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Tag Archives: solar energy
There are just two sources of energy
Global primary energy consumption by fuel or energy source, 1965-2016 There are just two sources of energy Our petro-industrial civilization produces and consumes a seemingly diverse suite of energies: oil, coal, ethanol, hydroelectricity, gasoline, geothermal heat, hydrogen, solar power, propane, uranium, wind, wood, dung. At the most foundational level, however, there are just two sources […]
What Will We Do With All Those Solar Panels When Their Useful Life is Over?
WHAT WILL WE DO WITH ALL THOSE SOLAR PANELS WHEN THEIR USEFUL LIFE IS OVER? As solar power booms, businesses are exploring ways to ensure valuable components don’t end up in landfills. Photo courtesy of sinovoltaics.com April 11, 2018 — Solar power is having its hockey stick moment. Since the early 2000s, the amount of […]
Stunning drops in solar, wind costs mean economic case for coal, gas is ‘crumbling’
Stunning drops in solar, wind costs mean economic case for coal, gas is ‘crumbling’ Things are only going to get tougher for gas and coal compared to renewables. SOLAR POWER PRICES ARE DROPPING AT RECORD RATES. CREDIT: ACERA. Prices for solar, wind, and battery storage are dropping so rapidly that renewables are increasingly squeezing out […]
Building The World’s Largest Solar Project
Building The World’s Largest Solar Project Saudi Arabia wants to pour $200 billion into solar to build the world’s largest solar project. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund and SoftBank Group Corp. of Japan jointly announced plans to build a solar project that is staggering in size – 200 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. That would be […]
Inconvenient energy fact of the day
Inconvenient energy fact of the day In 2016, solar and wind provided just 0.8% of the total world’s energy (Total Primary Energy Demand (TPED)), even after trillions of dollars in taxpayer-extracted subsidies, and will reach only a 3.6% share of energy in 2040, according to the International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook 2017 forecast (see […]
Dark Days For German Solar Power, Country Saw Only 10 Hours Of Sun In All Of December!
Dark Days For German Solar Power, Country Saw Only 10 Hours Of Sun In All Of December! What follows is a chart showing the measly amount of power that Germany’s more than 40 gigawatts of installed solar electricity capacity actually managed to produce (yellow) in December, 2017 (you may have to squint): Germany’s more than 40 […]
The Valhalla solar/pumped hydro project
The Valhalla solar/pumped hydro project When and if it gets built the Valhalla project will consist of a 600 MW solar farm and a 300 MW pumped hydro plant which, it is claimed, will in combination deliver continuous baseload power to Northern Chile. If the project works as planned it will indeed deliver continuous baseload […]
More on going off-grid in UK
More on going off-grid in UK In my previous Going off-grid post I reviewed the question of whether Tesla Powerwalls or overgeneration, considered separately, might allow a UK homeowner with a rooftop solar array to go off-grid. In this post I consider the two in combination. Once more using 10 Mossbank Way as an example […]
Going off-grid in the UK
Going off-grid in the UK In my recent post featuring a residence in Tucson, Arizona (latitude 32 north) I found that no reasonable number of Tesla Powerwalls would allow the homeowner to go off-grid using a combination of solar and battery storage. In this post I review a residence in UK (latitude 52 north) and […]
Will solar panels and Tesla Powerwalls meet your home’s energy needs?
Will solar panels and Tesla Powerwalls meet your home’s energy needs? Tesla is now marketing its Powerwall2 storage battery for domestic applications, claiming among other things that it can make your home self-powered and blackout-proof. Here I review Tesla’s claims using an existing rooftop PV array in the Arizona desert as a real-life example. Will […]
Helm and the death of UK wind and solar
Helm and the death of UK wind and solar In his recent post on the Helm Review Euan Mearns predicted that Helm’s recommendation that “intermittent producers need to bear the cost of converting intermittent to firm capacity” will, if adopted, “sound the death knell for new wind and solar projects in the UK”. This post […]
Can Puerto Rico go 100% solar?
Can Puerto Rico go 100% solar? With seasonal variations in output of only around 30% Puerto Rico is at an ideal latitude for solar power, and despite generally low capacity factors (caused by cloudiness) it can be argued that if solar doesn’t work there it won’t work anywhere. And as the results of this post […]
Is The U.S. Solar Boom In Jeopardy?
Is The U.S. Solar Boom In Jeopardy? The U.S. solar industry has surged in recent years, accounting for the largest source of new electric capacity in the past year, with plenty of room to grow. However, the Trump administration is weighing a trade tariff that could seriously curtail the explosive growth figures for U.S. solar. […]
The solar panel imports case and the future of self-sufficiency
The solar panel imports case and the future of self-sufficiency Last week the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled that the American solar panel industry had been harmed by cheap imports though it did not specifically find that the competition was unfair. The decision has stunned the solar industry which has relied on cheap panel […]
