Massive Spotsylvania solar plant is online

[TexasTowelie]

On a recent afternoon, white clouds drifted in the blue sky over a massive plot of rural

land in western Spotsylvania County. Sunlight streamed down on 6,350 acres of creeks, ponds, trees and fields of beige knee-high grass.

And something else was gleaming under those rays: row after row of solar panels.

The property also has a dirt road network, with stop signs and a pair of mobile stoplights for a one-way bridge.

Eventually, just more than 1.5 million solar panels will cover about 3,500 acres of the property. About half of the panels have been installed and are generating electricity.

Read more: https://fredericksburg.com/news/local/massive-spotsylvania-solar-plant-is-online/article_9d7118ea-2de0-5895-b5ce-cefd4e380727.html

[NNadir]

1. What a disgusting waste of land.

The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant has been producing about 2,260 Watts of continuous power, 24/7, all day in California, in a physical plant that is 12 acres in size on a dedicated plot of land, mostly undisturbed marine chaparral in its wild state, that is 700 acres.

This 3,500 acres, by contrast, will never, except for maybe 25 minutes on a clear sunny day, produce 500 watts of electricity, and will be useless at night, making Virginia dependent on access to dangerous natural gas.

In less than 25 years, all 1.5 million solar cells will be transformed into intractable electronic waste, the responsibility of an innocent generation who will suffer for this stupidity, to haul away and dump.

History will not forgive us, nor should it.

[msongs]

2. yeah they could use that land to bury the nuclear waste instead nt

[garybeck]

3. You are incorrect.

"This 3,500 acres, by contrast, will never, except for maybe 25 minutes on a clear sunny day, produce 500 watts of electricity, "

That is not even close to being true. A single solar panel produces close to 500 watts for an average of 6 hours per day.

One single panel produces up to 3 kWh per day on average.

I know this because I install solar panels and I measure their output.

They also last much longer than 25 years. They are guaranteed for 25 years but last much longer.

Perhaps you should consider actual facts before you rant with lies.

[NNadir]

4. I look at the CAISO solar power output in California frequently.

I find anyone making this kind of argument, and over the years I've heard lots of them, rather amusing, wrong, but amusing.

I really hate to waste too much time here on these very specious claims, but I would note that if one enters the following terms into Google scholar, solar cell output degradation, one will get 195,000 hits in less than a second 17,900 of them published during and since 2020.

I don't buy into handwaving and lazy unreferenced pronouncements. I read the primary scientific literature.

Even if this future electronic junk did produce 500 MW continuously, which it won't since it only entrenches the dangerous natural gas industry since it requires a redundancy, 3500 acres would be obscene, but if anyone fails to understand that, they are probably not worth too much time engaging them.

[garybeck]

8. I'm sorry you ignore basic facts. Would you like a solar energy lesson?

Solar panels make electricity when exposed to the sun.
that is a fact. if you dispute that, you are wrong.

here is the production curve of one of my customers for yesterday, a cloudy day in vermont:



that is actual production of a 17 KW array. that is 40 solar panels that are 430 watts each. you can see even though it was mostly cloudy, there were a few times during the day that the array produced nearly 15KW. that is 15,000 watts. Over the course of the day, the system produced over 65 KWH. that is equivalent of producing 10,000 watts for 6.5 hours.

this is not made up. it is actual power, spinning their meter backwards and crediting their account.

your claim, and I quote:

"This 3,500 acres, by contrast, will never, except for maybe 25 minutes on a clear sunny day, produce 500 watts of electricity, "

is absolutely ludicrous and shows you have no idea what you are talking about. whatever you are looking up on a website, you just don't know what you're looking at or how to look it up.

I'm sorry you are confused but you should not make critical statements unless you know what you're talking about.

[NNadir]

9. You could look at my journal here which has links...

...to thousands of papers in the primary scientific literature, many of which refer to energy issues or you can lazily post a stupid unreferenced graphic and then announce that "I know more about energy and the environment than the scientists do"

This is, regrettably, familiar language in these times.

Consider me unimpressed. I'm an old man, and I've even listening to "solar will save us" rhetoric for decades.

It didn't save us, it isn't saving us and won't save us, and all the lazy hand waving in the world won't change that fact.

Facts matter, but in order to understand a fact, one would need to understand the question, obviously not applicable here.

[garybeck]

10. the question is very simple

you said

"
"This 3,500 acres, by contrast, will never, except for maybe 25 minutes on a clear sunny day, produce 500 watts of electricity, "

that is incorrect. it shows you have no idea what you are talking about.

[NNadir]

12. You do realize, don't you, you can access something called "data" for free?

No?

I do it all the time. Try it some time.

If one were to have a sense of honor, one might look at data before offering weakly trying to insult people who access and use data, but no matter. I've been studying energy seriously for more than 30 years in the primary scientific literature, and I am fully aware of people who are disinterested in facts. In fact, it's a popular thing these days, so much so, that my AAAS tee shirt had printed on it the tautological statement, "Facts are facts." That shouldn't be controversial, but it is.

For an example of readily available data, the CAISO supply page provides data for all the solar facilities in the State of California in real time in 5 minute increments. If one has not joined Greenpeace, and therefore is not excluded from being able to do mathematics, one could, if one gave a shit, do simple calculations using low level Excel formulas. If one is interested, one can readily calculate the capacity utilization of all the solar, and for that matter, all of the wind facilities in that gas dependent State, which is the largest producer of solar energy in the world.

One can choose any date, by using the dropdown menu in the upper right hand of any graphic, and download a CSV file of the actual data using the dropdown menu in the upper left hand menu.

The 2020 capacity of solar facilities in the State was 15,637.7 MW.

Many days, for example today, I download the CSV files for both so called "renewable energy" and total energy for the previous day which are available on the supply.

If one is not a handwaving fool who expects to make unsupported and unreferenced Pablum announcements thus demonstrating the Dunning Kruger effect being operative, one can use this data to support or refute one's statements using such data.

Of course, I could mimic Dr. Fauci's remark to Senator Paul in this context, but why bother?

The people who have lazily bet the future of humanity on their solar energy fantasies, piss me off, because their ignorance is destroying the future. We hit 420 ppm of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere because people are too lazy to open science books, or peruse data sites, many of which are freely available.

They're not worth the blood pressure spike to engage them, and they all end up on my ignore list. We have enough delusional people with whom we must deal in the Republican Party, and it is disheartening to see similarly delusional people in our Party. The flaws of one's own are always worse than external flaws.

Before I wish you a nice life, some data analysis, using simple Excel functions operated on the CSV files, from the 7/20/21 24 hour data available at the CAISO website:

In the entire State of California, over the 24 hour period of 7/20/21 the output of the "15,637.7 MW" of solar capacity varied between a high of 11,835 MW, observed in the 5 minute period beginning at 13:35 PDT (1:35 PM PDT), and a low of -50 MW, which represents the energy losses associated with powering the connectors when the solar cells are producing zero energy.

The number of five minute periods in the 288 data points in which the capacity utilization was 100% was zero. In fact, the number of 288 periods where all the solar plants supplying California were functioning at 90% of capacity utilization was zero. In fact, the number of 288 periods where all the solar plants supplying California were functioning at 80% of capacity utilization was zero. The number of 5 minute periods out of 288 where the capacity utilization was more than 70% is 47 representing 235 minutes, or a little under 4 hours of a 24 hour day. In fact, the number of 288 periods where all the solar plants supplying California were functioning less than 10% of capacity utilization was 139, representing 695 minutes, a shade under 12 hours.

The highest capacity utilization was at the aforementioned peak, 13:35 PDT (1:35 PM PDT) which was 75.80%. The standard deviation for all 288 five minute periods in the 24 hours was an enormous 31.0% (as measured in the percent talk that solar advocates use to misrepresent the "success" of their useless and expensive fantasy.)

This is the data for the whole damned State of California, plus solar imports from Arizona and Nevada.

Great job!

Have a nice life; I wish I could say I enjoyed this interaction, but I can't; nevertheless surely and thankfully, it will be the last between us.

[garybeck]

13. Yes I know what data is and it clearly proves that you are wrong.

your breakdown of minutes and percent utilization shows a complete misunderstanding of the data.

first of all, when you talk about 100% utilization or 80% utilization, you have to understand that 100% utilization is almost never seen with solar panels, because they are rated in a laboratory under standard test conditions (STC). in real life, most solar panels produce about 75-80% of the full-rated power under full sun, which is 1,000 watts per square meter.

so your rant about how horrible it is that solar panels never had a 5 minute period when they were producing at full utilization only shows that you don't understand the data you are looking at.

utilization percentage is meaningless. who cares? it really doesn't matter if they are 100% utilization or 90% utilization. it just matters how much power they actually produce.

if you are actually interested in facts, perhaps you will be interested in knowing that standard test conditions for photovoltaic panels is 25 degrees Celsius and 1000 watts per square meter of light. the reason real life never emulates STC is because solar panels always are hotter than 25 Celsius when they are exposed to full sun and their production decreases with temperature.

focusing on utilization percentage is a complete waste of time. who cares? what we care about is how much power they are actually producing, which is clearly evident in the data that you yourself provided. you yourself indicated that the array is producing 11,000 MW when the sun is shining.

with all due respect, i think you are just confused by what you are looking at, and you would benefit from looking at the MWH (quantity) produced per day, instead of the instantaneous MW (rate) produced at one particular time. when you look at the MHW, this is an actual quantity of power that was delivered to the grid that day. Yes DATA. That is what people get billed for every month. and that is why thousands of people are saving money with solar, because it's cheaper than utility power.

But even if you look at the MW, it is really difficult for me to understand how you can make the argument that solar panels don't produce power:



this is data. it shows production. you can see that on 7/20, the in the middle of the day, the solar array was producing almost 12,000 MW of power, as you yourself indicated. that is data. the site produced significant power on that day. as it does most days. as do many solar panels all over the world. do you deny that solar panels actually produce power? because that seems to be what you are arguing. when you say, and i quote:

"This 3,500 acres, by contrast, will never, except for maybe 25 minutes on a clear sunny day, produce 500 watts of electricity, "

do you seriously stand behind that statement?

with all due respect, if you are standing by that statement, you clearly do no understand the data you are looking at.

[garybeck]

11. being old doesn't give you the right to post misinformation

if you could just remove/correct your false statement that would be nice.

I am not young myself. I've been working in the solar industry for over 30 years. I have many customers who get their electricity from solar. My band plays on 100% solar power and I've powered hundreds of concerts with solar power. i'm not making it up, which you appear to be accusing me of. do you think people just make this stuff up? give me a break. if I put a solar panel in the sun and connected it to a meter to show you the output, would you believe it or would you think that is staged?

just because solar hasn't "saved us" yet that doesn't mean it doesn't work. there are a lot of things that have to fall into place for solar to "save us." we are taking some steps in the right direction but we are not there yet. having people like yourself posting false information online doesn't help.

the fact is that simple math shows that a roughly 100 mi x 100 mi square filled with solar panels would produce the same amount of electricity that our entire country uses.

if you are arguing that solar panels are a scam and they just don't make electricity, which appears to be your argument, you are even more wrong than Trump is when he claims the election was rigged.

please check your facts before you go misleading people with false information. again if you simply remove your completely false statement i will end this discussion.

"This 3,500 acres, by contrast, will never, except for maybe 25 minutes on a clear sunny day, produce 500 watts of electricity, "

No. wrong. false. not even close. reveals you have no idea what you are talking about.

[NurseJackie]

6. Lulz.

[Chainfire]

5. Over the past year, huge solar farms have sprung up in South Georgia, near my home.

While we were locked down with Covid they were very busy. Farm after farm now committed to growing watts rather than tomatoes. The scale was astounding to me when I first saw it.

[NurseJackie]

7. It's much better than dumping low-level nuclear waste from Vermont at a site in Sierra Blanca...

It's much better than dumping low-level nuclear waste from Vermont at a site in Sierra Blanca, a low-income, largely Latino community near the Texas Mexico border.