Dumb Energy

[bolverk 29695]

11 minutes ago, TahoeHorn said:

Germans pay $.40/KwH.

 

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-households-pay-power

And this is the US per Trump's own DOE:

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/sunshot-2030

In 2017, the solar industry achieved SunShot’s original 2020 cost target of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour for utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) solar power three years ahead of schedule, dropping from about $0.28 to $0.06 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Cost targets for residential- and commercial-scale solar have dropped from $0.52 to $0.16 and from $0.40 to $0.11 per kWh respectively.

[Parliament 14270]

6 hours ago, zork said:

Germany is in a relatively shitty solar as a resource area of the world:  

I'm colorblind.  Is northern Chile really good or really bad for solar?

[bolverk 29695]

55 minutes ago, Parliament said:

I'm colorblind.  Is northern Chile really good or really bad for solar?

The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on the planet and is fairly close to the Equator, meaning it gets lots of sun.

[elfenix 34330]

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

And this is the US per Trump's own DOE:

https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/sunshot-2030

In 2017, the solar industry achieved SunShot’s original 2020 cost target of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour for utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) solar power three years ahead of schedule, dropping from about $0.28 to $0.06 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Cost targets for residential- and commercial-scale solar have dropped from $0.52 to $0.16 and from $0.40 to $0.11 per kWh respectively.

i wonder how they get that number?  a friend of mine in jersey is paying (iirc) $0.11/kWh for the electricity coming off the panels on his roof (company installs the panels and then charges you for the electric instead of $20k up front)

[zork 629]

What am I seeing here, compare and contrast, between 1994 and 2015 from the Boulder station gathering solar radiance data, two complete years of data being the first complete year on the site and the last if I did it right:

1994:

2015:

Seems like there is higher highs in the later data set, and more of them?  It is just one site.  Pretty cool if you had the time to dig in there for more.

BTW, this is an awesome site for the data collected on the various energy topics:

https://solrad-net.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Edited August 21, 2019 by zork

[zork 629]

7 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

It's more difficult to get fully vertical radiation later in the year...if you get what I'm sayin'....

Actually, according to this:

Quote

Many transposition models have been proposed in the literature to convert solar irradiance on the horizontal plane to that on a tilted plane requiring that at least two of the three solar components (i.e. global, direct and diffuse) are known. When only global irradiance measurements are available, the conversion from horizontal to tilted planes is still possible but in this case transposition models have to be coupled with decomposition models (i.e. models that predict the direct and diffuse components from the global one). Here, two different approaches have been considered to solve the reverse process, i.e. the conversion from tilted to horizontal: (i) one-sensor approach and (ii) multi-sensors approach. Because only one tilted plane is involved in the one-sensor approach, a decomposition model need to be coupled with a transposition model to solve the problem. By contrast, at least two tilted planes being considered in the multi-sensors approach, only a transposition model is required to perform the conversion. First, global solar irradiance measurements recorded on the roof of the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium's radiation tower in Uccle were used to evaluate the performance of both approaches. Four pyranometers (one mounted in the horizontal plane and three on inclined surfaces with different tilts and orientations) were involved in the validation exercise. Second, the inverse transposition was applied to tilted global solar irradiance values retrieved from the energy production registered at residential PV systems located in the vicinity of Belgian radiometric stations operated by RMI (for validation purposes).

Maybe?

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1914994H

Edited August 21, 2019 by zork

[cactusflinthead 27601]

10 hours ago, zork said:

Germany is in a relatively shitty solar as a resource area of the world:  

 

8 hours ago, zork said:

It would help if all Federal, State, County, offices and buildings followed the Energy Star recommendations they provide themselves:

Are all Federal buildings limiting their cooling to 78 degrees in Spring, Summer, and Fall?  85 degrees for all of the buildings after 5PM and before 8AM?

1) it would stand to reason that other areas could do better than the Teutonic lands with generating solar energy. So why the fuck not? If they can do it with shitty conditions we can surely do better. 

And 2) 

And this is a big number 2

That has got to be adjusted. Room temperature is 68F. That's fucking science bro. THAT'S WHY THE MAN PUT A GODDAMN BOX ON THE THERMOSTAT! BITCHES LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE!

ERCOT better expect this. Fuck off with ALL of that. 78Fahrenfuckingheit degrees my ass. No. Go away and try again. 

6 hours ago, bolverk said:

And yet that cloudy country with geographic area the size of New Mexico but a population twice that of California has 73 percent of the PV installed capacity of the US and the ability to produce 7-8 percent of their energy needs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country?wprov=sfla1

Now, look at that red on the map all over the US, and tell me with a straight face that we couldn't do better than a high latitude European country.

My man. 

4 hours ago, TahoeHorn said:

Germans pay $.40/KwH.

 

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-households-pay-power

Because that's what it fucking costs there. A dumpster to be filled and hauled off was 2K USD last time I heard and there was a line and damn the penalty if it was over it. Shit is more expensive there for some things. That doesn't mean it has to cost the same here. They also subsidize their energy research and that's running out, hence a slowdown. Given the dollars and time they can get more independent of fossil fuel. 100%? Color me skeptical. 

Kudos for wearing your proper name. 

 

[Parliament 14270]

9 hours ago, bolverk said:

The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on the planet and is fairly close to the Equator, meaning it gets lots of sun.

Thank you.  That's what I thought, but I also think there's a desert around there that's foggy all the time?

From these solar farms in the desert, how far can the electricity be economically "pushed?"

[bolverk 29695]

40 minutes ago, Parliament said:

Thank you.  That's what I thought, but I also think there's a desert around there that's foggy all the time?

From these solar farms in the desert, how far can the electricity be economically "pushed?"

I think you're thinking of the Namib Desert on the coast of SW Africa with the fog.

As far as how far the electricity from northern Chile that can be "pushed," you'll probably have to refer to some of the power transmission experts around here, but I'd imagine that Chile probably has some pretty good hydroelectric options at its disposal that are closer to Santiago and its other population centers which are much further south. I'm too lazy to look that one up right now.