page_title: Solar architecture
section_title: Solar parabola
hierarchical_section_title: Solar architecture / Elements / Solar parabola
caption_attribution_description: English: Solar parabola Auroville
context_page_description: Solar architecture is an architectural approach that takes in account the Sun to harness clean and renewable solar power. It is related to the fields of optics, thermics, electronics and materials science. Both active and passive solar housing skills are involved in solar architecture.
  The use of flexible thin-film photovoltaic modules provides fluid integration with steel roofing profiles, enhancing the building's design. Orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air also constitute solar architecture.
  Initial development of solar architecture has been limited by the rigidity and weight of standard solar power panels. The continued development of photovoltaic thin film solar has provided a lightweight yet robust vehicle to harness solar energy to reduce a building's impact on the environment.
context_section_description: A solar parabola is a parabolic mirror that concentrates the sunlight to reach high temperatures. In Auroville's collective kitchen, a large solar parabola on the roof provides heat for cooking.
  The solar parabola can also be used for industrial building. The Odeillo solar furnace, one of the largest solar parabola in the world, concentrates the sunlight 10,000 times and reaches temperatures above 3,200 K. No material resists, even diamond melts. It opens the vision of a futuristic metallurgy, using a clean and renewable source of energy.
caption: The Auroville's solar parabola
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