OT Large solar PV panel installation

[harryagain]

[Nightjar]

What I find really impressive about this array is that, with an installed capacity of 4.116 MW (16,800 x 245W), it will produce 3.6 million kWh of electricity per annum. That is 8,746 hours at 100% output, out of the 8,766 hours in a year.

Colin Bignell

[newshound]

Sadly, I make it 874.6 hours.

At £50 per MWH it's a return of 1.4% pa

[Nightjar]

Bugger.

Still, it must be a good use of 14 football pitches mustn't it? I wonder how the energy density compares to, say, Drax.

Colin Bignell

[newshound]

Can't help with that one but 14 football pitches is 25 acres for 4 MW.

Bradwell (admittedly one of the more compact nuclear sites) used to give

240 MW from 20 hectares, so about 20 x the power density.

[Brian Gaff]

Eh? What even in the dark? Brian

[Nightjar]

Drax is just under 4,000 MW on a 1,800 acre site, but I don't know whether the site is fully utilised or whether it includes room for expansion. Either way, solar PV is very much more wasteful of land.

Colin Bignell

[The Natural Philosopher]

I find that not impressive, but simply unbelievable

Since half of those hours will have no sun at all.

But the error it seems is in harrys brain

And his maths. It is in fact actually operating not at 100%, but at 10% capacity factor.

That is around 874 hours at 100% capacity, not 8746

More proof that harry can't do sums, if any were needed.

[The Natural Philosopher]

prettty much spot on

order of magnitude

biofuel 0.2W/sq m wind 2W/sq m solar 100W/sq m conventional 2,000W/sq m

I mean, 2000Watts is only 3BHP, you can get that out of a model aeroplane engine and generator you can hold in the palm of your hand...

[Andy Burns]

For once we can't blame harry, at least Colin was good enough to own-up.

[Nightjar]

I must use a calculator next time :-)

Mind you, the revised figure is a seriously unimpressive yield.

Colin Bignell

[harryagain]

You haven't included the areas of the mines involved. Or of the other infra-structure. Square miles?

[harryagain]

Much better on roofs. Uses no land then. You should get one on your roof right away.

[harryagain]

But then you have to obtain fuel. Which might not be available.

[Nightjar]

On 22/01/2014 09:04, harryagain wrote: ...

As I have repeatedly explained, that would not be a good use of my money.

Colin Bignell

[harryagain]

I haven't done any sums, they are someone elses. Mr Bignell's I think. Try to keep up.

You get about 1Mwh/year for every Kw installed in the best UK sites as a rough guide. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. So the figures given are likely the estimate provided by the installer which are usually very conservative. (The calculation is in the rulebook)

Apparently there are new solar cells in the pipeline with higher efficiencies that will take up less space/generate more.

[harryagain]

But the price of electricity will rise.

[John Williamson]

Ethanol and methanol will always be available, just as long as there's a farmer growing grain or other crops and people want to drink anything stronger than beer or wine. Even the oil used by most of the small 2 stroke model engines was plant based last time I used one.

[dennis]

If people like harry get their way it might be a good idea, but you will need batteries and a diesel generator as well.

[harryagain]

But that's renewable and not allowed by TurNiP :-)