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In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

theguardian.com

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Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#161

Post by Gibbon1 »

iso1631 wrote: post #87
jmward01 wrote: post #72

We are at a moment where we are finding more and more ways to integrate solar in. It is likely we will go 'too far' in some ways but hopefully over the next few decades we will see a lot more well integrated solutions like vertical panels complementing farming and solar integrated, potentially with lower efficiency but also less impact, into things like building surfaces and other non-traditional places. Getting a di…

I live in the UK in a town of 10,000 people, so say 4,000 houses (probably far higher than there are). If every house had a 10kWp (way more than most installs) that would be 40MW generation. On the outskirts of town we have a 40MW solar farm about the same size as the golf course. Most people have no idea it's there, it uses barely any land compared to the rest of farmland around here. That generates about 40GWh a ye…

I like make the point that solar farms produce 30-100 times more energy per acre than farming plants.

Lot of 'nature' is actually land that has been or being completely trashed via agriculture. But it's so normalized people don't get that.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#162

Post by torginus »

SoftTalker wrote: post #11

Denmark is a poor location for solar. They are pretty far north and don't have a lot of sunny days that are good for solar generation. When they do, those peaks drive energy prices negative. From the article: Over the next 10 years, the official expectation is a very large rise in the amount of solar produced. But that kind of clashes with the reality on the ground – they can’t make money

Thing is, panels are so cheap that if you put them on your roof, it very well might cost the same or less as roof tiles per m2.

You can also put more panels on than the rated peak of your inverter. As long as you don't surpass voltage limits, if you put on more panels, youll get more generation during non-peak hours, and it wont even affect your inverter negatively.

Usually you can easily put 2x+ the peak wattage, as your inverter likely has 2 strings, and each of them can take the whole capacity of the inverter alone.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#163

Post by leonidasrup »

deaux wrote: post #130

The Guardian here using the word "climate" 6 times. They mention prices and economics zero times. They talk about energy sovereignty zero times. While the US attack on Iran has massively increased fossil fuel prices. Framing solar expansion as being for the climate rather than the number one way reduce cost of living for everyone, boost the economy through cheap electricity, _and_ decrease dependency on other countri…

Solar power has been long supported by subsidies in Denmark.

https://ens.dk/en/energy-sources/promoting-solar-energy

https://web.archive.org/web/20200806023128/https://www.pv-te...

On the other side, it looks like the electricity prices are so high now, that it makes sense to install solar power even without subsidies. (This situation is good for owners of power plants, bad for customers and industry).

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d...

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#164

Post by jeppester »

garte wrote: post #153
jeppester wrote: post #103

I live in a small Danish town that would have very likely been surrounded by solar panels by now if we had not put up a fight. The problem is that these projects are pitched to land owners, to be placed in areas they can't see from their own windows. Those who live nearby are not involved until the approval is a formality (or presented as such). Often times the investors will also pay certain house owners for their s…

You know that all that "nature" you desire is synthetic? Living in rural areas without actually working there is as far from a natural state as it can be: the whole lifestyle is based on subsidies by cities and technology: your concrete, your car, your heating, your power, groceries... it's all getting brought to you by fossil fuels and plastics. So maybe accepting some part of that technology to stand on your "natur…

It seems as though you are antagonizing a certain imaginary group of people that I do not belong to, just because I chose to live in the country side.

There was a reason I used the phrasing "green surroundings", I'm well aware that it's not "nature" in the sense of being untouched by humans. There are hardly any such places in Denmark.

Nevertheless people live here because they like these surroundings, it doesn't make any sense that they should "pay" for living here by having those surroundings taken away.

Whether or not it's feasible to have people living in the country side is a whole other discussion, which I do not think can be boiled down to city = good, countryside = bad.

Another related discussion is what is the natural habitat for a human being, at this point in time a slight majority of humans might live in larger cities, but that is historically a new development. I don't have the answer here, but my guess would be that a small town in the country side is more similar to the environments humans have historically lived and evolved in.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#165

Post by cucumber3732842 »

garte wrote: post #153
jeppester wrote: post #103

I live in a small Danish town that would have very likely been surrounded by solar panels by now if we had not put up a fight. The problem is that these projects are pitched to land owners, to be placed in areas they can't see from their own windows. Those who live nearby are not involved until the approval is a formality (or presented as such). Often times the investors will also pay certain house owners for their s…

You know that all that "nature" you desire is synthetic? Living in rural areas without actually working there is as far from a natural state as it can be: the whole lifestyle is based on subsidies by cities and technology: your concrete, your car, your heating, your power, groceries... it's all getting brought to you by fossil fuels and plastics. So maybe accepting some part of that technology to stand on your "natur…

> it's all getting brought to you by fossil fuels and plastics.

Which come from where? Last I checked there weren't many pump jacks in Copenhagen.

Pretty much all material wealth of modern society comes from raw materials sourced in rural areas. Those then get processed locally (e.g you don't waste money shipping logs, you mill them and ship boards) and post processed in increasingly urban areas. It's the paper pushing (engineering, finance, etc) of the supply chain and distribution that tends to be centered around urban areas.

I hate these sort of macro-economically ignorant takes and their peddlers. Acting like either part of the economy could exist in anything like it's current capacity without the other is an exercise in lying with numbers to obfuscate the lies.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#166

Post by leonidasrup »

torginus wrote: post #160
deaux wrote: post #130

The Guardian here using the word "climate" 6 times. They mention prices and economics zero times. They talk about energy sovereignty zero times. While the US attack on Iran has massively increased fossil fuel prices. Framing solar expansion as being for the climate rather than the number one way reduce cost of living for everyone, boost the economy through cheap electricity, _and_ decrease dependency on other countri…

Though if we steer the conversation towards sovereignity, it bears mentioning that all components of solar installs (inverters, panels, and batteries) tend to be made in China, and afaik just recently they revoked some tax breaks that applied to solar equipment.

According to data from 2021, China produced 79.4 % of all polysilicon (the most energy hungry part of PV production) in the world, 96.8% of all wafers.

https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains/ex...

So if a country counts on becoming energy sovereign by investing into solar, this really depends on goods relations with China.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#167

Post by cucumber3732842 »

shibapuppie wrote: post #141
jeppester wrote: post #103

I live in a small Danish town that would have very likely been surrounded by solar panels by now if we had not put up a fight. The problem is that these projects are pitched to land owners, to be placed in areas they can't see from their own windows. Those who live nearby are not involved until the approval is a formality (or presented as such). Often times the investors will also pay certain house owners for their s…

What's the over-under on tire and brake dust settling on panels next to (presumably) high-speed motorways?

I'm betting the effect is a rounding error compared to road salt build up.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#168

Post by andor »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #43
mellosouls wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not buying that this isn't anti renewable propaganda for the US" Its the Guardian so that is a very unlikely motivation.

_Something_ motivates them, though. They have been on a wild anti-solar bend the last year or more. Dozens of articles, all with the same anti-solar NIMBY bent

That's just your reading comprehension.

They are reporting on an anti-solar NIMBY movement and mention how the far-right is pushing the issue. That doesn't mean they share the same opinion.

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#169

Post by Dylan16807 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #158
Dylan16807 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying it's cloudy for four months straight? And the panels are still making power during the winter. A detailed chart would be nice but a good starting point to imagine is 60-70 days that average 50% solar power and the rest of the year is full solar power minus a couple particularly bad days. Edit: In winter, in denmark, the amount of sunlight you get per square meter of flat ground is absolutely awful. But…

> Are you saying it's cloudy for four months straight? No. But it's cloudy most of the time for four month straight (in average there's only 200 hours of sun between November and February in Copenhagen. Yes, you read it right, that's not even 2 hours per day in average!). > A detailed chart would be nice but a good starting point to imagine is 60-70 days that average 50% solar power and the rest of the year is full s…

> That's an insane assumption! [...] load factor

No no no no, that line has nothing to do with load factor. I'm talking about half the kilowatts for the house coming from solar, and half coming from the grid.

> Just check the live data

There's no way those panels are optimally angled and out of shade if they're making that little. Are those panels installed in rows on the ground? Rows that are pretty close to each other? Panels on a roof, the steeper the better, will see a much higher load factor in winter.

I'm other words, a home rooftop install will do much better in winter than a standard commercial install. That's a mixture of chance and optimizing for different things.

A thought experiment: You have one big solar panel mounted very high, with a multi-axis aiming system that points it directly at the sun. Do you think the amount of power you can make is going to be that far off a linear relationship with the number of hours of daylight?

Re: In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue

#170

Post by Ekaros »

_moof wrote: post #139
SoftTalker wrote: post #11

Denmark is a poor location for solar. They are pretty far north and don't have a lot of sunny days that are good for solar generation. When they do, those peaks drive energy prices negative. From the article: Over the next 10 years, the official expectation is a very large rise in the amount of solar produced. But that kind of clashes with the reality on the ground – they can’t make money

I don't understand why energy production must be profitable.

For it to be market based the investment must generate positive return.

On other hand I would not find replacing all energy production with government run nuclear plants as unreasonable.

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