Could solar panels ever be feasible?

Mitchell314 said:
Another factor is equivalent daylight hour per day, which varies by location. With places that don't have high values (a high value being above 6), I was thinking a cheap way to increase daily energy income is by using reflectors to focus light to a plane, where the panels should be conveniently located. Somebody more knowledgeable should correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that more light head on = more power until it's clipped at some maximum value. So, if you look at the power output of a panel over a day, it should graph to some downward pointing parabola (that I use in the loosest terms), with the top truncated. Add in the reflectors (IDK, aluminum on some cardboard contraption?), and the parabola should naturally be shifted "up." However, the top is still shaved, so in reality the main effect is more "operation" time, where the effect is more pronounced in cloudier, higher latitude places. Probably not as effective in terms of power per area utilized, but it would be cheaper to extend AFAIK.
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There's already a company out of Ohio? I believe that has a solar panel array that focusses light reflected off the surface of the panels and collects heat. It supposed to be highly efficient but still costs about $4/kWh.
 
The Atheist said:
That's why they need to turn to face the sun. Even a small deviation from 90o makes a big difference.

Your reflectors will have the same problem and be messy as hell.



You want a solar-powered plane already?

Jesus, it's hard enough finding ones to put on houses.

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One other point is that houses aren't the best use of solar cells - as noted earlier, unless they're built for the purpose - while commercial buildings, warehouses and the like with reasonably flat roofs are ideal. (but most of them need strengthening)
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Depends on where you live. If you live at 60° latitude, a south facing slope would be better than a horizontal surface. But yeah, you want the overall sun-panel vector to be as anti-parallel to the solar panel as possible over a day. It would be simple if somebody occasionally adjusted the incidence angle a little bit of the panels to compensate for the seasons by a wheel. Connect the wheel to a set of gears so it requires little torque as possible, which also gives the benefit of higher precision of adjustments.
 
Mitchell314 said:
It would be simple if somebody occasionally adjusted the incidence angle a little bit of the panels to compensate for the seasons by a wheel.
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The best plan is a simple rise-up and track system. That can be added in quite cheaply. Doesn't work in all places, though. Hidden on a commercial roof, it works ok.

As to south- or north-facing roofs, it isn't quite that simple either as most roofs don't slope only one way. It's one of the things which need to be done at the design stage.
 
Cuddles said:
If you look at the numbers in the article you linked, he paid out $50,000 and has an effective income of $250 ($110 actual income, $140 saved in bills). This means it will take just under 17 years for him to break even. Lifespans are generally estimated to be around 20-25 years (which I have to admit was longer than I thought), so he will make some profit towards the end, but not anywhere near as much as implied. Of course, a lot of the costs were paid by grants and incentives but those won't be an option for a lot of people, and I suspect a lot of it will be loans that have to be paid back. In any case, the whole point is to get solar power able to stand on its own - anything can turn a profit if you subsidise it enough.
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Just a little back of the envelope figuring, here.

$50,000 will buy you somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 watts of PV (~$10/watt, installed), so, with six hours of sun (every day), you’d be getting 30KW from your array.

$0.125/ KW would yield a value of $113, but a $140 per month electric bill @ $0.125/KW is 37 KW, for a shortfall of over $26 a month, not an income of $250.

A $50,000 25 year loan @ 5% costs $292 a month.

So, even if his array DID put out 37 KW a day, his rate would have to be over $0.25/KW to break even with a 25 year solar array lifetime.
 
arthwollipot said:
Recently I went to Australia's largest wind farm, on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. It's placed at pretty much exactly the spot that the Roaring Forties ends.

Very impressive. Looking at it, I found it hard to imagine how people could find such things ugly.

I'll see if I can post some photos later on.
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No it isn't. Melbourne is further south than it and it's only 37 degrees south. Even the most southerly point on mainland Australia, Wilsons Prom, is only 39 degrees south. The only part of Australia that is in the Roaring Forties is Tasmania and a few other islands.
 
The Atheist said:
The best plan is a simple rise-up and track system. That can be added in quite cheaply. Doesn't work in all places, though. Hidden on a commercial roof, it works ok.

As to south- or north-facing roofs, it isn't quite that simple either as most roofs don't slope only one way. It's one of the things which need to be done at the design stage.
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Support struts for the unlucky ones?
 
Damien Evans said:
Line Rental? We still get charged that. Or are you talking about the phone itself?
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The phone itself. IIRC*, no one was allowed to install their own telephones on an AT&T line. Everyone's phone looked identical -- big, black rotary dial phones that were indestructible.

At some point in the late 60s or early 70s this changed, and people in the States were allowed to buy their own telephones. A wide variety of styles and colors came out, and phones stopped being indestructible.


* I was born in '59, so I'm not going to swear that my memory about what happened during the '60s is perfect. ;)
 
GreyICE said:
Compressed air would do the trick for a light dusting, for a very heavy load, mechanical movement would be necessary.

Reality always trumps theory. If the theory is not predicting the reality, the theory is incomplete, incorrect, or in the case of Mhaze's "statistics" non-existent.
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This is Frank Corradi....Yes it is really me. OK, Apparently I stumbled upon this forum quite by accident, but see that the WSJ article of 2005 vintage has created some questions. Anyone who would like questions resolved can feel free to post them here and I will happily clear them up. I will say that my solar project has been a financial home run. Again, would love to share the details through this forum.
 
arthwollipot said:
A friend of mine had an idea - a small wind turbine on the top of every street light, all feeding into the grid.

We have the technology today to start doing things like this. Why aren't we?
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Because it would be a massive waste. Turbines are not maintenance free, nor are they free to build. And the cost is both in dollars and in energy. Tiny turbines on street lamps would not produce enough electricity to justify their costs by either metric.
 
Frank Corradi said:
This is Frank Corradi....Yes it is really me. OK, Apparently I stumbled upon this forum quite by accident, but see that the WSJ article of 2005 vintage has created some questions. Anyone who would like questions resolved can feel free to post them here and I will happily clear them up. I will say that my solar project has been a financial home run. Again, would love to share the details through this forum.
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Oh man, thank you! I've been looking for solid answers for some of these

- Any issues with the power companies? Down here in NY they've been a bit uncooperative, have they given you a hard time? Had trouble getting the money from them?

- Maintenance - do they get dirty? Covered in leaves? How often do you need to clean them to keep the efficiency up? Do they come with some way of measuring output so you can see it dropping and clean them?

- Damage - any been damaged yet? How easy is it to repair them? Expensive?

- Winter - snow and ice - do they build up? Or is this mostly a non-issue?

- Quality - have you noticed an unusual number of circuits popping or surge protectors being triggered since you installed them? Brownouts? Or is the output reasonably consistent?

Any answers you have would be much appreciated.
 
The DOE has an information department that we pay to look at things like this and make reasonable projections. I suggest a visit.
 
Frank Corradi said:
This is Frank Corradi....Yes it is really me. OK, Apparently I stumbled upon this forum quite by accident, but see that the WSJ article of 2005 vintage has created some questions. Anyone who would like questions resolved can feel free to post them here and I will happily clear them up. I will say that my solar project has been a financial home run. Again, would love to share the details through this forum.
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I noticed in the article, about $35,000 of the initial cost came from a government subsidy - what is the source ( what tax fund ) of those monies?
Why do you think other tax payers should help pay for your electricity ?
 
Here in Austin we are going to pay $250 million for a solar power plant that will supply a small amount of power to go into the grid. The power will be rather expensive, but it's close enough that it's clear that this type of power will be cost competetive with further technology advances and/or fuel price hikes. Constructing one to supply power on the scale of your average nuke or full size coal plant would require an awful lot of land, though.
 
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