5 ms·
Most of the world's population does not live near the equator.
by i_am_proteus 7y ago
Most of the world's population does not live near the equator.
- kitd 7y agoThe top of the bell curve is roughly on the Tropic of Cancer [1], ie roughly Central America, North Africa, Arabia, northern India, China, etc. That's a lot of solar availability for a lot of people. [1] - https://www.themarysue.com/world-population-latitude-longitude/ https://www.themarysue.com/world-population-latitude-longitu...
- kragen 7y ago20 years ago most of Earth's humans did not live in cities, either.
- taw12 7y agoIt's a common misconception that the closer to the equator you go the better solar panels work. Solar panels are less efficient the more heat they are exposed to.
- kragen 7y agoFar from being "a common misconception", it's definitely true that solar power plants closer to the equator have a higher capacity factor than solar power plants further from the equator. It's true that warm solar panels are less efficient than cooler solar panels, but there are two countervailing effects: solar panels (at a given temperature) become more efficient when more brightly illuminated, and the day is longer and there are less clouds in tropical regions. It turns out that these effects are enormously more important than the thermal effect. That's why PV in the UK has a capacity factor of 11%, German PV 10%, Maine PV 12%, California PV 28%, and Arizona PV 29%. There's a lovely bargraph in the US at https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=39832 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=39832 and an even nicer colorcoded map of the US at http://euanmearns.com/solar-pv-capacity-factors-in-the-us-the-eia-data/ http://euanmearns.com/solar-pv-capacity-factors-in-the-us-th...