Rendering with Solar Panels

Framework Media
February 23, 2015

Rendering with Solar Panels

A winter-weary studio

So far, 2015 has been quite a challenge for us here in New England with regards to weather. Massachusetts has had a record-setting amount of snowfall and the combination of sequential snow storms and extremely cold temperatures has prevented our solar panel array from clearing. Typically the slippery surface of the panels causes any snow accumulation to slide off very quickly, but the temperatures in January and February have been low enough to prevent this, even on sunny days. This weekend, the temperature finally broke 40°F and there was enough melting to clear the panel array.

Feeling powerless

So the good news is that we are back up and running, generating electricity and feeding the grid. The bad news is that our renewable energy production for the month of February looks like the chart shown here to the right. We used to be able to claim that, on a monthly basis, our solar panel array always generated significantly more power than our render farm and computing systems require. However, as of this month we are qualifying this statement with a "usually".

Green product visualization

To ensure that your animation project will use 100% renewable energy, you may want to check the weather forecast, just to confirm some sunny skies are in our future! If you are interested in renewable energy ideas, and wind power in particular, be sure to view animation (below) that we created for the Millennium wind turbine:

If you have a renewable energy product design (or any product) and you need to show how it works, consider using animation to tell your product's story. Contact us for a free, no-obligation consultation.