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Surely the main issue with winter in more northern regions is the significantly reduced period of the day for which any solar-generation is even possible. Durin

Surely the main issue with winter in more northern regions is the significantly reduced period of the day for which any solar-generation is even possible. During the daylight hours there's still more than enough total insolation to heat the small amount of air we need to inside our houses, but you obviously need some form of storage (or incredibly good insulation, arguably a form of storage too) to ensure buildings can remain a comfortable temperature throughout the day and night. From a purely technical feasibility point of view, there's always sufficient insolation somewhere/somewhen to provide all our energy needs, but whether it's practical or economical compared to alternatives such as nuclear is worth doing the sums on.

petre 4y ago
> During the daylight hours there's still more than enough total insolation to heat the small amount of air we need to inside our houses I sold solar panel for 10 years. Both solar thermal and PV. This is simply not true. You need to greatly oversize your panels (≥6x) and also have a passive house with a huge storage buffer (>5000 liters). In the summer you end up having to pump the waste heat into a pool. There are also maintenance costs. For PV you need huge amounts of battery storage. It's simply not economical above the 40° parallel to use solar for heating. For DHW or charging your EV it's okay, but in the winter you'll get at most 1/6 the amount of heat or electricity that you get in the summer provided that the panels are not covered in snow.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  That would seem to be essentially agreeing with my point - there's enough insolation but it's not necessarily economical to capture it with home PV systems.