Solar Power

Belo Horizonte | You Are My Sunshine

Awards & Nominations

Solar Power has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

Find my Sun

High-Level Project Summary

We developed an app called Find my Sun that shows a heatmap to the user of the best place to install photovoltaic panels, considering the ambient temperature, solar irradiation and the proximity to the distribution lines of energy and, as a second feature, it calculate the project's price and its payback. Our project solves the "You Are my Sunshine" Challenge by sharing with the people some useful NASA and power companies data in an easy way, using a friendly interface and graphics. The app we developed is important because promotes sustainability by inspiring and facilitating people to generate their own energy using a renewable source of energy (photovoltaic power).

Link to Project "Demo"

https://youtu.be/hFCpLKhI470

Link to Final Project

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N2sNSE2IvQK0wx00iykaXI1IqjkpdN8j/view?usp=sharing

Detailed Project Description

Find my Sun shows the user a heatmap of the best place to install photovoltaic panels, considering the ambient temperature, solar irradiation and the proximity to the distribution lines of energy. Beyond that, the app calculates, from parameters inserted by the user (as area available and current consumption of energy) the price of the project (photovoltaic power plant plus the distribution line, if need it) and how much time it will take for the user to get a payback. Just a disclousure: the distribution lines and price features are not yet available.




Initially, the app's homepage display a simple map so the users can find their location and select the area to verify the viability to install the photovoltaic panels. The heatmap has 9 shades of orange that shows the possibility of building a photovoltaic power plant. The lighter the shade of color is, less indicated is to build. Also, the user can filter the energy company data, if the distance of the power plant to the distribution line is not relevant. The potential energy that will be generated is calculated using the sun irradiation on the surface of the Earth (one of the datas provided by NASA that we used). The second data provided by NASA that we used was ambient temperature to calculate the photovoltaic panel's temperature and determinate its efficiency.

By using Find my Sun, the user has a free and easy way to find the correct place to install his photovoltaic panels. So, by giving more information about it the renewable sources will be easier to reach, making the world cleaner and healthier.

We asked to professionals in the energy field their opinions about our project and we got positive feedback and some advices. So, we hope to achieve their expectations, besides that, we want to reach everyone across the globe, from amateurs to professionals, and eventually, becomes a reference and an example in the renewable sources of energy area.

We coded our app using JavaScript with the React Native framework. Also, we inserted data provided by energy companies that indicate distribution lines of energy. The equations to calculate the photovoltaic panel temperature and it's efficiency we found it from two scholarly articles.

Link access to Github project:https://github.com/LucasCruz2773/solarpower

Space Agency Data

From Space Agency data, we used the following datas: "All Sky Surface Shortwave Downward Irradiance" and "Temperature at 2 Meters".

Hackathon Journey

We were invited by our related professors of our university (PUC Minas - campus Poços de Caldas) to our first hackathon experience. Our team is formed by a multidisciplinary area, one student from Advertising and Marketing, two students from Computer Science, two students from Electrical Engineering (one of them with more than 35 years of experience in the field of electricity generation and distribution) and one student from Internationals Relations. Because it was our first time, we faced some challenges, but nothing too difficult that we couldn't accomplish.

We learned a lot of pitch and development techniques. Also, we were surprised by how much data about the Earth NASA had stored tha was not being used. But, the most important part was our team work, since we met on saturday and maneged to work respectfully and wisely.

What inspired us to choose "You Are my Sunshine" challenge was that our university is working on a side research and development project since 2019 about electric mobility and renewable sources, installing charging station, photovoltaic panels and a energy quality laboratory. All that match our intentions with this hackathon.

Our approach to the project was understand deeply the photovoltaic market pain points and validate the project proposal using the professionals's opinions that we got through a formulary answered by 14 experts. Then, we started the development of the app Find my Sun.

Everytime we had a setback or a difficult challenge, we called for one of the mentors help and got the support we needed. And to complete our project with great quality, we made sure to watch all the presentations that was avaliable to us. Besides that, we stayed as much as possible conected to our team and made ourselves avaliable during this 48 hours journey.

Lastly, we would like to thank our incredible professors for their knowledge, support and belief in our team. Also we would like to thank NASA for this amazing experience and opportunity.

References

Tags

#App, #Sustainability, #RenewableEnergy, #Photovoltaic, #SolarPower, #YouAreMySunshine

Global Judging

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.

You Are My Sunshine

NASA produces a variety of surface solar and meteorological data parameters that are useful to commercial renewable energy and sustainable building ventures, but this information is not easily accessible to the typical homeowner. Your challenge is to develop a mobile application to access the information on NASA’s Prediction of Worldwide renewable Energy Resources (POWER) web services portal and provide useful information about sunshine to the general public.