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> The sun is a giant, free nuclear fusion plant in the sky. We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! Are going to clean solar panels/mirr

by slezyr 6y ago

> The sun is a giant, free nuclear fusion plant in the sky. We can capture 1/5th of its output per square meter. For free! Are going to clean solar panels/mirrors for free? > Bahawalpur is desert terrain , having high dust count, therefore, the efficiency of panels were reduced by 40%. It required 30 people to clean panels with 15 days to restore the panels back to their full capacity, which reduced production of installed 100MW plant to below 18 MW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park#Operational_hurdles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaid-e-Azam_Solar_Park#Operat...

dangerface 6y ago
Do you get out of your car to wipe your windscreen when its raining? This cleaning problem seems like something that would be super easy to automate, I dunno why they would higher 30 people to do this when you could higher one engineer.
- slezyr 6y ago
  Just add a bit of water™ How come that number of rovers on Mars dies due to dust on its panels? If it's a simple problem to solve why would NASA let them die? Water shortage is also present on that power plant.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  There are many PV cleaning robots already on the market. Google for them.
tomatotomato37 6y ago
30 workers isn't a lot for a power plant. According to this article[0] (ignore the coal stuff) a decent gas turbine plant takes ~25 workers to keep it running, and that's for a system whose energy source can just be piped in rather than having to be constantly babysat so it doesn't irradiate the tri-county area. That's kinda the flaw of a steam turbine based system; it doesn't matter if the heat comes from coal, uranium, concentrated solar, whatever, you still need people around to make sure the system with superheated steam and a big heavy turbine spinning really, really fast doesn't go wrong. [0]https://www.powermag.com/supporting-coal-power-plant-workers-plant-closures/ https://www.powermag.com/supporting-coal-power-plant-workers...

by slezyr 6y ago

dangerface 6y ago

Do you get out of your car to wipe your windscreen when its raining? This cleaning problem seems like something that would be super easy to automate, I dunno why they would higher 30 people to do this when you could higher one engineer.

slezyr 6y ago
Just add a bit of water™ How come that number of rovers on Mars dies due to dust on its panels? If it's a simple problem to solve why would NASA let them die? Water shortage is also present on that power plant.
pfdietz 6y ago
There are many PV cleaning robots already on the market. Google for them.

tomatotomato37 6y ago

30 workers isn't a lot for a power plant. According to this article[0] (ignore the coal stuff) a decent gas turbine plant takes ~25 workers to keep it running, and that's for a system whose energy source can just be piped in rather than having to be constantly babysat so it doesn't irradiate the tri-county area. That's kinda the flaw of a steam turbine based system; it doesn't matter if the heat comes from coal, uranium, concentrated solar, whatever, you still need people around to make sure the system with superheated steam and a big heavy turbine spinning really, really fast doesn't go wrong. [0]https://www.powermag.com/supporting-coal-power-plant-workers-plant-closures/ https://www.powermag.com/supporting-coal-power-plant-workers...