According to:
No info on that page, as expected. Look at:
for more details:
Solar Panels: 50000 Capacity: 40 MW Acreage: 200
More info:
200 acres = 80.9 hectares = 809,371.284 square metres.40 MW from 809,371.284 square metres.
40,000,000 / 809,371.284 = 49.42 watts per square metre.I am aware that this will be the avaerage over day and night, and over the year. I am aware that solar insolation is very variable. But 49 watts per s quare metre? Can that really be right? Is the 200 acres the site size, or t he combined size of all the panels?
I assume I have calculated something wrong. Can any one help?
Thanks in advance,
David Paste.
Background:
A not-particularly-technologically-minded friend was pondering whether or n ot an electric train covered in PV panels would be viable. I said no, assum ing an easy to calculate figure of 10 MW for a Eurostar (wikipedia has valu es ranging from 3.4 MW to 12.2 MW). I was assuming that the *avaerage* year ly insolation for the UK was 1kW per square metre, garnered from:
so for 10 MW, you'd need (10,000,000/1,000 = 10,000 square metres = 1 h ectare = 2.47 acres of panels for one train.
A rough estimation for BR Class 373 on the Eurostar gives about 1,000 squar e metres of roof on a 20 car set. Or 1 MW at theoretical maximum. But it wo n't be, will it. Curved roof, adverse weather, panel efficiency, all of tha t.
I know that PV panels are not 100% efficient at converting light into leccy , but I was still staggered to see that 49 watts per square metre was the a verage figure used for that solar farm.
And so surely I've done something wrong.
Thanks again.