as students passed the Solarex MSX-120 module that powered the pump the level of the fountain would rise or fall.

This created considerable interest amongst the students staff and visitors as simply shading the PV module would cause the level to alter considerably from a 4 foot column to a trickle. The idea was from David Jones, a science lecturer at the college, as the pump of the existing fountain had recently failed. Installation took less than an hour using a 24 volt submersible bilge pump.

The demo was such a success the college purchased the system from us.

Since then we have had problems with water penetration into the motors of these low cost bilge pumps and they are not really suitable for this use, having a limited life expectancy in near continuous use. If anyone can suggest a suitable high volume, low head pump for such applications please contact us.