GC: n
CT: Turning on a light indoors while the sun is shining outdoors creates frustration for an environmentalist. Knowing that a simple flick of the light switch causes a chain of energy production, transportation and conversion just seems crazy when the sun is pouring down free photons outside only a few feet away.
One often proposed solution for this is to use a heliostat, which is a mirror mounted on motors that tracks the sun throughout the day and places the reflection of the sun on a fixed spot, like the window of a house, but heliostats traditionally have been expensive, costing thousands of dollars each, and only suitable for government research. A team of engineers and manufacturing experts at Wikoda Inc. in Concord, Massachusetts have developed a heliostat designed and priced for residential use, enabling homeowners to add brightness and warmth to dark or gloomy rooms. A single heliostat reflects up to 50,000 lumens of sunlight and can completely transform the mood of a room (one 60 watt bulb provides 1000 lumens).
S: Solarpow – http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2012/04/home-heliostats/ (last access: 20 December 2014)
N: 1. From helio- (word-forming element meaning “sun,” from Greek helio-, comb. form of helios “sun”) and -stat (word-forming element used in making names of devices for stabilizing or regulating (such as thermostat), from Greek statos “standing, stationary,” from PIE ste-to-, suffixed form of root sta- “to stand”. First used in heliostat “an instrument for causing the sun to appear stationary”, 1742).
2. Device that orients a mirror to reflect sunlight in a specific direction, regardless of the sun’s position in the sky.
3. The mirror version is the more general and the term “heliostat” is sometimes used to describe the orientable mirror alone.
S: 1. Etymonline – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=heliostat&searchmode=none (last access: 20 December 2014). 2. TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 20 December 2014). 3. GDT (last access: 20 December 2014).
SYN: heliostatic mirror
S: TERMIUM PLUS (last access: 20 December 2014)
CR: solar energy
