Largescale Solar Parks Just Can't Withstand The Harsh Elements of Nature

[rangerrebew]

 
Largescale Solar Parks Just Can’t Withstand The Harsh Elements of Nature
By P Gosselin on 18. February 2024

Planners and governments keep denying vulnerability.

Europe is still considering massive solar energy plants along sun-rich North Africa in order to produce hydrogen gas that could be piped over the European mainland, despite having concluded 10 years ago that such projects wouldn’t pay off.

In the latest push, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck (Greens) visited Algeria earlier this month. The focus was on a “southern H2 corridor”, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau here.

The move highlights how desperate Germany has become in terms of energy supply.

Not only is the North African region politically unstable, but it is plagued by extremely harsh climatic conditions and sand storms. Green energy dogmatists have a habit of unrealistically thinking green energy systems are robust and low maintenance. In fact, they are very vulnerable to weather events, as they cannot be protected by a statically sound roof.

https://notrickszone.com/#sthash.uBc77k0X.dyCnhsLQ.dpbs

[Free Vulcan]

They really can't, and the reality is that the best environments for solar are generally the harshest.

Of course with subsidies, they can be put anywhere. They are putting up acres beyond acres in my locale even though we are middling at best in terms of yearly sunshine and certainly not stand alone profitable. Yet another govt boondoggle waiting to happen.

[GtHawk]

They really can't, and the reality is that the best environments for solar are generally the harshest.

Of course with subsidies, they can be put anywhere. They are putting up acres beyond acres in my locale even though we are middling at best in terms of yearly sunshine and certainly not stand alone profitable. Yet another govt boondoggle waiting to happen.

You're just not looking at the big picture, all those solar panels that will prematurely fail will need to be replaced so you are missing the jobs created to maintain and replace not to mention those bad panels are hazardous materials aren't they? Now I would say more hazmat disposal jobs created but I know the crap will just be thrown in the landfills along with all the wind turbine blades that can't be recycled. It's not easy being green, but very lucrative for a very few at the expense of the great many

[roamer_1]

It's really a thing, even on a small scale. I was working on a sorta flower petal design before my back went south... With a motorcycle battery on it's own controller, whose whole job was to run the mechanicals to open the 'petals' and point them always at the sun...and to close the whole works up when the generation fell below a certain threshold... That means at night, and particularly during snow storms, any storms, the panels would be put away inside of a lovely 1/4" steel box... But would spread and align the minute the sun came out.

It's out on the number one pile now.... I kinda got it, but the weight was too much for the antenna rotator that I was using for alignment. I would like to do it that way... with two or three units... It would save a lot of grief, especially shoveling snow off the panels... But at least how I had it, you still had to go knock the snow off the sensor anyway to get it to know when to open.

[roamer_1]

I thought I'd seen something similar somewhere.

https://www.solar.com/learn/smartflower-solar-comprehensive-review/

Yeah... Sorta. I got the idea from all over. But typically, designed my own... I started from a well casing and a can to put them away, with a motorcycle chain to roll them out rotationally. Six positions, one of which was the box they would collapse into... And each petal was long enough to get the full exposure of a 400w roof panel... So the 'petals' were bigger, longer than you'd expect.

In the end, the petals were fifteen feet long to get full exposure of each panel, and a monstrous and very heavy 'can' for them to fold into. The 'head' turned out to be extraordinarily heavy And the rotor just couldn't take it.

Next time, if there is a next time, I would do it differently - Though it really was an experiment anyway... For one, convert to aluminum. While steel is easier for me, tossing around something that wound up as heavy as an equipment trailer was the downfall.

In the end, a fixed panel setup that has auto-tilt to allow for season is where I will land... Just like everybody else. I would build that onto/into a shed of some sort... heat the shed so all my batteries and electronics have a self contained home... Something like that is gonna be the money shot. easy to build, self contained....

The flower thing is a fallacy, and on the scrap heap... probably. I just really, really like that idea.

[Hoodat]

With a motorcycle battery on it's own controller, whose whole job was to run the mechanicals to open the 'petals' and point them always at the sun...and to close the whole works up when the generation fell below a certain threshold... That means at night, and particularly during snow storms, any storms, the panels would be put away inside of a lovely 1/4" steel box...

Instead of retracting it, why not line each panel with electric heaters to keep the snow off.  Just run a long extension cord from the house to the panels to keep the heaters going.

[GtHawk]

Instead of retracting it, why not line each panel with electric heaters to keep the snow off.  Just run a long extension cord from the house to the panels to keep the heaters going.

Sending electricity to solar panels instead of drawing electricity from them...I get what you're saying but it still seems...wrong

[Hoodat]

Sending electricity to solar panels instead of drawing electricity from them...I get what you're saying but it still seems...wrong

Don't blow my high.

[roamer_1]

Instead of retracting it, why not line each panel with electric heaters to keep the snow off.  Just run a long extension cord from the house to the panels to keep the heaters going.

Heehee... Actually, if I do it again, a shed, probably a container, with the panels fixed to a hinged platform that can be tilted for the season... The area BEHIND that platform could be enclosed with sail cloth, forming a pseudo-heat-able space... Fire up a diesel heater,, pointed into that space during snow storms, and you'd never get any build-up at all...

Don't think I ain't thought about it... 

[Hoodat]

One of my 'become a billionaire overnight' ideas is to invent an electromagnetic wave dampener.  The invention would basically lengthen the wavelength (i.e. weaken the energy) of a visible light wave.

I'm not sure what works best, but let's say your typical photovoltaic cell generates electric potential most efficiently somewhere in the green spectrum (e.g. around 550 nm).  It does this better with light at 550 nm than light at 430 nm which is blue light.  The shorter the wavelength, the higher the energy.  Meaning that blue light is higher energy than green light.  But green happens to work better for the photovoltaic cell.

So if there was a way to shed the energy of blue light by turning it into green light, the photovoltaic cell would generate more energy than it would using the original blue light.  And who knows, maybe that shedding of energy would produce enough heat to keep the snow off.  And maybe the birds, too.

Anyhoo, some time later in the century when someone wins the Nobel Prize for physics for doing this, remember you heard it here first.

[roamer_1]

Being in the oil business I have to discourage this...lolololol.

Hey. You do you. I'm just trying to get to where I don't have to listen to the dang jenny all_day_long... 

Seriously, I like simple systems and independence. The idea that is loosely contained in the term 'modern homesteading' turns me on.

That's homesteading proper, but with the capability of all the modern conveniences, self contained.

Now, my place up the holler has a nice waterfall, perfect for some micro-turbine electrical generation, if I can figure out how to bury the lines in shield country... So water is king (as it ought to be), but solar has it's place.

As self-contained power is concerned, solar is pretty cheap and maintenance free... Not counting the shed/container and the framework, I can plop a self-contained long term solar system up in there for around $15k... One that will run 110v plenty (almost). Still need the jenny in the deep winter for a few hours a day... But that is ALMOST living the dream, right there.

THEN give me a few years to mess with that water turbine... And I'll have 220 all day long.

Meh. All for nought now... By the time I get past this back thing, I won't have the time no more. But it was a really fun game, for a minute. 

[roamer_1]

One of my 'become a billionaire overnight' ideas is to invent an electromagnetic wave dampener.  The invention would basically lengthen the wavelength (i.e. weaken the energy) of a visible light wave.

I'm not sure what works best, but let's say your typical photovoltaic cell generates electric potential most efficiently somewhere in the green spectrum (e.g. around 550 nm).  It does this better with light at 550 nm than light at 430 nm which is blue light.  The shorter the wavelength, the higher the energy.  Meaning that blue light is higher energy than green light.  But green happens to work better for the photovoltaic cell.

So if there was a way to shed the energy of blue light by turning it into green light, the photovoltaic cell would generate more energy than it would using the original blue light.  And who knows, maybe that shedding of energy would produce enough heat to keep the snow off.  And maybe the birds, too.

Anyhoo, some time later in the century when someone wins the Nobel Prize for physics for doing this, remember you heard it here first.

SLICK. Rule of thumb says conversion will cost you... And non-conversion is waste of energy that otherwise would be benefit, even if at a lesser rate. I dunno...