The Box is a major cultural and heritage attraction and archive, which opened in Plymouth’s city centre in September 2020. Its collection, formally the South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA), is the regional film archive for the South West of England, comprising the combined programme libraries of Westward Television and Television South West (TSW). It also includes a significant number of donated film collections dating back to the early 1890s.
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Solar Panels at Spetisbury
A solar heating system powers a dairy farm
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Overview
A farm in Spetisbury installs a solar water heating system and TV reporter John Doyle is there to find out the benefits to the dairy farm. Solar water heating panels are different to Solar (PV) Photovoltaic panels which provide electricity. There are two systems of solar heating, passive using natural convection and active which pumps the working fluid around the panels heating the water and powering machinery and lights.
There are records of solar panels being available since the 1900s, a wooden batch water heater was used in the USA in 1896. In the 1920s and the 1973 oil crisis and 1979 energy crisis there was a surge in interest for renewable energy sources. Many European countries are the largest users of solar heating water systems.
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