How about this for a great idea – Solar Tarpaulins! Yes that’s right, with their often large surface areas and usually being located in the outdoors, tarpaulins are the perfect medium for easily deploying solar panels to generate renewable clean energy.

Events company Viparis have begun to test the idea of solar advertising tarps at their venues. However the potential for solar tarpaulins is huge! Solar panels can now be woven into the material of a tarp, are bendy and hardly add any weight to the finished article. They currently generate 120w per square metre and can be fashioned in to roofs, sunshades, awnings and advertising billboards or even into tents and other temporary dwellings.

This offers huge potential not only in many commercial applications but also in the area of disaster relief. At the Viparis Event the clean energy generated by the solar tarp was used to power visitors’ laptops and charge their phones. In disaster areas temporary shelters could be erected that would generate electricity to be used by the people living under them.

The potential for Solar Tarpaulins is huge! That’s why we’re going to be bringing you more articles on current developments and uses as this technology develops. Keep your eye on our blog to learn more.