Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
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Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
#2I'm surprised there's not a cheap internet of things solar energy measurement pod you can buy a passle of and put all over your property to log daily sun exposure.
Re: Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
#3Honest question, is there any good reason for doing solar on buildings in urban areas? It seems like solar power it should be considerably less expensive from large installations on cheaper land outside the city. The only reasons I can think of to built it on buildings are:
1) Virtue signaling. (Not a good reason) 2) The person who builds it truly wants solar but doesn’t own that other land so it’s simple to just use their roof. (Not a good reason) 3) Power transmission from another location more than offsets the cost savings. (I doubt this is true) 4) Tax/policy distortions. (Not a good reason)
Am I missing something? Is there a good reason for rooftop solar?
Re: Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
#4I'm surprised there's not a cheap internet of things solar energy measurement pod you can buy a passle of and put all over your property to log daily sun exposure.
Seems like a very doable design problem. The angle of incidence of the sun varies quite a bit with the time of year, however, so if you can model accurately that's going to be a more effective use of your time.
Re: Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
#5Honest question, is there any good reason for doing solar on buildings in urban areas? It seems like solar power it should be considerably less expensive from large installations on cheaper land outside the city. The only reasons I can think of to built it on buildings are: 1) Virtue signaling. (Not a good reason) 2) The person who builds it truly wants solar but doesn’t own that other land so it’s simple to just use…
You are already going to build a roof. Putting solar panels on it has very little marginal costs.
It's certainly cheaper than buying some land exclusively for it, building supporting infrastructure, and then transmitting the power to the place you live.
Retrofitting a roof with solar panels is a different situation, but I won't be surprised if the costs of dealing with all of the power generation, transmission and distribution companies add up to more than just putting some panels there.
Re: Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
#6Honest question, is there any good reason for doing solar on buildings in urban areas? It seems like solar power it should be considerably less expensive from large installations on cheaper land outside the city. The only reasons I can think of to built it on buildings are: 1) Virtue signaling. (Not a good reason) 2) The person who builds it truly wants solar but doesn’t own that other land so it’s simple to just use…
Why did you bury #3?
Transmission and distribution aren't trivial. Under the right circumstances, people can get very attractive ROI periods, not to mention a degree of independence.
I can't be the only one who learned from the Texas incident that our grids our metastable and one bad crash away from a multi-week outage. I can't be the only one who thought "F that, I want a plan B."
Re: Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
#7Honest question, is there any good reason for doing solar on buildings in urban areas? It seems like solar power it should be considerably less expensive from large installations on cheaper land outside the city. The only reasons I can think of to built it on buildings are: 1) Virtue signaling. (Not a good reason) 2) The person who builds it truly wants solar but doesn’t own that other land so it’s simple to just use…
Yes, there is a very good reason.
It is an action that can be done by an individual that doesn't require coordination with tens of millions of other people.
This is a real value that should not be underestimated.
With respect to you other points, yes, economies of scale and more ideal sites provide vast advantages commercial solar. Commercial solar farms are ~$1/watt and residential is $2-3/watt with subsidies.
Re: Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
#8Honest question, is there any good reason for doing solar on buildings in urban areas? It seems like solar power it should be considerably less expensive from large installations on cheaper land outside the city. The only reasons I can think of to built it on buildings are: 1) Virtue signaling. (Not a good reason) 2) The person who builds it truly wants solar but doesn’t own that other land so it’s simple to just use…
Why did you bury #3? Transmission and distribution aren't trivial. Under the right circumstances, people can get very attractive ROI periods, not to mention a degree of independence. I can't be the only one who learned from the Texas incident that our grids our metastable and one bad crash away from a multi-week outage. I can't be the only one who thought "F that, I want a plan B."
Transmission requirements don't go away with rooftop solar. In fact, they become a huge sticking point.
If customers need transmission at night, or even once a year, they still need all the infrastructure in place.
Re: Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
#9I'm surprised there's not a cheap internet of things solar energy measurement pod you can buy a passle of and put all over your property to log daily sun exposure.
Seems like a very doable design problem. The angle of incidence of the sun varies quite a bit with the time of year, however, so if you can model accurately that's going to be a more effective use of your time.
Google Maps has rough tree and structure geometry data for a huge portion of the globe. I wonder if you could scrape that and use it to calculate maximum sun exposure.
Re: Modeling light for solar panel placement in urban settings
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like a very doable design problem. The angle of incidence of the sun varies quite a bit with the time of year, however, so if you can model accurately that's going to be a more effective use of your time.
Google Maps has rough tree and structure geometry data for a huge portion of the globe. I wonder if you could scrape that and use it to calculate maximum sun exposure.