251–260 of 299 posts
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Indonesia is possibly the best place on the world for floating PV at sea (rather than inland lakes as it usually is).
Is anyone floating solar panels in the ocean? That sounds tough, but obviously worth exploring.
Places with offshore wind are also looking at it as a way to share cables.
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Indonesia is possibly the best place on the world for floating PV at sea (rather than inland lakes as it usually is).
I'm guessing you've never actually been at sea in the region during the tropical monsoon | the annual cyclone season.
See map for traces of storms:
https://reliefweb.int/attachments/da3ff0e6-13fc-311c-b9b1-dd...
Bonus challenge, can you find Japan, who are piloting this tech, on that map. They're in there somewhere under the squiggles.
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Sure, but that how many is a critical factor in the overall cost of energy delivered
Is it? That's the thing we literally mass produce in factories. I think it's the machinery to do voltage conversions and transmission that is the critical cost factor.
Edit: I'd also like to add that for something cheap and mass manufactured that we shouldn't concern ourselves with, we sure don't have a lot of it on a grid that already delivers some of the most expensive power in the world. ie one that should be able to afford it a lot more than others
I keep seeing stuff about the viability of the cable being laid. The thing that gets me though, is the timezone shift around peak solar generation is the wrong way around. In Australia at least, peak demand is in the evening, when people get home and turn on their ACs, or cooking devices etc. I don't know about the demand patterns in Singapore, but given their heavy use of AC, I imagine their demand for power does no…
Perth time == Singapore time. I bet you're use to living on the east coast.
I'm Aussie and I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government. The longest submarine power cable in the world - the Viking Link - is a mere 756 km long and cost US$2.2bn to build. Sun Cable calls for a 4,200km submarine cable to be built! I do not expect the construction cost to scale linearly and I shudder to imagine the maintenance difficulties and expenses. Back in December 2015,…
Tasmanian energy crisis was because of a drought, not because the cable was cut. Tassie exports energy and the power company had lowered the dam levels selling power to Victoria that year expecting regular winter rain. That rain didn't happen. That, then combined with the line fault caused the issue. In fact, the suspected cause of the line issue was that the power company Tassie Hydro zapped the export line with too…
Does it actually make economic sense to run a cable large enough for that kind of power from Australia to Singapore? I would have guessed there must be enough domestic customers or in Indonesia that would make more sense.
Aussie politicians are too busy propping up coal and proposing unrealistic nuclear solutions to seriously focus on renewables.
How much copper would you need for a 4,300km 2GW subsea cable?
At this length aluminium would have been used instead most likely. With a typical HVDC line not exceeding 1200mm2 conductor cross section it's about 13k tonnes, so 0,025% of global aluminium production.
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Surely solar panels are affordable with typical Australian household incomes? And much more effective even in southern Tasmania at 45°S as compared to southern Finland at 60°N (where they're apparently cost-effective since they're building solar farms). If they feel their electricity provider is screwing with them, why not make their own? Probably even with batteries it would pay for itself given the ROI I'd guess pa…
Australia has the per capita highest rooftop solar capacity on Earth and it's generously subsidised.
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I'm pretty sure someone will figure out how to make a working solar sail that captures energy and beams it to earth via microwaves. Please enough of them far away from Earth and you get pretty much unlimited energy all year round.
You get the same if you place solar panels in places around the equator, without all the messiness of orbital repairs and GW death rays. I can't see this being cheaper than just some panels on the ground.
A solar panel in space would be highly efficient.
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I'm pretty sure someone will figure out how to make a working solar sail that captures energy and beams it to earth via microwaves. Please enough of them far away from Earth and you get pretty much unlimited energy all year round.
Eventually, the limiting factor will be how to get rid of the waste heat. Even if you can turn 100% of the energy you received from space into electricity, in the end it'll all turn to heat.