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I read the source and you are wrong. Here is the official website and I quote: "This is a project that will generate up to 350MW of clean renewable electricity

I read the source and you are wrong. Here is the official website and I quote: "This is a project that will generate up to 350MW of clean renewable electricity to power over 91,000 homes" https://www.clevehillsolar.com/ https://www.clevehillsolar.com/

s1artibartfast 4y ago
Which is misleading..
- tchaffee 4y ago
  It isn't misleading.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    It is to me. "Up to“ is weasel language. It might support 100k homes for a few moments on an ideal day
    - tchaffee 4y ago
      Or according to the math in another comment, over 350k homes on long sunny summer days. Is it weasel language that the new nuclear towers in question here didn't include the 1 in ~200,000 documented chance of disaster due to earthquake in their press releases, their capacity estimates, and the price? Is it weasel language that the press releases don't include the fact that Westinghouse Electric declared bankruptcy over the Vogtle nuclear build in discussion? I don't see the fact that the U.S. government has given $8.3 billion of loan guarantees to help finance construction of the Vogtle reactors included in press releases either. Considering this solar installation is a for-profit venture in cloudy UK and will reduce carbon output without subsidies, I'm calling it a win whether it powers 1000 houses or 350,000.
delroth 4y ago
You skipped the critical "up to" part when re-quoting this in your previous message. The capacity factor is what determines how close the average is to that theoretical maximum. With 10.8%, the answer is "not close at all".
- tchaffee 4y ago
  So far zero people have given a source showing that the claim of powering 91,000 homes is an outrageous lie. Zero sources is "not close at all" to showing that the actual output is going to be so wildly different from what every source says will be the actual, not theoretical, output.
  - ac29 4y ago
    350MW / 91000 homes = 3.8kW / home (24/7), which seems very very high.
  - delroth 4y ago
    Again, the claim on the website is "has the potential to power over 91,000 homes". "up to", "has the potential", etc. But let's do some quick back of the envelope maths. 91,000 homes would be about 91,000 * 3,000 kWh / year = 273 TWh / year. You need an average of 31 MW over a year to produce this, which roughly tracks 350 MW with ~10% capacity factor. So over a year this seems to be correct. On a day to day basis however the project only includes 700 MWh of storage. That's about 24h of the electricity consumption of 91,000 homes. A single cloudy winter day and those batteries are empty. So if you look at shorter time periods than a full year there's a huge variation in how many households can actually be reliably powered by such an installation. It's likely somewhere between 1,000 (several days of cloudy winter) and 350,000 homes (sunny summer).
    - tchaffee 4y ago
      Thanks - that's the best explanation I've seen so far. > It's likely somewhere between 1,000 (several days of cloudy winter) How do you figure? Solar technology is moving so rapidly you can't even look at the efficiency of the panels from a few years ago to do the math. Is the 1,000 number a guess or did you do the math for the 900,000 some panels they will have at that site?

s1artibartfast 4y ago

Which is misleading..

tchaffee 4y ago
It isn't misleading.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  It is to me. "Up to“ is weasel language. It might support 100k homes for a few moments on an ideal day
  - tchaffee 4y ago
    Or according to the math in another comment, over 350k homes on long sunny summer days. Is it weasel language that the new nuclear towers in question here didn't include the 1 in ~200,000 documented chance of disaster due to earthquake in their press releases, their capacity estimates, and the price? Is it weasel language that the press releases don't include the fact that Westinghouse Electric declared bankruptcy over the Vogtle nuclear build in discussion? I don't see the fact that the U.S. government has given $8.3 billion of loan guarantees to help finance construction of the Vogtle reactors included in press releases either. Considering this solar installation is a for-profit venture in cloudy UK and will reduce carbon output without subsidies, I'm calling it a win whether it powers 1000 houses or 350,000.

delroth 4y ago

You skipped the critical "up to" part when re-quoting this in your previous message. The capacity factor is what determines how close the average is to that theoretical maximum. With 10.8%, the answer is "not close at all".

tchaffee 4y ago
So far zero people have given a source showing that the claim of powering 91,000 homes is an outrageous lie. Zero sources is "not close at all" to showing that the actual output is going to be so wildly different from what every source says will be the actual, not theoretical, output.
- ac29 4y ago
  350MW / 91000 homes = 3.8kW / home (24/7), which seems very very high.
- delroth 4y ago
  Again, the claim on the website is "has the potential to power over 91,000 homes". "up to", "has the potential", etc. But let's do some quick back of the envelope maths. 91,000 homes would be about 91,000 * 3,000 kWh / year = 273 TWh / year. You need an average of 31 MW over a year to produce this, which roughly tracks 350 MW with ~10% capacity factor. So over a year this seems to be correct. On a day to day basis however the project only includes 700 MWh of storage. That's about 24h of the electricity consumption of 91,000 homes. A single cloudy winter day and those batteries are empty. So if you look at shorter time periods than a full year there's a huge variation in how many households can actually be reliably powered by such an installation. It's likely somewhere between 1,000 (several days of cloudy winter) and 350,000 homes (sunny summer).
  - tchaffee 4y ago
    Thanks - that's the best explanation I've seen so far. > It's likely somewhere between 1,000 (several days of cloudy winter) How do you figure? Solar technology is moving so rapidly you can't even look at the efficiency of the panels from a few years ago to do the math. Is the 1,000 number a guess or did you do the math for the 900,000 some panels they will have at that site?