Comment by bryanlarsen
2 days ago
Still a cherry-picked result, unlike California: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44512968
But it's a good step along the way to a headline like the above.
2 days ago
Still a cherry-picked result, unlike California: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44512968
But it's a good step along the way to a headline like the above.
The best part is that just a few years ago it was common knowledge that solar would only work in "sunny" parts of the world. Turns out everywhere is "sunny" when panels are cheap enough.
In the summer, yes. Winter... I'm in the UK and my entire roof is solar panels (6.5 kW). I get about 35 kWh a day typically in the summer which is plenty (don't have an electric car or heat pump so usage is 10-15 kWh).
In the winter though... In February there were 7 days where the average we produced was about 2 kWh/day, so I need about 5 times more roof areas and £50k. And that's without a heat pump.
Fortunately we have wind... But even so it's hard to see how we can get away from gas completely without either a lot of nuclear or some crazy changes to the market.
The only thing that turns in this conversation is Earth and solar output in December would slightly differ.
This is where energy mixes and economics come into play.
Dams provide most parts of the globe a lot of seasonal storage. It takes the same water if they average 10% over the year or 5% over 9 months and 25% over 3. Similarly, locations for wind farms often vary in the season they provide the most power. So the economic maximum around high solar productivity ends up compensating for it’s lower winter output.
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0.05% of the world's population live north of the arctic circle. Solar panels don't work for them, but their diesel generators are not a significant portion of the world's CO2.