Solar panel farms

[Santos_L_Halper]

@countrygirl

Could you give me more info
could you give me more info on this subject? We have a large solar panel farm moveing into our area and am looking for lots of info?

Since Phobos hasn’t been on the board in over six years, he most likely can’t give you more info…

[Enginerd]

@Crafter_Man

The problem with PV power is that it’s not fuel; it is an energy vessel. It does not generate net energy. In essence, it destroys oil that could otherwise be used for positive net energy production.

In addition to Chronos’s post, I’d note that most of the production-scale solar developments in the works today aren’t photovoltaic (PV) cells. Rather, they’re concentrating solar collectors that focus the sun’s energy on a heat transfer fluid and use the thermal energy of the fluid to drive electrical production.

[johnpost]

i agree that solar thermal makes some sense for solar intensive areas.

[beowulff]

@Chronos

I understand what you’re saying, there, and there’s a lot of truth to it with current technology, but it’s not inherently true for solar the way it is for, say, hydrogen. With current technology, it takes a lot of energy to make a solar cell, and a lot of time for that cell to pay that energy back. So you put in a lot of energy at the start, and then gradually get energy out of it over time. This is practical for a pocket calculator or a satellite, but not energy-efficient. However, it’s reasonable to suppose that, at some point in the future, the technology will have improved to where solar panels can actually be a practical net energy source.

I will nitpick, though, that solar panels even now can generate net energy; it just takes an impractically long time. And the energy used to make them in the first place is more likely to have come from coal, not oil.

Five years ago the energy payback time for a solar panel was only 2 years - it has to be even better now. 2 years in “impractically long?”
What is the energy payback time of a 1GW Nuclear generator?

[Chronos]

I hadn’t hears about panels with a payback time that short. Are they in mass production?

[Rhythmdvl]

@countrygirl

@Phobos

Just imagine the Environmental Impact Report you would have to write to build a 100 sq mi. solar panel farm! :eek:

Could you give me more info
could you give me more info on this subject? We have a large solar panel farm moveing into our area and am looking for lots of info?

I don’t think their granting categorical exclusions (releases from having to do an environmental impact statement) for projects that risk zombie apocalypses.

[beowulff]

@Chronos

I hadn’t hears about panels with a payback time that short. Are they in mass production?

This was based on a study that one of the writers for Home Power did awhile back.
A Goolge search turns up this quote:

We just discovered a recent, very detailed study about solar panel energy payback time in the January 2001 issue of Home Power magazine. This study, by Karl Knapp, PhD, and Teresa Jester, finds payback time for a standard module to be about 3.3 years, and 1.8 years on a thin-film panel. The study factors in energy costs for ALL parts of the panel and manufacturing process

So, it was even longer ago than I remembered.

[Gangster_Octopus]

@Enginerd

In addition to Chronos’s post, I’d note that most of the production-scale solar developments in the works today aren’t photovoltaic (PV) cells. Rather, they’re concentrating solar collectors that focus the sun’s energy on a heat transfer fluid and use the thermal energy of the fluid to drive electrical production.

Actually this is not true, most production-scale (assuming you mean utility scale) solar devlopments are indeed now Solar PV. At least in California I know this to be the case.