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Yes, the ongoing maintenance costs associated with turbines are significant. Lots of moving parts, high temperatures, high pressures, etc. Photovoltaics, on the
by Reason077 6y ago
Yes, the ongoing maintenance costs associated with turbines are significant. Lots of moving parts, high temperatures, high pressures, etc. Photovoltaics, on the other hand, are very low maintenance.
There's also a nice scalability aspect to PV: if you want to expand your plant's output, it's really just a matter of adding more panels as you need them. Where as once you hit the limits of your collector/turbine/etc, you pretty much need to build a whole new plant to expand it further.
One of the world's largest solar farms is in Dubai, obviously an extremely hot region. It contains a mix of PV and thermal technologies, though it sounds like they are leaning towards more PV for future phases:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_bin_Rashid_Al_Maktoum_Solar_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_bin_Rashid_Al_Maktoum...
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoTheir O&M is higher than the 'capacity' figures make it seem. They run under 25% capacity on average. This site https://www.scottmadden.com/insight/solar-photovoltaic-plant-operating-and-maintenance-costs/ https://www.scottmadden.com/insight/solar-photovoltaic-plant... estimates $60 per kW-year for maintenance. Half cleaning; most of the rest in inverter replacement. How does that compare with turbine I wonder.
- Reason077 6y agoThis is from 2010 so I'd imagine the figures have likely changed significantly since then, along with all the economics of photovoltaics. Today's inverters are almost certainly more reliable than pre-2010 models. Cleaning is certainly a cost in dry areas where dust can coat the panels. But generally not in temperate climates where you can rely on self-cleaning via regular rainfall.