3 ms·
One sentence that should have been elaborate on a bit more to mirror/complete the article’s approach: “For a sense of scale, a solar panel gets around ten thous
by ctdonath 6y ago
One sentence that should have been elaborate on a bit more to mirror/complete the article’s approach: “For a sense of scale, a solar panel gets around ten thousand times this, or 100 Watts per square meter.”
Solar power has the same problem of terminal optimism as the proposed raindrop energy harvesting: in short, the source 1300W/m^2, all factors considered, becomes a real world 13W/m^2. Better than raindrops falling on my head, but still way less than most people comprehend.
- smaddox 6y agoDo you have a source for 13W/m^2? That looks about an order of magnitude low to me.
- ctdonath 6y agoMath. Once you account for night, impingement angle, weather, atmospheric absorption, panel efficiency, dirt, seasons, storage efficiency, etc it averages out around 13W/m^2 long term. Experience. I run my “office” all summer on solar. 1m^2 panel gives 70W max; usable light about 8 hours, average over a day is 23W. Halve that for winter, overcast, etc.
- smaddox 6y agoGotcha. That still seems a bit low for where I live, assuming 18% efficient panels. Roughly 5kW.hr/m^2 averaged over the year, so 5000/24*0.18 = 37.5 W/m^2. And of course solar thermal in the desert can do quite a bit better than that.