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The thing that would bother me about crops nearby would be if they ever sprayed something not-so-great-to-breathe on them (which, they generally do). Solar farm

by ericd 4y ago

The thing that would bother me about crops nearby would be if they ever sprayed something not-so-great-to-breathe on them (which, they generally do). Solar farms seem like perfect neighbors, by comparison. I really don’t get the whole “solar panels are ugly” thing, it feels almost like concern trolling, trying to muddy the waters. Though maybe I’m biased by my feeling that solar panels are damn-near magic - you leave them outside, basically neglect them, and power just comes spilling out of them.

choeger 4y ago
I think it's, quite literally, a question of the point of view. I know about installations that were (during planning) allowed to be 4m tall. If that happens right next to your home or any other place you visit frequently, I, and many others, find it extremely ugly. If there's a distance, say 100m, it's not half as bad. If the installation doesn't even block the view (e.g., because of elevation), I don't care at all. But given the plans I have seen, I prefer a couple of wind energy plants about 1000m away.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  It is extremely common to put solar panels on residential roofs 4m high, often higher. Complaints are rare. It is extremely uncommon to site dedicated solar farms within 100m of residential areas.
  - jandrese 4y ago
    Solar panels are only like 3-4" above the roof on residential installs. Any extra view blocked that wasn't already blocked by the house is trivial. In fact solar panels are usually not installed all the way to the top of the roofline so there is no change in visibility at all.
    - cma 4y ago
      Farmers often already need tall tree barriers for wind erosion control. Other farmers may usually without restriction cultivate a tall view-blocking forest on their land. So let them cultivate a perimeter of just enough forest to hide the panels if it really is a real issue and not a product of NIMBY OCPD.
dublin 4y ago
If you ignore them, then you never know when they stop working. Really. The fact that they look the same working or not is one of the problems with them, and why you really do need monitoring and someone to pay attention to the monitoring at least every few days. I spent six years in the utility-scale solar PV industry. You would be shocked to learn how many of the panels are not working in any given array. I've seen everything from almost 10% of the strings not even being connected to the inverters in a utility scale array, to a shocking number of rooftop arrays that were producing nothing. In my entire experience with the company and all its customers, we never encountered a single utility-scale array that was fully working when we arrived on site to add our monitoring or optimization systems, and many of those were brand new! In one case of a sizable array on the roof of a Texas energy provider here in Austin, we discovered the inverter had died years before we discovered it! (This was field testing of of inverter bus noise effects, and the oscilloscope showed nothing but what the wiring picked up as antennas!) Turns out no one ever looks at the power bills in a power company... :-) Solar PV actually requires a fair amount of maintenance for both prevention and remediation (cleaning and/or replacing panels, repairing connections/wiring, combiners, inverters, etc.) to ensure they are actually operating, but most owners are happier to cover their ears and eyes and sing, "La, la, la..."
- ericd 4y ago
  Ha! Thanks for the professional perspective! I guess I should up my monitoring plans from “glance at the SolArk screen every now and then” to maybe something a bit more robust/automatic.

by ericd 4y ago

choeger 4y ago

I think it's, quite literally, a question of the point of view. I know about installations that were (during planning) allowed to be 4m tall. If that happens right next to your home or any other place you visit frequently, I, and many others, find it extremely ugly. If there's a distance, say 100m, it's not half as bad. If the installation doesn't even block the view (e.g., because of elevation), I don't care at all. But given the plans I have seen, I prefer a couple of wind energy plants about 1000m away.

ncmncm 4y ago
It is extremely common to put solar panels on residential roofs 4m high, often higher. Complaints are rare. It is extremely uncommon to site dedicated solar farms within 100m of residential areas.
- jandrese 4y ago
  Solar panels are only like 3-4" above the roof on residential installs. Any extra view blocked that wasn't already blocked by the house is trivial. In fact solar panels are usually not installed all the way to the top of the roofline so there is no change in visibility at all.
  - cma 4y ago
    Farmers often already need tall tree barriers for wind erosion control. Other farmers may usually without restriction cultivate a tall view-blocking forest on their land. So let them cultivate a perimeter of just enough forest to hide the panels if it really is a real issue and not a product of NIMBY OCPD.

dublin 4y ago

If you ignore them, then you never know when they stop working. Really. The fact that they look the same working or not is one of the problems with them, and why you really do need monitoring and someone to pay attention to the monitoring at least every few days. I spent six years in the utility-scale solar PV industry. You would be shocked to learn how many of the panels are not working in any given array. I've seen everything from almost 10% of the strings not even being connected to the inverters in a utility scale array, to a shocking number of rooftop arrays that were producing nothing. In my entire experience with the company and all its customers, we never encountered a single utility-scale array that was fully working when we arrived on site to add our monitoring or optimization systems, and many of those were brand new! In one case of a sizable array on the roof of a Texas energy provider here in Austin, we discovered the inverter had died years before we discovered it! (This was field testing of of inverter bus noise effects, and the oscilloscope showed nothing but what the wiring picked up as antennas!) Turns out no one ever looks at the power bills in a power company... :-) Solar PV actually requires a fair amount of maintenance for both prevention and remediation (cleaning and/or replacing panels, repairing connections/wiring, combiners, inverters, etc.) to ensure they are actually operating, but most owners are happier to cover their ears and eyes and sing, "La, la, la..."

ericd 4y ago
Ha! Thanks for the professional perspective! I guess I should up my monitoring plans from “glance at the SolArk screen every now and then” to maybe something a bit more robust/automatic.