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> solar potential If I recall there's too much dust in Saudi Arabia for the solar panels to be any useful (and not enough rain to remove it). Here is some arti
by realusername 9y ago
> solar potential
If I recall there's too much dust in Saudi Arabia for the solar panels to be any useful (and not enough rain to remove it). Here is some article on the subject: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2013/ph240/alshakhs2/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2013/ph240/alshakhs2/. Nuclear would make more sense there.
- Retric 9y agoDust is a killer for consitrating solar power, but much less so for PV. You can also clean them with minimal water useage. It's just a tradeoff of how much desalination is worth it for efficiency gains.
- emiliobumachar 9y agoInteresting. How about "cleaning" them with salt water? Sure the salt on the panels is not ideal, but it's better than dust.
- raverbashing 9y agoSalt water + electricity = not good Study mentions up to 50% of efficiency decrease after 6mo Seems like the best solution would be mechanical cleaning (either automatic or manual)
- ams6110 9y agoSome sort of "spray and squeegee" system would likely even remove most of the salt. Windshield wipers for PV panels?
- Retra 9y agoSaltwater tends to be lead to corrosion, which is expensive to deal with.
- sametmax 9y agoThis is assuming the panel are close to the ground and not mirrors.
- rgbrenner 9y agoyour link says they can just clean them once a week. that's a solved problem: http://www.ecoppia.com/technology/ http://www.ecoppia.com/technology/ https://us.sunpower.com/blog/2017/12/04/meet-sunpowers-new-solar-panel-cleaning-robot/ https://us.sunpower.com/blog/2017/12/04/meet-sunpowers-new-s... or you can use a $100k panel washing truck: https://wash-bots.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/product2.jpg https://wash-bots.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/product2.jp... A $100k expense and a person to drive it around cannot be a reasonable roadblock to solar, when we're talking about 100s of millions of dollars for one solar plant.