Solar power

[oil pan 4]

Yellow is solar power.
Green is gas.

The environmental extremists think this is a good thing. To me it looks like a system in failure mode. Just looking for a time and a place.

[oil pan 4]

Stoopid solar panels almost take out Texas power grid.

https://youtu.be/7G4ipM2qjfw

[oil pan 4]

Stoopid solar panels almost take out Texas power grid.

https://youtu.be/7G4ipM2qjfw

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7G4ipM...ature=youtu.be

[freebeard]

And it didn't even take a hail storm to make it happen.

https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org › renewable › hail-storm-cripples-solar-panel-facility-in-texas
Hail Storm Cripples Solar Panel Facility in Texas - IER
Apr 8, 2024 A massive hailstorm on March 15 crippled a 3,000-acre solar panel facility 40 miles outside of Houston. The storm shattered hundreds of panels and led nearby residents to worry that toxic chemicals may be leaking out of the panels and endangering local water tables. The hail storm

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

If I were going to mess with solar panels, nowadays I would most likely be inclined to go off the grid anyway.

[freebeard]

State of the art is vertical bi-facial panels, as in North-South fencing. Those should be less suseptible to hailstorm damage.

[redpoint5]

Isn't CSP the most bang for the buck on a commercial scale?

[freebeard]

CSP is... Concentrated Solar Power?





It looks like the article continues. IIRC a shallow angle focuses in front of the reflector, but a steep angle focuses behind the reflector.

[redpoint5]

As I've stated elsewhere, electricity only has value when it

a. is where you want it
b. when you want it
c. in the quantity you want

A lightning bolt has tremendous energy, but meets none of the above criteria, and therefore has no value.

The only reason why solar/wind has any value whatsoever is because they are backstopped by dispatchable (meets all 3 criteria above) generation sources, because without them, solar and wind would fail all 3 criteria that makes electricity valuable.

You can argue then that we could buffer it all into an enormous battery, but if that were cost effective, people would be doing it already.

... and that is why solar/wind is an additional cost rather than a replacement to dispatchable power plants. Every million spent on such projects is simply in addition to necessary infrastructure. Utilities don't pay any costs, ratepayers (you/me) do.

Building out solar infrastructure now is putting the cart before the horse, because you've got to solve the problem of affordably converting it into dispatchable power before deciding to produce energy in the first place.

Most bad ideas are a result of a "ready", "fire", "aim" philosophy. You've got to aim at a target before taking the shot.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Stoopid solar panels almost take out Texas power grid.

In the video linked by oil pan, it mentions that turbines have some inherent ability to buffer changes in supply/demand due to stored inertial energy.

PV panels have no buffer, and output whatever the solar conditions happen to provide millisecond to millisecond.

The advantage of CSP is that heat is stored in the concentrator, so it has some inherent ability to "load follow" (respond to changes in supply/demand).

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Mother nature doesn't care. No simp points.




Look on the bright side, it only broke the weak ones.

I suppose that you've never heard of ' Convective Available Potential Energy' ( CAPE ), which is responsible for the supercells which spawn the killer hailstorms.
Since Earth can no longer 'cool' itself, because of greenhouse gases, the moist-heat which results, is what creates the CAPE, strong enough to punch above the 'CAP', which otherwise would prevent it from reaching into - 70F atmosphere.
As the moisture rises above where commercial air liners fly, hailstones will cycle up and down in the hot, convective plumes until gravity overpowers the 'lift' of the plume, sending the monster hail downwards.
'Thicker' glazings on the PVs will be the engineering 'reaction' to the increased mass of hailstones which exceeded those of an Earth which no longer exists.
This is one of the reasons 'why' the elimination of burning fossil fuels is the target.