How can I operate an outdoor fountain using solar energy?
Question:
Answer:
Check out a company called Silicon Solar. They manufacture solar panels and water pumps specifically for use in garden fountains. They might have a product that will work for you, or it might at least give you some ideas about what you would need to do it yourself. Their website is: http://www.siliconsolar.com/solar-founta...
Buy a solor powered pump. They have them at Home Depot or Lowes I think.
You'll need a fairly big solar panel & set of batteries to run a water pump 24/7. The panels will have to be large enough to run the pump, plus give the batteries a nighttime's worth of juice at the same time. You'd need to look at the power requirements of the pump, and get solar panels with at least double that rating. Batteries would need to handle full load over 8-12 hours, however long it's dark each night.
You could also take a bunch of concave (curved) mirrors mounted on motors that keep them focused correctly on a point, put water at that point to boil it, capture the steam, use it to power a turbine, and use the resulting energy to either directly drive a pump, or drive a generator that then powers the pump.
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