Solar power generating fabric generates electricity during the day. (Image credit: Orange)
UK telecom company Orange unveiled a solar tent concept at the Glastonbury music festival in the UK. Apart from the interesting domed design of the tent, the major innovation is the use of flexible thin-film solar technology to covert the top surfaces of the tent with electricity generating solar cells. There is no need to emphasize why this sort of application would be useful for campers, but let's simply mention night light, electronic gadget charging, flashlight battery charging, heating…
The concept involves weaving especially coated solar threads into the fabric, making a solar power generative surface and a flexible tent material at the same time. The Concept Tent, as it's called, uses this technology with three directional glides which can be moved throughout the day to maximise its solar efficiency. This way the tent is able to capture the optimum amount of energy, which can be used throughout the tent in various ways.
You can't miss it in the night. (Image credit: Orange)
In case you are camping in a larger camp area, with many other campers pitching their tents, it's easy to get lost, especially in night hours, after an exciting festival evening. Concept Tent solves this by glowing in the dark. The so called "glo-cation" works by implementing mobile SMS or RFID detection, which once activated makes the tent glow, guiding the "lost" owner back home.
The tent posseses a wireless control hub which is able to display generated and consumed energy data, as well as providing WiFI internet access. Neat! Info is displayed on a flexible touchscreen LCD display. It further features wireless charging pouches for smaller devices such as mobile phones, PMPs, etc. The tent's groundsheet contains embedded heating elements, which are also controled through the central hub. The Concept Tent has been designed as a celebration of the 11th year of Orange's presence at the Glastonbury festival.
And now the cold shower – you can't purchase the tent, it's just a concept, and there is no announcement about whether it will be available any time soon to the general public. We'll just have to wait. In the meantime, the backpack stays the same bloated back breaker, full of necessary camping gadgets.
Hmm, a tent? Why not just put one or two optimally-tilted regular PV panels on the ground and connect them with wire to the tent's "electronics?" They might be less fashionable but will produce up to 6x as much electricity (for the same area), will be cheaper (per Watt and per Watthour), and will last 10 years longer than the flexible stuff.