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Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

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Re: Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

#31

Post by elric »

jcgrillo wrote: post #20
elric wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's terrible advice unless it's tied to local energy storage. When every roof and every solar panel is angled the same way, a sudden cloud (or a sudden lack of clouds) can cause huge fluctuations in power output. Diversity is protective.

Are you signing up to point your panels north and take a 30% efficiency hit? Or east/west for a 15% penalty? People point them south because it's the most efficient fixed orientation north of the equator. A more efficient solution is to use a tracker which keeps them pointing directly at the sun as it traverses the sky.

Not every roof allows for perfect southward angling (obviously).

And I'm obviously not saying that you should point panels north either. I'm disputing the parent commenter's claim that it would be beneficial to have all panels aimed directly due south. Because that way you get one strong peak at noon, which is the time of day when solar energy is most abundant but also least used.

Re: Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

#32

Post by akira2501 »

ben_w wrote: post #5

Nice to see, I hope it helps people get more cheap energy. All I have are nits to pick: > 10.7k TWh globally This brings back memories of the time I almost shortened "thousand kilometres" to "kkm". Also, and this is not a criticism of Google, the IEA link on that text looks suspiciously like the IEA is still forecasting linear deployment of PV between 2025 and 2035, despite at least a decade of people pointing at it…

> This brings back memories of the time I almost shortened "thousand kilometres" to "kkm".

SI is such a senseless system. Unit prefixes were not a good idea. Did you move the decimal point or just switch to "Mm?"

Re: Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

#33

Post by ant6n »

Veserv wrote: post #24
jjcm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 10.7k TWh globally Agree I hate this, but at the same time I don't know if I would have groked it correctly on first read if it had listed "10.7Pwh globally". We simply aren't exposed to numbers at that scale on a regular basis. Not sure what the correct solution is here.

SI prefix words are just kind of silly. We should just use the exponent as a number instead of having a different word for every 3 zeros. 10.7 E15 Wh or something similar. Scales to everything, you do not need to know any mapping, and directly supports mathematical manipulation. We should also do the same for large number words in general. No thousand, million, billion, etc. E3, E6, E9, etc. Now you can count and rep…

You mean 1.07E16

Re: Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

#34

Post by akira2501 »

xnx wrote: post #12

This is a very impressive refinement of their existing tool, but is this type of advanced calculation of roof-pitch (etc.) still relevant? Haven't we more or less concluded that a million piecemeal rooftop installations of solar are about the worst way to do it? More complicated and expensive to permit and install, less efficient operation, difficult to repair, difficult to insure, difficult to upgrade, inefficient t…

> More complicated and expensive

More durable for individuals in the face of large scale failures. You're paying for something real there.

Re: Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

#35

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

szvsw wrote: post #22
xnx wrote: post #12

This is a very impressive refinement of their existing tool, but is this type of advanced calculation of roof-pitch (etc.) still relevant? Haven't we more or less concluded that a million piecemeal rooftop installations of solar are about the worst way to do it? More complicated and expensive to permit and install, less efficient operation, difficult to repair, difficult to insure, difficult to upgrade, inefficient t…

One advantage of distributed solar is that it can at least come online right away and when installed with a battery, can get a home pretty close to being fully self-sufficient (depending on the climate/heating system), whereas the generally much more efficient solar pv power facilities have to contend with backlogs in connecting to the grid, insufficient grid capacity, etc. But yes, distributed solar will not be the…

Insufficient grid capacity can also be local, there are many cases of inverters turning off because of too high grid voltage in the Netherlands

Re: Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

#36

Post by akira2501 »

josh-sematic wrote: post #26
jeffbee wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the audience isn't an omnipotent controller of PV panel allocation, it's emergent market participants. Presumably, the market emerges more plentifully in those sunnier places. It's hard to imagine the place where this data is useful to local construction firms who were previously not well-informed (potentially by just walking around with their eyes open).

There are several allocation opportunities I could think of. You’re a local government considering some subsidies for rooftop solar initiatives. How much bang for your buck will you get? You’re a regional grid operator and have some estimates for rooftop solar adoption. How do you translate that into plans for future grid capacity needs? You’re a rooftop solar installation company. What neighborhoods do you send your…

Perhaps those three different groups should just coordinate together, rather than individually using this data, and arriving at three different and possibly interfering conclusions.

Aside from that grid operators buy power from producers. They don't plan future capacity more than 72 hours in advance. If you're a producer with expensive power you won't sell much. If you're a producer with cheap power you will sell a lot. It's already a functioning market. Solar is a very small part of it.

Re: Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

#37

Post by ijustlovemath »

xnx wrote: post #12

This is a very impressive refinement of their existing tool, but is this type of advanced calculation of roof-pitch (etc.) still relevant? Haven't we more or less concluded that a million piecemeal rooftop installations of solar are about the worst way to do it? More complicated and expensive to permit and install, less efficient operation, difficult to repair, difficult to insure, difficult to upgrade, inefficient t…

As someone who recently lost power and water for weeks post Helene, do not discount the power of distributed grids. Distributed core infrastructure will make for much better climate resilience. Don't miss this in your efficiency calculations.

Re: Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

#38

Post by [deleted] »

ben_w wrote: post #5

Nice to see, I hope it helps people get more cheap energy. All I have are nits to pick: > 10.7k TWh globally This brings back memories of the time I almost shortened "thousand kilometres" to "kkm". Also, and this is not a criticism of Google, the IEA link on that text looks suspiciously like the IEA is still forecasting linear deployment of PV between 2025 and 2035, despite at least a decade of people pointing at it…

[deleted]

Re: Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

#39

Post by MaxDPS »

srameshc wrote: post #15

There was a startup that was doing something similar, can't find it but their entire business was built on providing similar service.

I applied at a company called WattTime a few years ago. I didn’t get the job but their work involved some of that. It sounded really interesting.

https://watttime.org/about-us/climate-trace/

Re: Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential

#40

Post by mjan22640 »

jjcm wrote: post #7
ben_w wrote: post #5

Nice to see, I hope it helps people get more cheap energy. All I have are nits to pick: > 10.7k TWh globally This brings back memories of the time I almost shortened "thousand kilometres" to "kkm". Also, and this is not a criticism of Google, the IEA link on that text looks suspiciously like the IEA is still forecasting linear deployment of PV between 2025 and 2035, despite at least a decade of people pointing at it…

> 10.7k TWh globally Agree I hate this, but at the same time I don't know if I would have groked it correctly on first read if it had listed "10.7Pwh globally". We simply aren't exposed to numbers at that scale on a regular basis. Not sure what the correct solution is here.

Joules is the solution to both the problems (the second is that Wh for energy is as silly as speed hours for distance)
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