Author: Solaris

I am considering a solar panels. How can I tell if my area gets enough solar energy a year to be worthwhile?

I want to know how I can determine my area’s (Rochester NY) yearly solar energy output to see if it would make economic sense to install solar panels. Any websites or resources where I can look?

How to solicit the services of a professional to orchestrate the design & construction of a solar power plant?

Product and international investors are in place and ready to commence feasibility study. The professional will need to orchestrate the feasibility study, design, construction, final intergration, energy marketing, energy distribution, energy efficiency, and ongoing maintenace of the solar power plant(s).

Solar Battery Power

solar battery power
Which configuration for a solar cell will power a battery faster, parallel or serial?

Why does one configuration work faster than the other? Can someone explain this to me please?
If all variables were equal, and the two solar panels sat in the same sun which configuration is likely to power a battery more quickly, the one with parallel configuration or serial configuration?

depends on the battery voltage and the solar cell voltage.

You need the solar cell output to be a few volts higher than the battery voltage, so you put the cells in series until the voltage is high enough. Then you can put another equal string(s) in parallel to get more current.

It gets complicated by the fact that the solar cell voltage varies with load and with amount of sun, so in practice you may need more in series to get to the proper voltage.

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Indoor Solar Cells? A 500 Megawatt Proposal

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How much would it cost upfront to install solar panels in my home and what could I save?

I’m curious what the average household spends to install solar panels in California. Also for those of you that have installed them, how much would you say you saved in the first year? The second?

Thank you for your time answering this.

Solar Heat

solar heat
Renewable energy: Labor coalition’s tactics draw heat
Do California construction unions raise concerns about building massive solar plants in the Mojave Desert because they care about wildlife, water shortages and delicate vegetation? Or is it, as some fellow labor unions charge, a way to extort expensive contracts…
Solar Heater

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Solar Power Plants

solar power plants
Solar power reaches southern W.Va. coalfields
A group devoted to creating alternative energy jobs in Central Appalachia is building a first for West Virginia’s southern coalfields region this week — a set of rooftop solar panels, assembled by unemployed and underemployed coal miners and contractors.
PHY NYC Solar power plant in Spain

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what save more electricity? Solar panels over half my roof, or trees covering half my roof?

I was wondering which would save more money in the electricity arena (I know tree’s can damage roofs).
I had heard that the shade provided by trees covering your house can help to greatly reduce summer electric bills.
I had read that Solar panels need to go onto the south side of the house, and that is where the tree’s shade the house. So which is more cost effective?
Also I know many of the benefit’s tree’s can provide, as well as the negatives associated with large tree’s near houses.

Solar Companies

solar companies
how can the electric companies afford to put solar panels everywhere, but not on our houses?

it seems to me that we are just letting the power companies capitalize on a power source that really should be more accessable to us, the ones that have been paying for nuclear and other power sources that we can’t, by law, have installed on our property.

Keep in mind the issues of scale:

Solar panels on a commercial scale cost something on the order of $7.25/watt to install, of which roughly half of that is for the panel itself (retail). This includes inverter technology but not storage. This works out to about $7,250 per KW installed.

A nuclear plant in today’s dollars will run between $5,500 and $6,000 per KW installed.

A 5,000 watt solar system on your house will cost approximately $35,000 to install. Cheaper per watt than commercial as there is no supporting infrastructure to build.

The differences between actual costs and what is paid by the end-user are subsidies provided by state and local governments and utilities.

So, if you are in an unsubsidized area, you are perfectly free to install solar power on your property – if you can afford it.

Now, if full life-cycle costs are included (installation, maintenance, cost-of-operation, and final disposal when done) nuclear and solar are also very close in cost. The difference is that a 480MW nuclear plant may be fit on about 660 acres of ground including cooling towers, access roads, set-backs and so forth – and could be set on less than 100 acres if necessary (many are).

The same capacity solar plant (at 10 watts per square-foot, peak power) would cover 11,000 acres or so, *not* including infra-structure, access roads, set-backs and so forth.

Solar power is a feel-good solution that is pretty impractical on the face of it *UNLESS* there is no alternative solution. But, because it is being subsidized by various sources, is highly visible and has all sorts of warm-and-fuzzy but generally thoughtless advocates it is popular beyond its worth.

We are actually considering it _because_ of the subsidies. But at face-cost nohownoway.

San Diego solar companies, solar power, commercial solar panels

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