8 June 1961 : A light-buoy, or beacon, which derives its power from the sun is being developed with some success

A striking mark of faith in the British climate has been made by the engineers of Trinity House, who are developing with success a form of light-buoy or beacon which derives its power from the sun.

The Trinity House prototype, Guardian, 8 June 1961.

The idea is that solar batteries of the type used for running earth satellites would also be used to collect energy from the sun and store this for use in warning lights, sirens, and other marine equipment. The development of the automatic buoy is said to have reached the point where the feasibility of the system has been established. The announcement says that the work remaining to be done makes it unlikely that the first installation will be tried out at sea before 1963.

More reliable

The type of solar battery used is that based on silicon, and is similar to one developed some years ago in the United States. Its development and manufacture in Britain is in the hands of Ferranti Ltd. In the marine application of the device, solar energy will be turned into electricity which will be stored in a compact battery made from nickel and iron.

The advantages of solar batteries over buoys at present driven by bottles of compressed gas are mainly those of reliability and long life. At present the power supplies in automatic warning lights and the like have to be replenished at intervals of approximately a year, often in conditions which are hazardous or involve expensive delays.

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The difficulties of the work are those of mounting a sufficient number of solar batteries in such a way that the ensemble will on the average pick up enough energy from the sun, whatever the condition of the sky, for the orientation of the device on which they are mounted.