3.4M Solar Panels

zahlman

It'd be nice if it described up front what kind of information is available per panel. For that matter, I'd be interested in details of how "a team of researchers including alumni from NOAA, NASA and the USGS" (from the previous article) actually collected the data.

ck2

look how cheap now, it's crazy https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809986804138.html I'm old enough to remember Carter putting them on WhiteHouse roof and they were thousands of dollars then (and less efficient)

ragebol

Would be kinda interesting to see a histogram of the azimuths and/or tilt angles. In my native Netherlands I'd guess to see that peaking at ~south at say 15-30 degrees, with some lower peaks at east/west combos. Curious to see what it would be in this dataset.

yogthos

To put this in perspective, China installs around 3x that every single day https://reneweconomy.com.au/just-staggering-china-installs-1...

showerst

Pretty cool, although the heatmaps have a little of the "this is just a population density map" effect. https://xkcd.com/1138/ It would be cool to modify them to be per-capita, although I imagine adjusting arbitrary hexes for population density would be a real challenge.

noduerme

What's the big deal with having a whole liquid cooled workstation, and why is it important information for me to know what this dude's hardware is? And seriously, is there something about the rig that is necessary to chew through a dataset with a few million rows?

himata4113

Florida and most dry / sunny states having little to no solar panels is pretty damn wild. I know in florida you have janky laws stopping you, but below 10kw it's still relatively easy. I have a friend who installed <10kw of solar panels and they're now 97% off-grid in hot, wet florida weather with an old low-seer AC, single-pane windows and poor roof insulation which is roughly 60% of the energy usage. The reason they got it is actually not to save money or anything, but to have power when grid goes down after hurricanes.

scblock

The odd looking circular example shown is not solar PV. It is the Ivanpah solar thermal generating station, and those are mirrors rather than solar panels, or modules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility Solar thermal can't really compete economically with photovoltaics.

jnpnj

Apprently there are a lot of innovations hitting market, perovskites left the lab, and tandem cells are above 30%

K0balt

An analysis of panels per capita vs regional IQ would be an interesting signal. Panels are cash positive in less tan 5 years of their 40 year lifespan. There is hardly a better investment up until you cover your own usage.

Zenbit_UX

Does anyone else experience very strange styling behavior while scrolling through this article? The CSS styles seem to dynamically unload and reload while I’m reading it causing the margins to jump and the fonts change, I’ve never seen anything like this before. FWIW I’m on iOS using brave.

CrzyLngPwd

We're off grid and have 7kw of panels, and 40kwh of 48v lithium batteries, with a generator for backup, which is rarely used since we are frugal with electricity and switch everything off when not in use. I set it all up myself, and while it is not trivial, it's not difficult either. Learning to put connectors on properly, size cables and put lugs on properly, learn about earthing and breakers...just one bit at a time. I'm about to set up another system on the roof of an outbuilding to supply power for a water pump and irrigation where we grow food. This will be much easier and simpler since it will have only one 48V lithium battery, but I'll still use Victron stuff and connect it to a Cerbo so it can be monitored. If I sold this place and bought somewhere on the grid, the first thing I'd do is cut the cord and set up my own system again.

celpgoescheeew

'My systems C drive' amd Ubuntu. Os directly a turnoff

sciencesama

now do china

RyanShook

Does solar make sense without government subsidies yet?

dogscatstrees

Beautiful methods. Very nice.

m8ven

Maybe all towers in NYC should have a few on the roof