How are we going to power the future? Energy is a huge concern, so lets examine recent advances in solar energy. It is difficult to discuss energy generation (solar in particular) without hearing the same tired objections. Therefore, a little myth busting is in order:
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Posted by
hdufort on 07/08 at 11:04 AM
In cold and cloudy climates, solar power is still a good option if you choose the right technology. For instance, I live in Canada and my house is equipped with glycol pipes in solar panels. Instead of trying to produce electricity with photovoltaic cells, heated glycol fluid is used to transfer heat to my water heater. It’s very efficient.
As for photovoltaic cells, there is a HUGE market for indoor applications. For instance, most of our battery-powered objects in the house should have small solar panels: wall clock, smoke detector, night lights, etc. We could also embed flexible solar panels into curtains or window shades, and rigid panels into floor tiles (especially in front of patio doors).
Posted by
Hervé Musseau on 07/09 at 05:31 AM
Besides scalability (which you can also try to explain away through technological development, even though there is a huge gap, in terms of standard and rare materials, and of land use), you have not touched upon the biggest problem: intermittency. Storage is nowhere near the level where it can mitigate solar’s intermittency, and it would require major breakthroughs (rather than just incremental progress, as eg with PV efficiency) before solar can become a dominant form of energy production.
Posted by
Solar Girl on 07/09 at 09:31 AM
Great article - but why stop at 2 myths? The nice folks at Real Goods Solar amassed 87 Solar Myths pertaining to residential solar. There is a lot of misinformation out there: http://realgoodssolar.com/landing/87_solar_myths.php
Posted by
CygnusX1 on 07/09 at 05:33 PM
Germany sets new solar power record
www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-climate-germany-solar-idUSBRE84P0FI20120526?irpc=932
Posted by
John Niman on 07/10 at 04:30 AM
Hervé :
Good point, I should have addressed that. It seems people are working on that very problem. Here’s an article from February about some work MIT is doing:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/02/mit-research-liquid-batteries-for-utilities-could-make-renewables-competitive
And here’s a battery of a different type, also from MIT, from July:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/update-energy-storage-0713.html
Both seem promising, though of course some real world testing is in order. I wonder, however, whether most places wouldn’t be fine even if they just got solar energy during the day. Even in Las Vegas, the bulk of energy is used during the day since most people are asleep at night, and I have to think that even if the intermittency problem isn’t figured out (though the promising work I linked suggests it will be, and reasonably quickly) ‘bad’ energy use could be cut drastically.
Posted by
Hervé Musseau on 07/10 at 07:06 AM
Las Vegas is not a very representative example: it’s located a in a desert. Would you say the same for New York, or Toronto, or Moscow, or Beijing?
Note that even ideally located cities for solar like Las Vegas require a lot of power at night.
Posted by
John Niman on 07/10 at 08:47 AM
I used Vegas as an example because I imagine it uses more power at night than most.
I’d imagine the other cities you mention would still be able to reduce significantly, if not eliminate, their power consumption during the day even if battery technology could not supply even a majority of their power at night.
That said, there’s been great progress in collecting solar power even in cloudy conditions, and I expect over the next decade or so that the battery problems will get worked out such that they could store energy during the day and then use that at night.
Posted by
Hervé Musseau on 07/10 at 09:06 AM
No, those cities have their peak consumption, in the winter, in the evening, around 6-7 pm, when people get home and start up the heaters.
And there are few hours of daylight, and those can be cloudy/rainy/snowy for days on end.
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