Photographer Tom Hegen has captured a shocking collection of aerial pictures exhibiting what sprawling solar energy vegetation appear to be from a hen’s-eye view. The venture is titled The Photo voltaic Energy Collection.
Hegen is a German photographer who has targeted his profession on capturing aerial pictures that supply insights into the traces people are leaving on Earth’s floor.
Hegen “gives an summary of locations the place we extract, refine and devour sources,” his web site reads. “In the end, he delivers insights into the advanced relationship between human and their atmosphere. Typically selecting to doc summary views, he reads landscapes based mostly on their significance inside the world human affect on planet earth.”
Capturing Photo voltaic Vegetation from the Sky
In 2021, Hegen traveled by the USA, France, and Spain to {photograph} huge photo voltaic power infrastructures that will probably be delivering clear power for generations to return. The pictures had been shot from a helicopter.
“In a single hour, the quantity of energy from the solar that strikes the Earth is greater than your complete world consumes in a 12 months,” Hegen writes in his artist assertion for the collection. “Having this in thoughts, renewable power sources might be the important thing to combating local weather change.
“What does remodeling in direction of extra sustainable sources of power appear to be? This collection explores solar energy vegetation in the USA, France, and Spain. These man-made, constructed landscapes symbolize our efforts of constructing a extra sustainable future in probably the most subtle methods.”
The places seen in Hegen’s venture embrace the Ivanpah Photo voltaic Energy Facility in California’s Mojave Desert, the Crescent Dunes Photo voltaic Vitality Venture in Nevada, the Les Mées Photo voltaic Farm in France, the PS10 Photo voltaic Energy Plant close to Seville in Spain, and the Gemasolar Thermosolar Plant that’s additionally close to Seville, Spain.
Two Kinds of Photo voltaic Energy Vegetation
The neatly-arranged round services seen in Hegen’s pictures are photo voltaic thermal energy vegetation, which focus daylight from hundreds of transferring mirrors referred to as heliostats onto a central collector tower. Whereas earlier designs of those vegetation used the warmth from the targeted gentle to warmth water and generate steam, newer vegetation use molten salts to retailer power, boil water, and drive generators to generate electrical energy — the flexibility of the salts to retailer warmth permits power to be generated even after the solar goes down.
Non-circular photo voltaic vegetation are photovoltaic energy stations (or photo voltaic farms), which use the identical expertise discovered on residential roofs. Photovoltaic modules are used to transform gentle instantly into electrical energy.
A View of Unintended Creative Magnificence
“Aerial images, to me, is like knowledge visualization for scientists,” Hegen says in a 2022 interview with Fortune. “The elevated perspective has such a exceptional skill to indicate the size and context of a panorama. I additionally benefit from the abstraction and aestheticization that comes with altering the attitude.
“There is no such thing as a time for me to expertise the panorama and see all its particulars [when up in the air]. Once I come again from manufacturing and take a look at the pictures on a big monitor, I’ve a second encounter with the panorama and might discover all the small print within the surroundings.”
The photographer tells Fortune that he usually sees unintentional creative magnificence in the way in which people work together with the planet in large-scale methods.
“[Aerial photography] exhibits dimensions and divulges insights we wouldn’t be capable to see from the bottom,” the photographer says. “Not one of the locations I {photograph} have been deliberately designed to be considered from the air and make visible sense. This demonstrates that we’re all artists, creating on the canvas of the earth’s floor.
“On this context, I see myself as a curator locations that we have now drastically altered.”
Yow will discover extra of Hegen’s work on his web site and Instagram.
Picture credit: All images by Tom Hegen.
