INTRODUCTORY SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY ... - PHOTON Info

November 2009
Guido Schiefer / photon-pictures.com
A former training center near a
European Space Agency (ESA)
ground station underwent elabo-
rate reconstruction, transforming it
into a business park for aerospace
companies. Installing a PV system
as part of this complex came natu-
rally to an industry that historically
has been one of the fi rst to employ
PV in any sustained way.
The impression made by the building’s exterior
isn’t misleading: the Galaxia complex is indeed
dedicated to aerospace technology – and PV
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Sometimes, not often, images have an
uncanny symmetry and meaning to
them. Gazing upwards from the grounds
outside the Galaxia Business Park in
Libin-Transinne, Belgium just such an
image appears suddenly and quite unexpectedly.
There, stretched across ramrod
straight metal poles reaching towards the
sky is a cloth banner emblazoned with
a picture of a satellite in orbit with PV
panels latched to its side.
It takes a moment to understand just
why this scene is so powerfully appropriate.
One reason is simply the location:
the Galaxia Business Park sits adjacent to
a ground station for the European Space
Agency (ESA). This is not at all a coincidence.
The Galaxia, which was opened
last December, was built to be a home for
both start-up and more mature high-tech
businesses involved in some regard with
space exploration.
But there’s a deeper, albeit more subtle
level of symmetry on display here, one that
requires looking beyond the banner to the
roof, and then out towards the walls. There,
one can see parts of what amount to a massive
440 m2 PV array, which, with a total of
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