Solar Light Sculpture Installed in US Park

A new solar sculpture in a Tennessee park aims to shed light on how solar energy works and encourage sustainability.Industrial grade sheets of recycled aluminum were laser cut and refabricated to create the Seed-Pod solar powered light sculpture in Chattanooga’s Renaissance Park. Artist Deedee Morrison created the 8-by-12-foot work of public art with inspiration from organic forms, particularly the drawings of Ernst Haeckel who discovered, described, named and illustrated thousands of new species.
The Seed-Pod design was inspired by studying organic forms and the geometric principles that determine their patterns and structures, Morrison explains. The solar sculpture artistically represents a seed-pod coming out of a dormant state to form new life. "Solar light sculpture in a public art environment are extremely effective ways to demonstrate how solar energy works and can become an icon of sustainability for a city," Morrison says.
Seed-Pod is a visual display of the power and energy that's available every day from a single solar panel's relationship with the sun. Near the Seed-Pod sculpture is the 18-foot solar tower that, like plants, collects and stores the energy released from the sun. The Seed-Pod and the solar tower are intimately connected in the phenomena of life and growth. The solar tower captures the energy of the sun during the day and the Seed-Pod emits the dramatic stored light at night, giving the sculpture its added dimension.
The SolarTech 125W solar panel's sole function is to convert sunlight into useable energy and transfer that energy through the charge controller to the battery bank. The charge controller scales down the energy produced to the correct voltage (12v) to charge the batteries. The 12V-DC LED lights only require 10 Watts of power each, which when combined only requires about the equivalent power of a single 110-Watt lightbulb.The "Eco-Pole" is powered by two solar collector panels and a wind turbine. Power generated by the solar cells and foam rubber turbine, which sit atop a 25-foot-all aluminum pole, is stored in dual gel batteries. The batteries sit in a secured metal cabinet at the base of the pole. The street lamp is completely self contained. Its 270-watt lamp will light the sidewalk about the length of four cars on either side, according to David Malinowski, business development coordinator for Eco-Poles at SavWatt. The batteries store about five day worth of power for the streetlight.