Comment by awongh
8 hours ago
There must be some kind of calculation generally based on latitude?
A sub-question that I would be curious about is how much climate in that region then affects the total possible solar energy. How much is the variance from a naive calculation just based on latitude?
One other second-order effect is: developed economies are heavily weighted towards places that are cold / farther north than less developed places (as a very general rule). And, a lot of people don't realize how much less energy efficient it is per-capita to make a space human comfortable year round in a "cold" climate vs a warm one.
-That's a new way of comparing economies where the price and stability of energy is better in a warm, more equator proximate location.
You can look at maps of solar insolation[0] - these give you typical levels of solar input. There is of course weather variations, but the long-term trends should be consistent.
One thing that can catch me is how much more north Europe is than basically all of the USA. The general solar insolation is worse, yet they are still doing a healthy business of solar. The panels are so cheap that even if you are in a crummy environment, you can just add more.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance
Yes, Europe is very North. Also comparing with China: Beijing is the same latitude as Madrid.
> There must be some kind of calculation generally based on latitude?
I am suspecting the same. Thanks for the reply, not sure why my comment seems to have ruffled some feathers...