Performance of a BP c-Si building Integrated PV system after 15years of installation

In this study, the performance, yield and characteristics of a 15 year old photovoltaic system installation has been investigated. The technology, BP Saturn modules which were steel-blue polycrystalline silicon cells are no longer in production. A bespoke monitoring system was designed and purpose built to monitor the characteristics of 6 strings, of 18 modules connected in series. The total output of the system is configured to 6.5kWp (series to parallel configuration). The PV system is demonstrating system outputs to be inferior by 0.7% per year. However,efficiency values in comparison to standard test conditions have remained practically the same. This output though very relevant to the possible performance and stability of aging cells, requires additional parametric studies to develop a more robust argument. The result presented in this paper is part of an on going investigation into PV system aging effects.

Can objects perform?: agency and thingliness in contemporary sculpture and installation

In his 1967 essay, “Art and Objecthood”, Michael Fried bemoaned the theatricality of minimalist sculpture, which replaced the presentness of compositional sculpture with the staging of an experience for the viewer as performer. His argument has since been inverted by artists and art writers invested in the idea of sculptures as props forming part of an artistic experience economy. This discourse has accompanied the rise of relational aesthetics as a dominant paradigm for contemporary art. More recently, however, there has been a turn away from relationality to ‘object-oriented’ art, where objects are seen to stage their own theatrical experiences, performing themselves without requiring the activation of a viewer’s body. We trace parallels between the philosophy of Bruno Latour and the “Speculative Materialism” group and this emerging trend in sculpture. In ascribing agency to objects, Latour proposes a radical shift from philosophy’s traditional investigation of the relationship between the mind and the world. Drawn to the idea that matter can be creative, artists have embraced his thinking. However, we argue that this has lead to a generalized, universalizing humanism that disables political action. Moreover, it undermines the potential for anti-humanist critique latent in object-oriented philosophy.

Performance as social practice

Starting point for these outputs is a large scale research project in collaboration with the Zurich University for the Arts and the Kunstmuseum Thun, looking at a redefinition of Social Sculpture (Joseph Beuys/ Bazon Brock, 1970) as a functional device re-deployed to expand the art discourse into a societal discourse. Although Beuys‘ version of a social sculpture involved notions of abstruse mysticism and reformulations of a national identity these were never-the less part of a social transformation that shifted and re-arranged power relations. Following Laclau and Mouffe in their contention that democray is a fundamentally antagonistic process and contesting Grant Kester’s understanding of a ethically based relational practice, this work is alignes itself with Hirschhorn’s claim to an aesthetic practice within communities, following the possibility to view a socially based practice from both ends of the ethics debate, whereby ethical aspects fuels the aethetic to “create situations that are beautiful because they are ethical and shocking because they are ethical, thus in turn aesthetic because they are ethical” (O’Donnell). This project sets out to engage in activities which interact with surrounding communities and evoce new imaginations of site, thereby understanding site as a catalysts for subjective emergences. Performance is tested as a site for social practice. Archival research into local audio/visual resources, such as the Swiss Radio Archive, the Swiss Military Film Archives and zoological film archives of the Basel Zoo, was instrumental to the navigation of this work, under theme of crisis, catastrophy, landscape, fallout, in order to create a visual language for an active performance site. Commissioned by the Kunstmuseum Thun in collaboration with the University for the Arts in Zurich as part of a year long exhibition programme, (other artists are Jeanne Van Heeswijk (NL) and San Keller (CH), ) this project brings together a series of different works in a new performace installation. The performance process includes a performance workshop with 30 school children from local Swiss schools and their teachers, which was conducted publicly in the museum spaces. It enabled the children to engage with an unexpected set of tribal and animalistic behaviours, looking at situations of flight and rescue, resulting in a large performance choreography orchestration without an apparent conductor, it includes a collaboration with renowned Swiss zoologist, Prof Klaus Zuberbühler(University of St Andrews) and the Colonal General Haldimann commander of the military base in Thun. The installation included 2 static video images, shot in an around spectacular local cave site (Beatus Caves) including 3 children. The project will culminate in an edited edition of the Oncurating Journal, (issue no, tbc, in 2012) including interviews and essays from project collaborators. (Army Commander General, Thun, Jörg Hess, performance script, Timothy Long, and others)

Comparing the thermal performance of horizontal slinky-loop and vertical slinky-loop heat exchangers

The heat pump market in the UK has grown rapidly over the last few years. Performance analyses of vertical ground-loop heat exchanger configurations have been widely carried out using both numerical modelling and experiments. However, research findings and design recommendations on horizontal slinky-loop and vertical slinky-loop heat exchangers are far fewer compared with those for vertical ground-loop heat exchanger configurations, especially where the long-term operation of the systems is concerned. The paper presents the results obtained from a numerical simulation for the horizontal slinky-loop and vertical slinky-loop heat exchangers of a ground-source heat pump system. A three-dimensional numerical heat transfer model was developed to study the thermal performance of various heat exchanger configurations. The influence of the loop pitch (loop spacing) and the depth of a vertical slinky-loop installation were investigated and the thermal performance and excavation work required for the horizontal and vertical slinky-loop heat exchangers were compared. The influence of the installation depth for vertical slinky-loop configurations was also investigated. The results of this study show that the influence of the installation depth of the vertical slinky-loop heat exchanger on the thermal performance of the system is small. The maximum difference in the thermal performance between the vertical and horizontal slinky-loop heat exchangers with the same loop diameter and loop pitch is less than 5%.

Assessing the performance of a building integrated BP c-Si PV system

In this study, the performance, yield and characteristics of a 16 year old photovoltaic (PV) system installation have been investigated. The technology, BP Saturn modules which were steel-blue polycrystalline silicon cells are no longer in production. A bespoke monitoring system has been designed to monitor the characteristics of 6 refurbished strings, of 18 modules connected in series. The total output of the system is configured to 6.5 kWp (series to parallel configuration). In addition to experimental results, the performance ratio (PR) of known values was simulated using PVSyst, a simulation software package. From calculations using experimental values, the PV system showed approximately 10% inferior power outputs to what would have been expected as standard test conditions. However, efficiency values in comparison to standard test conditions and the performance ratio (w75% from PVSyst simulations) over the past decade have remained practically the same. This output though very relevant to the possible performance and stability of aging cells, requires additional parametric studies to develop a more robust argument. The result presented in this paper is part of an on-going investigation into PV system aging effects.