The ABC have this article claiming – Rooftop solar producing more energy than WA’s biggest turbine – Curtin University sustainability professor Peter Newman said – “It’s nearly 500 megawatts and it’s growing rapidly,..” Yet when I check NemWatch for WA I can only ever find a little over ~250MW for WA small solar. Is this because about half the output is used in the homes of the owners of these rooftop solar systems?
And of course the article seems to forget that these solar systems only work in the sunny hours – they make no electricity at night while the coal fired generators chug away 24/7. I wonder to what extent the WA grid can keep on accommodating increasing solar and wind power yet remain stable. I also wonder what is the cumulative cost of all the small scale solar subsidies paid out by the various Australian Governments.
The greens believe that solar (and wind) are cheap, and that those nasty polluting capitalists with their conventional methods should be made redundant.
They don’t grasp that conventional methods are meant to run continuously, and costed on that basis. Faced with an intermittent, unreliable source of electricity they have to keep generating so there is electricity available WHEN renewables fail to supply. The result is a loss of revenue for the conventional producers and increased costs (and emission per unit) as they run plants on standby. So up goes electricity bills, making renewables (after subsidies) look more attractive.
It takes roughly 72 hours for a coal fired station to start up from cold. If the renewables press on, the conventional producers will have to shut down, they can’t legally continue to trade if bankrupt. The day that they do will be the day that the renewables bubble will collapse. People expect continuous supply and the scam of lithium batteries will be exposed as expensive and dangerous to householders.
Without storage – and lithium batteries are a mirage – renewables are merely an expensive indulgence of the upper middle class, and one they want others to pay for.
The Green fossil fools must think Lithium grows on trees, Or lead/zinc mines have a smaller footprint than Gas. Or rare earth minerals are safe and environmentally fabulous or something. Nothing but hypocrites: pindanpost.com/2016/01/03/environmental-hypocrisy-uncovered-fossil-fools/
here in the New England we’re going for 100% renewables by 2030
au.prime7.yahoo.com/n2/video/-/watch/30520322/ban-on-mines/
Tony Windsor makes an appearance!
g’day Val :
Tony Windsor is yesterday’s man and they must have dug him up for their propaganda piece.
I know feelings are running high on the Liverpool plains, but how much of that is due to mis-information I don’t know.
Regarding renewables – I think that the high point has passed. Spain, Italy, Greece, Holland, the UK have all cut the subsidies, and there is more to come. You’ve no doubt seen the latest JoNova post about Nevada (and other States in the small print).
Tasmania is currently running on hydro and wind, and that could collapse into blackouts any day. South Australia will face blackouts next summer once it too relies on sun & wind (& an inadequate supply of coal fired from Vic.). Further I think that the weather in Europe and NW USA will turn cooler over the next year, and continue until 2030 or more.
Should winters turn freezing the public will turn strongly against the notion of expensive and unreliable sources.
I hope so!
Don’t freeze this winter.
The power of PV panels is based on the output from a standardised test. Light duplicating sunlight at 35 degrees N and intensity of 1000 watts/square metre is shone directly onto the panel and the temperature maintained at 25 degrees celsius. The resistive load is varied between zero and 100 percent. The highest wattage achieved is the designated DC output of the panel.
Collectively an array may not perform as well as the sum of its panels and also the AC output is less than DC. The power produced is degraded as temperature increases and most rooftop systems are set up at the roof angle and orientation. The panels throughout WA will achieve their maximum output at different times and at different levels of efficiency. For a number of reasons a percentage may not be operating.
I have been looking at the site PVsolar.com, mainly a number of solar systems that give live outputs in Canberra. Some of these, for part of the day in part of the year, do achieve figures close to their power rating and others max out at 80%.
The solar output given in the NemWatch app comes from the Australian Photovoltaic Institute. Its PV Live Map, pv-map.apvi.org.au/live gives output by postcode number and also by state. It includes historic data as well. The data is sourced using a sample of systems from PVsolar.com.
Large industrial solar farms probably rate their capacity as AC output and the standard of design and engineering will be higher than most rooftop systems.
Most householders with solar would not care about the systems peak wattage and, I suspect, what it costs the rest of us. Some of them are saving the planet and others are saving money.