When we think about solar power, the first thing that comes to our mind is a solar farm or solar panels spread over a large area. However, since the initial costs of manufacturing and installing solar panels can be quite high, the Arizona State Professor Joshep Hui has come up with a novel contraption to cut down on the expenditure. The electrical engineer, who earlier established a company called Monarch Power, is now working on a mobile that can serve as a cheap solar power source. The company is working on an innovative product called Lotus, a 1.1 kW solar-powered flower that responds by opening and closing by daytime and tracks the path of the sun.
The project ‘Lotus’ has been under development for two years in the Monarch Company offices at ASU SkySong in Scottsdale. The structural design of the Lotus is like a solar dish of 10-foot-diameter with multiple deployments. The best part of the design is that it can go anywhere and will help you anywhere across the world. According to Hui, the product will make people’s life much more comfortable it’s more than a solar disc. Hui further aims to manufacture small natural gas turbine and a system that will give clean water with the help of the power generated by gas turbine. The company also aims to mass-produce electric vehicles in future.
The products went through many tests that showed how mobile and cost-effective the product is. When compared to other solar powered contraptions in its class, it’s definitely cheaper. Where it takes around more than $10,000 to install a rooftop solar system, Lotus costs $4000 with incentives and $2000 without incentives.