What are Evacuated Tubes?

Know Your Green Technologies is a Planet Green Series that helps you get to know some of the most popular and cutting edge green technologies out there, so you can make informed eco decisions when it's time to update, remodel or build with green in mind.

There is a new way to collect solar energy, and you don't have to build and maintain your own type-G star to do it. It's probably impossible to build a star of that quality anyways. Traditionally, solar energy has been gathered in panels, but it seems the solar people have taken a nod from the tennis ball people and have decided to gather their energy in tubes.

Evacuated collector tubes are usually more expensive than solar panels, but evacuated tubes have a number of advantages. These tubes can collect solar energy in overcast weather and at subzero temperatures, and they rarely let heat escape their vacuous interior. Only three percent of solar energy escapes the clutches of evacuated collector tubes.

On the downside, this capacity for heat can be a negative. Evacuated tubes can become dangerously hot. If a residential system relies on evacuated tubes for energy and that tube-powered house can't use the stored energy, it could cause problems for the people of that house, especially in the heating department. It will literally get too hot for you to handle.

The evacuated-tube glass is also very fragile and can be prone to breakage, and because the glass is so well insulated, snow will not melt if it drifts onto the glass. You will have to go out and shovel your power system.

For those of you wanting to go solar in a cloudy climate, evacuated solar tubes are the right choice for you.