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The extract you provided highlights the journey of Corrie Energy’s Latitude40 solar tracker innovation, emphasizing its humble beginnings and significant potential impact on solar energy efficiency in northern latitudes, including the UK. Here’s a summary and some key points from the text:
### Summary and Key Points:
– **Origin Story**: The Latitude40 solar tracker prototype began as a simple, makeshift device using everyday items like biscuit tins and cornflakes packets balanced in a backyard. This low-tech start led to a significant technological advancement.
– **Inspiration**: The design is inspired by the sunflower, which tracks the sun’s movement to maximize sunlight exposure throughout the day.
– **Challenge**: Unlike nearer-equator solar trackers that operate on a single axis (rotating east to west), trackers in northern regions like the UK require more sophisticated tracking because the sun’s path is lower in the sky and only covers one hemisphere, never reaching directly overhead.
– **Innovation Approach**: The Latitude40 tracker employs a simplified design focused on cost-effectiveness and practicality:
– It doesn’t track the sun continuously at dawn or dusk, where energy generation is minimal, thus avoiding unnecessary complexity.
– Utilizes a simple tripod design that is easy to install, maintain, and replace—parts can be screwed in and out without waiting for specialty components.
– **Development and Testing**: Corrie Energy’s team, including Jo Fleming, Alan Mathewson, and Tony Duffin, invested around £1 million over seven years in developing and field-testing prototypes. Funding was supported by Innovate UK and others.
– **Impact**: The Latitude40 has the potential to increase solar panel output by about 30% in northern latitudes and is ready for commercial rollout. This could significantly increase clean energy production in space-constrained countries like the UK.
– **Philosophy**: The simplicity, affordability, and ease of replacement were prioritized over over-engineering, aiming to make the technology accessible and scalable.
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