Sandakan Sculpture Competition 2012

It's good time to be creative! By April this year - and this is no April-fool joke - you could be RM18,000 richer.

Harbour Mall Sandakan is inviting all Malaysians - school students, undergraduates from design and art discipline from government or private universities and colleges, and individuals - to submit their design of an iconic sculpture that will best represent Sandakan to the world.

Image: harbourmallsandakan.com While you can get the full detail and official Entry Form from their website, I have appended herewith a brief summary of what is this competition about: The best design will be 'brought to life' in the form of a sculpture that will eventually be placed at Sandakan Harbour Square, the Nature City's latest public landmark. WHO CAN ENTER Contestants for the Sandakan Sculpture Competition 2012 must be Malaysian citizens. Only ONE entry per person will be accepted. PRIZES • 1st Prize : RM18,000 cash • 2nd Prize : RM5,000 cash • 3rd Prize : RM3,000 cash • 5 X Consolation Prizes : 3D 2N stay at Four Points by Sheraton, Sandakan SUBMISSION OF ENTRIES Contestants must submit an Official Entry Form and ONE idea (in 2D or 3D sketches, plans, sections, elevation or perspectives; 3D modelling with photo submission; etc) that best illustrates their design intent. Each design must be accompanied by its rationale, in not more than 80 words. Submission can be done online, by post or by hand. Online submission must be attached with high resolution JPEG or PDF files in not more than 3 MB each. Physical submission must be in A3 size, between 1 to 5 drawings. JUDGING CRITERIA Eventual size of the sculpture: Not larger than 6 X 6 X 6 metres (Length X Width X Height). Eventual material for the sculpture: A material that is weather-proof, suitable for outdoor display with minimal / low long-term maintenance (ie; stainless steel, bronze, mosaic, concrete, etc) Selection Criteria: Originality and Creativity 35% Relevance to the site and to Sandakan 25% Visual impact to the public 20% Long term maintenance 20% Competition period is from Thursday, 1st March to Monday, 16th April 2012. All entries must reach the Organiser latest by Monday, 16th April 2012 at 12.00 noon. ABOUT SANDAKAN To give you a little bit of a head-start, here is an excerpt about Sandakan from a website www.ss.my: Sandakan is the second-largest city in Sabah, East Malaysia, on the north-eastern coast of Borneo. It is located on the east coast of the island and it is the administrative centre of Sandakan Division and was the former capital of British North Borneo. Sandakan is known as the gateway for ecotourism destinations in Sabah, such as the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre, the Rainforest Discovery Centre, Turtle Islands Park, Kinabatangan River and Gomantong Caves The area is also infamous as the site of a World War II Japanese airfield, built by the forced labour of 6,000 Javanese civilians and Allied prisoners of war. In 1945, the surviving Australian prisoners were sent on the Sandakan Death Marches; only 6 of them survived the war. During the early 1870s, the east coast of Sabah was under control of the Sultan of Sulu, who also ruled what is now the southern Philippines. The first European settlement in the area was founded by William Clarke Cowie, a Scottish gun smuggler from Glasgow, who received permission from the Sultan to establish a small trading base. Cowie called his settlement Sandakan, which in Tausug (Sulu) means "the place that was pawned", but it soon came to be known as "Kampung German" after the large number of Germans who also set up posts there. The Japanese occupation of Sandakan during World War II began on 19 January 1942 and lasted until a brigade of the Australian 9th Division liberated it on 19 October 1945. The Japanese administration restored the name Elopura for the town. One of the atrocities of World War II was the Sandakan Death Marches, when Japanese soldiers decided to move about 2,400 prisoners of war in Sandakan 260 km (160 miles) inland to the town of Ranau. The prisoners who did not die en route to Ranau were crammed into unsanitary huts; most of those survivors either died from dysentery or were killed by prison guards. When the war ended, Sandakan was totally destroyed, partly from the Allied bombings and partly by the Japanese. As a result, when North Borneo became a British Crown Colony in 1946, the capital was shifted to Jesselton, now known as Kota Kinabalu, (often just called 'KK' locally). Copyright: www.ss.my

GE Solar Projects Showcase

The first featured company has to be GE Energy Financial Services for being awarded Corporation of The Year at the 2011 Global Cleantech Award. GE made 22 investments in emerging energy technology companies in 2011 and is no doubt one of the fore runners in clean technology and renewable energy.

This is a short slides show of what GE has done in the recent years.

GE Energy Financial Services has invested $6 billion in a diverse portfolio of renewable energy assets such as wind, solar, biomass, hydro and geothermal power. The company announced at the Infocast Solar Power Finance & Investment Summit in San Diego in Feb. 2012, that its 1GW portfolio spans 48 solar power plants in six countries:- Australia, Canada, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United States.

Some of GE's solar related project around the globe are shown as follows:
Note: All images are screenshots of GE's Solar Project Investment Showcase slideshow.

Torre de Miguel Sesmero, Badajoz, Spain

 GE Energy is building the largest US solar panel factory in Colorado.

Su Sciuffu Solar Plant, Villasor, Italy

Serpa, Portugal - 11MW

San Diego, California in 2005

GE Energy Financial Services’ latest investment is in LS Power’s $550 million Arlington Valley Solar Energy II project, a crystalline silicon PV solar farm whose construction is expected to begin next month (March 2012) near Arlington, Arizona.

2011 Was a Record Year

It was a record yearfor GE Energy Financial Services’ global solar power investing. The followings are the investment made in 2011:

1) 50MW portfolio of solar PV farms in Canada
2) 10MW solar PV project in Australia
3) 550MW solar PV project in the United States
4) 20MW solar PV power plant atop a greenhouse in Italy

Overall, the GE unit has made more than $8 billion in RE commitments globally, including solar, wind, biomass, hydro and geothermal power.

And that is why GE won the Corporation of the Year Award.

Italian Engineer invents floating solar panels

So you think that Solar PV would deprive you from building a house on your piece of land, or leaving you with no space for planting crops. Not necessarily.

Floating PV panels on the surface of  lake in  Colignola. Image: Daily Express, 28.2.2012

A creative engineer in Italy have recently come up with a cost-effective prototype of PV floating plant which tracts the sun and became a model of efficiency. 

Key benefits
 

1. Saving precious agricultural land

2. Less intrusive. Solves the ugly sight of traditional  installation in fields

3. Resolves panel overheating issues

4. Significantly cheaper than ground-based structure 

Specifications

Location: small lake of Colignola, Pisa, Tuscany Italy

Capacity: 30kW

Design: Floating Tracking Cooling Concentrator (FTCC)

Cooling method: lake water

Supply: 10 to 12 families (3kW per apartment)

Estimated cost: €1,600 per kW (RM6,500) including installation 

Colignola small-scale design would cost €48,000 (RM195,000)

Compared with ground-based system: Cheaper by some 20%

Note: 30kW capacity did not specifically mentioned kWp (kilowatt peak) but my bet is that it is 30kWp based on the installation size and the accompanying photo.

Interesting fact:

Sicily has about 75 km2 of artificial reservoirs and lakes. If 10% or 7.5km2 of that area is covered with floating PV panels, engineers believe that there would be 1 GW of power installed. 

To put things into perspective, Sabah's current energy maximum demand is slightly more than 700 MW. Think about harnessing solar energy from Sicily and power up Sabah with 300MW access capacity. This is no doubt suitable for lakes, reservoirs or abandoned quarries. Former Mamut copper mining in Ranau comes into mind.

The full Article by PVsolar-uk here:

pvsolarenergy.co.uk

Engineers in Italy have created a cost effective prototype for floating and rotating solar panels on the lake of Colignola. The engineers have also incorporated mirrors into the mix to harness the power of the sun more efficiently.

Marco Rosa-Clot, a professor at Florence University, has proudly announced they are revolutionising solar power and the flower-petal-like objects have already attracted alot of attention from international buyers.

These panels are said to resolve some of the issues your average panels on buildings or in fields are faced with. More conventional panels have been penalised for taking up valuable argricultural land, looking unsightly and losing energy through overheating.

The water keeps the panels cool, while the reflectors are positioned to utilise maximum power of the sun.

Engineer Raniero Cazzaniga has metioned that some people believe your more traditional installation is spoiling the landscape. He comments; "Our system is designed for low-lying quarries. The installation is only about a metre (three feet) high and usually you can't see it until you get to the water's edge. It is not at all intrusive," he said.

Rosa-Clot believes their project will allow a greater number of installations at a much more affordable price.