I already replied to that point didn't I? There is a point of diminishing returns in trying to capture all the sunlight using solar cells. Once you reach that point the remaining light can be used for other things like grow ing crops that are suited to lower light levels. In fact, the optimal poin t may not be to cram the solar panels as close together as is "optimal" for the panels. In reality you are trying to optimize the use of the land, no t really the panels. So perhaps you leave a bit of extra space to allow th e land to grow better crops achieving an optimal use of the land as a whole . I seem to recall a link to some research on this which showed fields bei ng evaluated for the right crops and the right mixture of solar panels and crops.
Of course you can't use the same light for both crops and solar cells. Tha t is totally obvious. So what is your point?
--
Rick C.
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For some reason you *deliberately* snipped your reply and *chose* to make it difficult to assess. Here it is again...
On 14/10/19 08:17, Rick C wrote:> On Monday, October 14, 2019 at 3:04:49 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:>> >> What crop do you think you could grow or harvest in a farm like this: >> https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5995191,-2.4819898,3a,45.9y,92.69h,92.27t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skjLH3UuIwSRu-7wMhdJQeg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 > > I'm not sure, but it won't matter when some of those drivers start driving on > the right side of the road and the rest run smack into them! The horror!
The UK is densely populated to an extent I expect you cannot appreciate.
Land is at a premium, and we have to import ~50% of our food.
Thus removing farmland is a risky option in the long term.
That's as maybe. This utility is concerned about cost.
Perhaps, but that's hardly sustainable.
Spraying them with a hosepipe has a similar effect on output. My thinking is that the cells like consistent illumination, and water droplets will act as lenses, diverting light towards some places and away from others.
for fossil fuel generation based on cost and risk.
lined as too large and financially risky for the small utility, requiring a new bid ? which recently came in showing wind, solar and storage d ominating the list of offers."
les...
8, the utility published research suggesting that closing coal plants early , and replacing them with renewables and energy storage, would save custome rs $4.3 billion. Around the same time as the above bids, the utility announ ced it would be closing a majority of its coal facilities by 2023 (thus the need for the following procurement), and all coal facilities by 2028. Coal lobbyists, expectedly, have flooded the state?s legislature."
upled with energy storage". The costs they are expecting to see...
e, from a summer of 2018 NIPSCO RFP, where we saw bids for solar power at 3
rge of $5.90/kW-Mo."
have my power supplied this way. It would cut my electric bill in half. Good thing my power is local, but not so local it comes from the expensive nuclear power plant next door.
nergy source. Certainly nuclear is a bad idea going forward.
Why do you think that the cells like consistent illumination?
The process is going on in the cells is individual photons hitting individual silicon atoms - they don't care what the nearby atoms are doing.
Some of the light hitting the sloping side of the water droplets is going to be reflected away sideways, which won't help the output, but any lensing effects shouldn't matter.
Any patches of shade are going to have some effect on PV output, but a coarse chequerboard pattern would have exactly the same effect as a fine one.
d for fossil fuel generation based on cost and risk.
eclined as too large and financially risky for the small utility, requiring a new bid ? which recently came in showing wind, solar and storage dominating the list of offers."
ables...
018, the utility published research suggesting that closing coal plants ear ly, and replacing them with renewables and energy storage, would save custo mers $4.3 billion. Around the same time as the above bids, the utility anno unced it would be closing a majority of its coal facilities by 2023 (thus t he need for the following procurement), and all coal facilities by 2028. Co al lobbyists, expectedly, have flooded the state?s legislature."
coupled with energy storage". The costs they are expecting to see...
age, from a summer of 2018 NIPSCO RFP, where we saw bids for solar power at
harge of $5.90/kW-Mo."
to have my power supplied this way. It would cut my electric bill in half. Good thing my power is local, but not so local it comes from the expensiv e nuclear power plant next door.
energy source. Certainly nuclear is a bad idea going forward.
The article actually says that if you have a battery that your solar cells can charge with an inverter that will convert the stored power to mains vol tage AC you will be fine. It's not the green energy that's the problem, but the reliance on the grid always being there.
The headline is the usual sort of nonsense designed to suck in gullible twi ts like Cursitor Doom, and apparently Michael Terrell too.
Like all of California, PG&E is going bankrupt. No money for improvements and the state just can't resist piling on more regulations. The reason the outages were so long is that the state requires that every inch of the system be inspected before being re-energized. It was equated to having to call out an electrician to inspect the wiring in your entire house, every time you blow a fuse in an old house.
I paid $2.03 in South Carolina, Friday. It was about $2.50 in most of the rest of the Eastern states over the last couple of days, except NY and NJ (about $3).
San Francisco is expensive for everything. A lot of gas stations were sold for the real estate, all condos now, so not enough are left. I pay about $4.25 for premium. I don't rack up many miles in the city, maybe 5 a day or so, so it's OK. Gas is cheaper on the highways, for trips.
Driving on the hills does wreck mileage too. I get maybe 19 mpg in the city.
--
John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
lunatic fringe electronics
At least these grid-tie only systems aren't completely installed in vain if the homeowner wants to have battery backup. They can be AC coupled to a bidirectional battery based inverter system. Yes, it will cost more but the PV can still be used. That is, IF the regulations don't make it prohibitively expensive.
The solar industry is being heavily over-regulated these days. Everybody wants a piece of the pie.
NT isn't posting his experimental results either, and isn't aware that it doesn't take much of a grasp of semiconductor physics to let you predict the outcome of such an experiment.
He and Sylvia Else seem to be unaware that back when solar cells were more expensive, there were setups that exploited expensive high-yield cells by using solar concentrators that raised the incoming optical flux by a factor of twenty or so.
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Sometimes the systems included provision for cooling the cells.
a bid for fossil fuel generation based on cost and risk.
was declined as too large and financially risky for the small utility, requ iring a new bid ? which recently came in showing wind, solar and st orage dominating the list of offers."
renewables...
In 2018, the utility published research suggesting that closing coal plant s early, and replacing them with renewables and energy storage, would save customers $4.3 billion. Around the same time as the above bids, the utility announced it would be closing a majority of its coal facilities by 2023 (t hus the need for the following procurement), and all coal facilities by 202
Coal lobbyists, expectedly, have flooded the state?s legislature ."
ants coupled with energy storage". The costs they are expecting to see...
ow image, from a summer of 2018 NIPSCO RFP, where we saw bids for solar pow
tra charge of $5.90/kW-Mo."
love to have my power supplied this way. It would cut my electric bill in half. Good thing my power is local, but not so local it comes from the exp ensive nuclear power plant next door.
other energy source. Certainly nuclear is a bad idea going forward.
de.
ing
t
tput
ain
,
John Larkin can't produce an example of the over-regulation, and hasn't not iced that the current generation of solar cells don't need subsidies to be economically attractive in sunny areas. It helps if there isn't a lot of cl oud cover.
The next factor of ten expansion in production volume will almost certainly halve the unit price again, and fossil carbon extraction will become a nic he market.
The Koch brothers will spend what's left of their fortune lobbying for subs idies, and john Larkin - as a propaganda junkie - will be telling us that t hey deserve them.
Solar cells are optimized by assuring they receive direct light from the su n as much as possible. Land is not the quantity to be optimized in most in stallations, so you will want to leave space between rows to prevent one ro w shading the other. This naturally will leave some land not covered with solar cells and will receive diffuse light from other parts of the sky. Gr ass won't grow great, but it will grow. Not sure it will be robust enough for animals to graze on. I know sheep grazing messes up the grass because they don't cut it, they pull it up by the roots. Cows not so much. Cows l ike to rub against things and will knock over anything that isn't pretty fi rmly in the ground, like fences.
So while solar panels at latitudes away from the equator will have room for light to reach the ground, it's not particularly useful for either solar p ower or crop growth other than selected species.
That
So what is your point??? I have already said many times in many posts in m any threads that the UK is clearly a third world country when it comes to r enewable energy and especially solar power and EVs. The UK will be left be hind while the rest of the world advances and cleans up their energy genera tion. I thought it was you who had pointed out that nuclear is very unpopu lar in the UK, so I suppose the UK will be stuck with carrying coal from Ne wcastle.
--
Rick C.
++- Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
a bid for fossil fuel generation based on cost and risk.
was declined as too large and financially risky for the small utility, requ iring a new bid ? which recently came in showing wind, solar and st orage dominating the list of offers."
renewables...
In 2018, the utility published research suggesting that closing coal plant s early, and replacing them with renewables and energy storage, would save customers $4.3 billion. Around the same time as the above bids, the utility announced it would be closing a majority of its coal facilities by 2023 (t hus the need for the following procurement), and all coal facilities by 202
Coal lobbyists, expectedly, have flooded the state?s legislature ."
ants coupled with energy storage". The costs they are expecting to see...
ow image, from a summer of 2018 NIPSCO RFP, where we saw bids for solar pow
tra charge of $5.90/kW-Mo."
love to have my power supplied this way. It would cut my electric bill in half. Good thing my power is local, but not so local it comes from the exp ensive nuclear power plant next door.
other energy source. Certainly nuclear is a bad idea going forward.
de.
ing
t
tput
ain
,
e a huge incentive to install wind/solar and backup. Just make sure the sy stem is the type that will power your home when the grid is down.
This is because they can't make their system work without starting fires?
Your starting premise is wrong, that the outages happened because of an ele ctrical problem in the first place.
"PG&E has planned these purposeful blackouts for fear that its power lines and other electrical equipment may start fires during vulnerable times."
So the system was not faulty and the length of the outage had nothing to do with "inspecting the system".
"Past power shutoffs in Northern California this year, like the ones in Nap a County and the Sierra Foothills, were resolved in one day or less. Howeve r, the company warned customers earlier this year that it may keep the ligh ts off for as long as seven days in particularly dire fire conditions."
Do you ever read before you write about this stuff?
--
Rick C.
+++ Get 2,000 miles of free Supercharging
+++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
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