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A 100MW solar farm in Texas will mount panels directly on the ground
- tinglymintyfrsh 4y agoHail enters the chat Maybe they should prop them up on cinder blocks at a minimum? What about flooding?
- deepsun 4y agoIf they lie on a flat, impact absorbing material (i.e. sand), then hail would do less damage than for standing panels. One could walk on them. If, as you propose, put flat rigid cement below, I'd thing you could drive on them.
- ldbooth 4y agoMost ground mount solar projects have a base flood elevation, under which the panels will be inundated with water, not to mention, moved at least once a year. A rack-less mounting solution might work in some locations, but very few.
- mycall 4y ago> "Install in half the cost, half the time on 33% of the land" If the panels don't point directly at the sun, then you lose much of the efficiency. I wonder how the robot cleaner handles bird poop.
- Hermitude 4y agoHorizontal panels also collect dust, so they still need to be propping them on the north side.
- gleenn 4y agoThey don't look propped at all in the photos. Also I think propping would be hard for the cleaning robot as it looks like is a super simple little robot with small wheels and just rolls straightened over them.
- StillBored 4y agoYah its probably a case that designing a vacmop style device (possibly purchased off the open market?) and having it drive around on a flat surface is both cheaper and keeps the panels cleaner than a custom bot that doesn't clean as frequently because it costs to much. My question is whether sitting on the ground itself causes problems with efficiency due to the panels getting hotter than they would with some airflow under them.
- pnw 4y agoAccording to the research on their site, ground mount solar has better heat dissipation than roof mount solar, and isn't that far behind racked systems, so it's not really a concern. The ground ends up acting as a heat sink. https://www.erthos.com/modeling-heat-dissipation-in-earth-mount-solar-pv https://www.erthos.com/modeling-heat-dissipation-in-earth-mo...
- tuatoru 4y agoErthos spend quite a bit of time designing their own autonomous cleaning and repair robot.
- avip 4y agoAll panels collect dust, but this setup is much more challenging to clean (and to generally service, i.e to replace a faulty panel)
- nimos 4y agoThis seems much easier to clean? A gigantic flat slab is pretty easy to automate something vs disconnected racks.
- avip 4y ago(Modern utility scale PV installations are already using automated cleaning solutions). It is much better from POV of the cleaning robot maneuvering requirements. It's also much better in terms of single robot can access the entire installation. But it's worse in terms of how much distance the dust should be pushed before it's off panel (as I don't see any gaps there)
- CuriousCosmic 4y agoAlternatively if the robot is a vacuum or something of the like, it could just store the excess dust and dump it at a station on the edge.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoService trade-off seems pretty marginal. They say the panels aren't tied down to the ground in any way, so you might be able to just pick one up and disconnect it
- elihu 4y agoThey have a robot that cleans the panels. It's a big, flat surface so they don't really need anything much more advanced than a Roomba. Apparently they also have special shoes that maintenance people can wear that distribute the weight properly so they can walk on them if they have to.
- constantlm 4y agoSounds like they're pretty confident this isn't an issue: >Our fees are based on the plant producing at its optimal performance. If the plant underperforms for any reason, we curtail our fees – creating strong incentive and perfect alignment with the long-term asset owner.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoIt all comes down to the economic tradeoffs. Panels are cheap and everything else is expensive. If you can get 75% efficiency for half the cost, your return on investment is 50% higher
- tejohnso 4y agoSolar in Texas seems like an obvious win in just about any configuration. But I wonder how this would work at higher northern latitudes in the winter. I suspect efficiency would be pretty bad with a 20 degree incidence.
- chefandy 4y agoDoesn't have to be effective everywhere for it to be useful.
- nine_k 4y agoPanels may be cheap, maintenance / replacement is less so, because humans at work.
- theptip 4y agoThey use a robot for regular cleaning; looks like the design will make that cheaper too as it's basically a fancy Roomba.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoReplacing might be cheaper as well without any mounting racks or tracks.
- dahfizz 4y agoEveryone is talking about maintenance ITT. Is it that big of a concern? My parents have had solar on their roof for almost 10 years now with zero issues. I imagine newer panels last longer. So what's the actual maintenance cost? I could imagine it's going to be cheaper to just install new panels every few decades than constantly maintaining the installation to be 100% capacity.
- sorenjan 4y agoI don't understand why they cant dig some kind of trench or mound to put them on at least, to angle them more towards the sun. There's plenty of agricultural equipment designed to cultivate soil (first example I found[0]). That could take care of the drainage as well, although I don't know how much it rains in Texas. [0] https://www.asa-lift.com/asalift/producttypes/bodenbearbeitung/gf-400 https://www.asa-lift.com/asalift/producttypes/bodenbearbeitu...
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> why they cant dig some kind of trench or mound to put them on at least, to angle them more towards the sun Trench will flood. Mound needs to be maintained. Cheaper to put more static panels flat than trying to get every electron out of them.
- rootusrootus 4y ago> why they cant dig some kind of trench or mound to put them on at least Just use the rack then, it's exactly the same result.
- sorenjan 4y agoI think using the dirt that's already there and building the structure with some kind of machine would be cheaper than having someone mounting them on a steel rack. See for instance large potato fields [0]. The point is instead of putting them on flat ground, make the ground have a better shape first. [0] http://www.thompsonpotatofarm.com/common-tater/banking-the-potato-farm-way http://www.thompsonpotatofarm.com/common-tater/banking-the-p...
- rootusrootus 4y agoThe racks are really easy, well known technology. That was my point. If you're going to give up the entire reason for laying them flat on the ground, you're going back to the way existing solar farms work, so just use the same proven technology.
- deleted 4y ago
- dahfizz 4y ago> If the panels don't point directly at the sun, then you lose much of the efficiency. This is true for a single panel. But the amount of sunlight which hits an acre of land is constant. If the land is 100% covered with panels, the panels will collect 100% of the available sunlight. Installations that tilt the panels have lots of space between the panels.
- t3pfaff 4y ago> This is true for a single panel. But the amount of sunlight which hits an acre of land is constant. If the land is 100% covered with panels, the panels will collect 100% of the available sunlight. That is not true from my understanding. The increased solar angle of incidence effects how much of the energy reflects back into the sky. Having more panels next to it without a gap won't change that. Yes you can fit more panels in the same area without putting them on an angle but they will be quite a bit less efficient because more light will be reflecting back up per sqft of panel which is what matters cost wise.
- nick4780167 4y agoThe anti reflective layers and texture on the panels are usually pretty good, such that then reflection is less than the area loss due to the angle.
- tuatoru 4y agoYes, one of the many areas of improvement of PV modules in the last couple of years has been reducing reflections from the surface of the glass and from the glass-cell boundary in panels. Also changed cell technology (n-TOPCon) helps with reflections and recombination within the cells.
- sacred_numbers 4y agoThere is a small loss of efficiency (<2%) at extreme angles, but it is not too significant[1] [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6611928/#:~:text=So%2C%20it%20is%20concluded%20that,angle%20of%20incidence%20of%20sunlight https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6611928/#:~:tex....
- legohead 4y agoYou get the majority of the power when the sun is directly overhead. You can make up the lost difference by the space saving and just adding more panels.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoThe sun is never directly overhead except on the summer solstice at noon, assuming you're in roughly the part of your timezone.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoAnd then only at the equator. Here in Iowa at 42' North, you'd want a panel tilted 42' South to start with.
- drumttocs8 4y agoMost utility scale installations don’t track the sun- too much cost. This takes cost-saving to a new level though.
- idiotsecant 4y agoSeems weird. How do you service it? How do conductors work? How do you keep random junk from blowing on top of it? How do you clean it? The photo in the story just looks like a giant square of PV material. Is that really what this is?
- Kye 4y agoIt looks like they work in a similar way to wood floor panels. https://vimeo.com/556421759 https://vimeo.com/556421759
- idiotsecant 4y agoHuh, interesting video. Seems like a cool idea.
- jl6 4y agoMaybe if it reduces installation cost enough they will be able to tolerate some inefficiencies.
- function_seven 4y agoThere's another link with better details on all of that: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/erthos-rakes-in-17m-to-install-solar-panels-directly-on-the-ground https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/erthos-rakes-in-1...
- luhn 4y agoRe cleaning, they have a cute little robot that you can see on this page: https://www.erthos.com/energyservices https://www.erthos.com/energyservices It's also visible in the photo in the article.
- thinkmcfly 4y agoThey should fix the wheel spacing so it rolls on the metal frame and doesn't scuff up the edge of the panels
- walrus01 4y agoIt is correct that mounting costs and labor can be a large portion of the total BOM. Even for a large off grid whole home PV system that can operate through December/January at high latitudes. Let's say for an example you wanted to DIY a PV system that would be much too large to fit on the roof of a normal sized house. Go calculate the cost of buying 30000 kW of good quality 72-cell PV panels rated at 380W STC each. It'll be something like 80 pieces at about $130 per piece. Usually would ship as 20 panels per pallet, so call it four fully loaded pallets of 72-cell panels. At 34 cents/W STC rating, PV panel cost from distributor something like $10,400 to $12000 USD. The foundation work and poles/racking to do a basic ground mount will be a huge cost on top of that. Labor is a big part of it. If you're hiring people to build it the labor and ground mount gear and things like basic foundation work/screw piles/steel tubes set into concrete could easily cost you another 10 grand from a local contractor. Something generally along these lines or an industry competitor of it: https://www.ironridge.com/ground-based/ https://www.ironridge.com/ground-based/ (Not discussing inverters/charge controllers/batteries/disconnect boxes and wiring here).
- prawn 4y agoAs a probably silly idea, I wonder if the panels could each sit on an inflated/foam and buoyant pad, be chained by flexible cables and then be pinned to the ground at intervals. That might give it some flexibility in the event of flooding.
- pontifier 4y agoI bought 20kw of solar from China that arrived this year, the quote I got for installation was about what I paid for the whole system. I'm thinking about just installing it myself.
- liketochill 4y agoI hope the fields never flood and the solar farm is under water
- idiotsecant 4y agoIt looks like they're probably targeting places where huge rain isn't an issue and it looks like they do some site work to raise it up a bit? Theres another photo here : https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/utility-scale-solar-has-stagnated-so-erthos-mounts-pv-panels-right-on-the-ground https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/utility-scale-sol...
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
- function_seven 4y ago> The glass/ glass modules and the connectors we specify are all rated for submersion, so flooding is not a catastrophic event in case it does occur. From: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/erthos-rakes-in-17m-to-install-solar-panels-directly-on-the-ground https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/erthos-rakes-in-1...
- QuarterReptile 4y agoMaybe I'm just being pessimistic, but the failure mechanism is the erosion of the underlying denuded ground in a large storm to the point that the underlying structure moves.
- function_seven 4y agoI don’t think that’s being too pessimistic. I didn’t think about that. The solution would be some sort of concrete footing or something—but I’m sure that is more expensive than just mounting these panels in the air.
- adwww 4y agoWould it not contribute to flooding as well, unless drainage is somehow improved around each panel.
- laluser 4y ago> less than 2.5 acres per megawatt This is actually quite amazing. I wonder what the lifetime is for the panels.
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoThat sounds like if I have a decently-sized suburban yard, I should be able to throw enough of these out there to run my life.
- Tade0 4y agoMy co-worker did just that, but at a much higher latitude(49°) than Texas - he couldn't be arsed with building racks for the panels himself and having people do it for him would cost too much in his view. While the panels are indeed cheap this, along with the DIY wood gas combined heat and power generator, are measures taken for energy security, not profit.
- tuatoru 4y agoYeah, nah, these are for utility scale PV plants, sorry. In a few years, you might be able to buy a roll of PV film in a box and unroll it in your yard. The box it comes in would have all the gubbins to connect up to the house. Not quite here yet, though.
- toomanybeersies 4y agoYou don't even really need to tile your yard with solar panels. Depending on location, you could be self-sufficient(ish) with 10 kW of solar, 25kWh of batteries, and a 10 kVA generator for cloudy weeks. Total cost is around $40k. However, unless you're rural or somewhere with poor grid reliability it's probably not worth the expense of being off-grid. Generally speaking, due to generous feed-in tariffs you would be (financially) better off staying connected to the grid than spending the additional money required to handle periods of cloudy weather.
- _ea1k 4y agoUsually the expected life is ~30 years. They may last longer. I do wonder if pests and moisture will be early failure causes in this configuration though. Then again, if it saves enough money, maybe that doesn't matter. TBH, the part that lasts the least amount of time is often the inverter.
- felgueres 4y agoThe reason they are tilted is to maximize irradiance hitting the panel. At a 0 degree angle (flat on the ground) you get a a lot around noon and then very little. This approach surely reduces land usage but what is the output per acre? I’d be really surprised if it’s higher than with tilted modules.
- mkl 4y agoThe article claims it's much higher output per acre: > conventional solar technologies, which typically require five to 10 acres of land per megawatt of capacity. Erthos claims that its mounting scheme requires less than 2.5 acres per megawatt.
- avip 4y agoThey don't claim to outperform fixed-tile or SAT on that KPI. They claim to reduce upfront cost of installation, construction time, and general project risk.
- celtain 4y agoI expect that they are getting lower output per acre, but in places where land is cheap and as solar panels continue to get cheaper, the money saved on building the support structures could be worth those losses.
- rootusrootus 4y agoThey're getting quite a lot more output per acre, by being able to use more panels.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoThey claim the power per acre is 4x higher than tilted panels. Seems like a stretch, but I don't know how bad the density is in tilted installations. I guess I have seen some where you can drive between rows
- sacred_numbers 4y ago
- dokem 4y ago
- bilsbie 4y agoWe’ll the cost isn’t just the racks You’ve got to deal with permits for the structures. Installation. And then you have to do lawn trimming around all the racks. This can save on all of that.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- anko 4y agoaussies are doing a similar thing although they install by pulling via tractor and the panels concertina out see https://suncable.energy/ https://suncable.energy/ they are doing an underwater cable to supply energy to singapore
- Klasiaster 4y agoDead ground is not so good for biodiversity, with the standard way you have wild grass and flowers beneath.
- elihu 4y agoCovering the ground with impermeable surfaces isn't great either. (Maybe they have drain holes at regular intervals so that's not as much of a problem?) I'm guessing they will probably need a tall fence around the outside to keep deer away.
- unyttigfjelltol 4y agoThe optics are bad-- like this advanced civilization here on Earth decided to make a Dyson sphere of our own planet.
- zahma 4y agoI take your point, but arguably the optics of burning up every last drop of fossil fuel are worse.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoprobably better than mining it
- im3w1l 4y agoAlready, 96% of mammal biomass is humans and livestock. No one has the power to stop this process, to do what it would take. Enforcing a strict max-2 child policy on the whole world and/or telling people to live in the pods and eat the bugs. Hopefully, once our civilization goes interplanetary, we can try to restore a bit of what was lost.
- vidarh 4y agoFertility rate is already below replacement for all of the world except sub-Saharan Africa, and it's dropping there too. We're headed for population decline within a century unless something changes dramatically.
- sschueller 4y agoThis reminds me too much of solar roadways. What about heat dissipation? Don't you want airflow under the panels?
- enragedcacti 4y agohttps://www.erthos.com/modeling-heat-dissipation-in-earth-mount-solar-pv https://www.erthos.com/modeling-heat-dissipation-in-earth-mo...
- rootusrootus 4y agoInteresting idea. I've been toying with the idea of doing a ground mount install at home, but maybe I should try this instead to get more density. I love toys...
- melony 4y agoI do not believe their claimed savings. Steel is a very cheap building material and at the scale of solar farms, the cost should be very low. (As an alternative to stainless steel on the other hand, it may make more sense)
- adaml_623 4y ago
- 1024core 4y ago> From 2010 to 2021, the levelized cost of installing utility-scale solar fell 88% .... But in the last couple of years, supply-chain issues have halted these price declines globally How many "couple of years" have there been between 2021 and now?
- deathanatos 4y agoI suppose if we're charitable, maybe "From 2010 to 2021" is programmer style [2010, 2021), i.e., ending at 1 Jan 2021. Then all of 2021 & 2022 form "a couple of years". (The book is more or less closed on 2022. Given that my "2 day shipping" from cyber Monday took 8 days, I'm not holding my breath on "the supply chain" fixing itself prior to people giving it up for the holiday retreat.)
- kube-system 4y agoThe two time periods you have quoted are not necessarily non-overlapping time periods. Nothing from your quote implies that the couple of years begins at 2021. Falling between two dates does not imply that it fell uniformly or that it fell for every year between those two dates.
- Retric 4y agoAt scale there is probably a fair bit of dead time if you want to get 100+MW of solar panels. So, it might be well over 2 years at this point. Aka companies had agreed to deliver in 2020 for X$, but took longer to actually deliver.
- QuarterReptile 4y agoI think "couple" is pretty typically accepted as being "two", at least in most US settings; I can't speak for international variations. In my home area of central Pennsylvania "couple" is a more general, meaning anywhere between 2 and 4, but I think that usage is rather the exception than the rule. Nonetheless, we can probably give them a pass for saying "couple" instead of "nearly three" since January 2020.
- jwilk 4y ago
- reddog 4y agoWill Prowse did something similar (much smaller scale) on his YouTube channel last year. He set up a 6000 watt ground mount array in about 40 minutes and discusses the trade offs here: https://youtu.be/71vME5k-oiw https://youtu.be/71vME5k-oiw
- rhacker 4y agoHis is more or less temporary. What's great about him though is he already has a link up to the power company, so as he sees fit he can just reduce his bill by flaying them out in his courtyard. That or just mine btc/etc... He's still an awesome dude and has helped me set up my own solar in the number of videos. Even better is his forum: https://diysolarforum.com https://diysolarforum.com
- blamazon 4y agoTemporary solar panels are interesting to me - where I live there's a large chunk of the year where weekly solar output plummets. Stacking them in the garage overwinter is appealing, I might try this soon.
- cinntaile 4y agoI would assume the risk of moving them each year is much bigger than any reduction in loss of function?
- blamazon 4y agoMeh. Throw a moving blanket over it and bungee it on. Could weld up a cart to roll them all at once sideways. Could use spring casters like for gates as a suspension. Or hold them in place with low durometer rubber. Or both. Probably want them sideways for footprint in my garage anyhow. It would be fun to optimize the process more each year.
- bushbaba 4y agoWhy bother stacking them in the garage during winter. Are you afraid of winter panel damage?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- matt3210 4y agoMy panels were cheeper than the mounting equipment... If I had tons of space I would scale up panels and put them on the ground instead of mounting/tilting gear.
- gumby 4y agoThe price of panels has fallen so much that installation is now a significant proportion of the cost. So this is a good idea. But without any airflow behind the panels they will heat up, which will reduce efficacy. This is the main reason BIPV (solar roof tiles, in this case) has failed for decades. So this is a bad idea. Which is it? I suspect, based on the BIPV example, that this will probably not work. It would be cool if this suspicion turned out to be wrong!
- alexose 4y agoIn this case, I think the earth acts as a heat sink. Or so they claim on their website (https://www.erthos.com https://www.erthos.com) Neither their press release nor the article says where exactly in Texas it is, but I bet it would make sense to put it in the desert where it gets cold at night.
- deepsun 4y agoEarth is a much worse heat sink than moving air. You can check it while stepping on the earth on a sunny day.
- hammock 4y agoWhat has driven the cost of panels down? Do we have more mines now, or cheaper labor, or something else?
- coderintherye 4y agoThere's no one thing, though increased solar cell efficiency has been a major factor: https://news.mit.edu/2018/explaining-dropping-solar-cost-1120 https://news.mit.edu/2018/explaining-dropping-solar-cost-112...
- tuatoru 4y agoEconomies of scale, better energy efficiency in smelting polysilicon and making ingots of purified silicon, better ingot quality, more wafers per ingot, more usable cells per wafer, new cell manufacturing that reduces the number of steps and produces better cells, bigger panels so there is less dead area around the edges, better glass that is stronger so can be thinner and less reflective so the panels perform better,optimized wiring inside the panels, better cheaper wiring connectors... A zillion tiny improvements, at every stage in the manufacturing process. The next quantum leap is coming soon: two-layer cells with an efficiency jump from the current 22% to over 30% sunlight-electricity.
- pugworthy 4y agoFrom the land topography fitting perspective, it's too bad panels are triangular. Then one could essentially create a triangular mesh overlay of panels over all kinds of uneven terrain.
- conor_f 4y agoReally I don't care where or how the panels are placed. All movement towards renewables is good, no matter how "inefficient" it is vs fossils
- p1necone 4y agoYeah I don't understand people getting hung up on efficiency with solar panels. The sun is always up there producing the exact same amount of energy with zero input from us. We're not doing any work to get the input energy for the panels. Efficiency would only matter if we'd already covered all the available area with panels and needed to start replacing existing ones, otherwise $/watt hour is the only metric that's important.
- kragen 4y agountil only a few years ago solar panels were enormously more expensive per square meter and per peak watt, so doing things to increase their efficiency was a great way to reduce $/watt hour
- asciimov 4y agoNot sure where they are building these but I’ll tell you hwhat, fire ants love electronics and they are found in the majority of this state. Putting these right on the ground is just inviting destruction by critters.
- djcannabiz 4y agothats really interesting, thanks for sharing! a google search for fire ants electrical equipment brings up a website on ants conducting electricity and shorting circuits. I had no idea that was an issue
- randyrand 4y agoSolar inverters are always water proof, sealed, and potted. The ants will have their work cut out for them.
- chillingeffect 4y agoan install is expected to last 10-25+ years... that's a long time....
- dreamcompiler 4y agoCan't tell from their website but I really hope they're not using per-panel "solar inverters" at all. The whole ground-touching array should be DC with no electronics whatsoever (except maybe for diodes, and with no significant shadows they might not even need those). Any inverters present should be large, few, and in their own weatherproof housings above the ground. I think per-panel inverters are a stupid idea, especially for large utility-scale installations. Sorry if I misinterpreted your comment and you meant something else.
- throwaway81523 4y ago"Erthos claims it can build a solar power plant in half the time on one-third of the land" sounds like red flag to me. They have not tripled the solar flux or the efficiency of their solar panels.
- tuatoru 4y agoOn most solar farms, the panels only cover about a sixth of the land area, or less. The rest is taken up with accessways between the rows of panels, and roads around the outside. Check out some photos, for example https://energy-cc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Benbole-Solar-Farm-4-scaled.jpg https://energy-cc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Benbole-S... The reason the rows are widely spaced is to minimize shading by a row of the one behind, when the sun is low in the sky. With the panels being flat on the ground there is no shading problem. Laying them side by side eliminates the gaps and they plug together so there is no wiring to do. Omitting the racking eliminates its cost, the time to install it, and the wiring between rows. Etc.
- throwaway81523 4y agoA SIXTH? I don't see how that can be necessary. They might use that much land because it's worthless desert or something like that. Where I am there is not exactly a solar farm, but there is a maybe half megawatt array on a flat canopy over a parking lot. This is in an area of expensive real estate, and there is almost no wasted space. As for spacing to avoid shading when the sun is low, obviously that is an optimization problem and in all likelihood they have worked it out. Don't forget that when the sun is low, the flat array produces almost no power.
- toss1 4y agoSounds great, but the land underneath is absolutely killed as if it were paved over, no grass, ground cover, crops or anything. That said, it seems to be less than half the amount of land. Nevertheless, it seems that the innovative German installation method of using vertical panels in between agricultural rows is better [0]. [0] https://cleantechnica.com/2022/07/25/new-research-says-vertical-solar-panels-have-improved-performance/ https://cleantechnica.com/2022/07/25/new-research-says-verti...
- tuatoru 4y agoNo, not as if it were paved. No aggregate is laid down, nor is asphalt put on top of the aggregate. No toxins are put in, nor does the topsoil need to be scraped off. End-of-life reinstatement of the land shouldn't take more than ten years of seeding a sequence of plants that specialize in colonizing and re-aerating bare compacted soil, and revitalizing the soil ecology. (Weeds.)
- toss1 4y agoYes, EOL recovery could be quicker than if it were paved (assuming that paving strips the topsoil completely and not just paves over it) but much slower than if it remained growing all the time. The problem is that soil is not just inert, and completely covering it like that kills the entire microbiome — the fungi, bacteria, and myriad of multicellular micro-critters that make the soil good for plant growth will be long gone when they take up the panels.
- thehappypm 4y agoWho cares? Honestly, a hundred acres of scrubland turned into green energy is a steal compared to everything else we do on this planet for food, energy, and material
- toss1 4y agoSure, on a scale of comparative bad things, e.g., vs strip mining... But if you don't have to kill the entire soil microbiome, why do it? Just questioning whether this is as good as vertical panels + farming. I agree, if it really is nearly devoid of vegetation, it seems better to use the least possible amount land and also not use the metals for the racking.
- lai-yin 4y agoBirds and little critters to be relocated to affordable housing in San Marcos. But seriously why can't we just start building more net-zero natural gas plants that take up 1/100 of the land area? This is insane.
- emsimot 4y agoHow can natural gas be net zero?
- discordance 4y agoSun Cable's 10GW in the Northern Australia is also ground mounted: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/sun-cable-5b-solar-mb1185/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/sun-cable-5b-solar-mb118...
- moffkalast 4y agoBoth talk a lot about time and material saved, which I guess is also important, but neither gives any figures as to how much efficiency will be lost. Isn't the whole point of trackers and optimal angle calculations that regular panels are kinda crap if not pointed directly at a 90 degree angle to incoming light? If I recall right some installations have almost got half more output by going from fixed to trackers. This would be even worse than fixed at the optimal angle...
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoWhen I was installing my 6.6kW array, I was pissed that I got the southern orientation of 1 half of the array off by a few degrees. Turns out I was going to lose about 1% of production. Out of interest, I looked up what the drop would be if I had actually installed them all, at a 30 degree slope, facing north. 15% !!!
- Mistletoe 4y agoGoogling shows gains of 25-35%. Dual tracking adds another 5-10%. I can really see how just placing more of these simple flat ones would be more economical than a complicated racking and tracking system. https://news.energysage.com/solar-trackers-everything-need-know/ https://news.energysage.com/solar-trackers-everything-need-k...
- dreamcompiler 4y agoIt's all about the cosine of the angle between the panel's normal and the direction toward the sun. If that angle is 0, the cosine is 1 and you get maximum efficiency. The error angle has to increase to 60 degrees before the cosine decreases to 0.5. Meaning you can tolerate a lot of slop before you lose half your output. Trackers were a big deal when PV panels were 10x or 20x more expensive than they are now. Back then every bit of added efficiency was worthwhile. Not so much now. Edit: It's more complicated than this: You have to compute two cosines (azimuth and elevation) and average over both days and seasons, but the basic point is still true.
- ElijahLynn 4y agoFrom the picture, it looks like the dirt will eventually wash onto the edges and it will be difficult to clean as you can't just spray it off and have it wash off with gravity. I'm confused as to how this will stay efficient in the long run.
- infogulch 4y agoFinally someone saw the light and accepted the superiority of Factorio's flat solar panel design. Why dump so many resources into fixtures to eke out every last drop of efficiency when panels are cheap enough to just spam as groundcover? :)
- elihu 4y agoActually, the game art uses tilted panels (crammed closer together than they'd be in real life, so the shadow of one falls on the one behind it), though I admit I did think of Factorio solar panels in the sense that in the game you can make an area inaccessible to pedestrians by spamming the ground with them. https://wiki.factorio.com/Solar_panel https://wiki.factorio.com/Solar_panel
- infogulch 4y agoTime to open a bug report :S
- TOGoS 4y agoHarkonnen had a long-term project to make dynamic shadows that would change throughout the day, which would result in the solar panels being fully lit for at least a moment at noonish, but I got the impression that side-project was eventually canned due to, uhm, personnel issues.
- 8bitsrule 4y agoFlat makes more sense the closer the panels are to the equator. At high latitudes, the more atmo the solar must penetrate -and- the less efficient a flat panel is. Some good diagrams here: [https://www.altenergymag.com/article/2005/08/solar-energy-potential-at-different-latitudes/120/ https://www.altenergymag.com/article/2005/08/solar-energy-po...]
- jacquesm 4y agoThis is true, but even then the area required is much larger than if you were to simply stack them side-by-side. It helps if the whole surface is inclined as well, ideally on the Northern hemisphere a South facing roof.
- osigurdson 4y agoSeems that it would be harder to clean. The closer to the equator the better.
- kumarvvr 4y agoI am curious, how much does a sturdy stand cost for a solar panel set? Are there significant cost savings on the support structure? EDIT : Ok, its 20% of total cost. Significant. Also, being completely flat, dont they lose avg. units generated per day? I though placing them at a N-S inclination helps with capturing more energy.
- soorya3 4y agoThis is still inefficient use of space, no? and subject to elements at the ground level.
- thehappypm 4y agoSpace is cheap, and there is a LOT of it in Texas.
- Jweb_Guru 4y agoSpace efficiency is not a real concern for grid scale power, at least not in the US.
- bottlepalm 4y agoDoesn’t sound eco friendly. Panels off the ground a little leave some space for plants and animals to get around.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoNo solar panel is 'eco friendly'. It's a complete ecosystem teardown.
- bottlepalm 4y agoAre you talking about the manufacture or operation?
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoOperation. Any time you profoundly change the terrain (soil,water,sunlight) you catastrophically upset the ecosystem. It may come to another equilibrium over time, but that's just nature doing its good thing. There's a finite capacity for that etc.
- drumttocs8 4y agoShould be an interesting experiment at a decently high scale. Time will tell if degradation due to dust, pests, etc is negligible enough to make the avoided maintenance costs worthwhile. I think we would all argue that the opposite is better long term, though: we should be installing panel covered parking across the nation. Certainly more cost, but so many benefits. Including serviceability!
- lofaszvanitt 4y agoThey don't have elephants there, so good for them, but what about Texan wild pigs roaming around? :)
- EricE 4y ago"If the Erthos approach is viable and financeable" Ha!
- ETH_start 4y agoIn the long run, these should not be paving over natural habitats. There are plenty of life-devoid environments outside of Earth where these can be positioned.
- timzaman 4y agoWhy not mount them on a slope?
- TheRealPomax 4y agoGood luck replacing the ones in the center, I guess?
- 9935c101ab17a66 4y agoYou can walk on them? So i don’t think it’ll be much of an issue. Link from someone else’s comment: https://www.erthos.com/reducing-degradation-rates-with-earth-mount-solar-pv https://www.erthos.com/reducing-degradation-rates-with-earth...
- maxnevermind 4y agoIs that really a startup? It seems pretty straightforward, no uncertainties. Or there is some legal \ approval challenges I'm not aware of? That solar panel Roomba seems to be the only unique thing about the project.
- ummonk 4y agoDoes solar panel efficiency get affected much angle of incidence? I.e. are you losing out on any power by using large panels to cover the ground instead of having smaller panels that are steered to cover the ground in shadow?
- ush 4y agoI own and operate a utility scale solar plant and i've always found it inefficient to spend 180k USD per MegaWatts for steel and aluminum structures to hold those panels. I've always dreamt of "my next plant will not have these steels" and my friends in the industry say it's impossible (like they all do say for new things). I hope this solution is a good one. The challenges are: 1) Snow: when it snows, inclination (22degrees in ours) helps snow blocks slide down usually in 2-3 days. when panels are completely flat, snow can stay on panels for weeks. how to solve that in large scale plants? 2) Natural vegetation that grows by itself: We deal with them with the help of sheep. They grow everywhere, under the panels, around the panels. As the panel covers 100% of the surface, no sunlight means no vegetation beneath? Is this for sure? Because there is no access to do any work beneath the panels after the installation. 3) Underground animals: Moles, mice (even snakes) etc live beneath the soil and they open holes to the surface and come up. Before, they could not access the panels because they are 1 meter up on the steel structure. Now they will have easy access to panels and cables. Will they cause harm? A snake sliding on the panels is ok? 4) Earth moves. After 5 years, some structures went deeper into the ground. I don't know if it's gonna cause a problem
- ramraj07 4y agoHow does one get about starting a solar farm for commercial purposes? Do you have any guidelines or resources?
- meetingthrower 4y agoI own one of these too. Sounds like it might be similar location to ush, as I deal with snow, sheep, etc. I got mine during my windfall cash earning years in big corp. Great economics for a large W2 earner: 30% funding from gov, 30% funding from immediate depreciation, and you can lever the rest. Infinite IRR. There are a whole network of developers who package the deals and then match it with financing. I still can't believe every dentist in America doesn't own one of these....
- ush 4y agoHi. The most important step is permitting as it's a highly regulated industry. The rest is easier. Every jurisdiction has its own rules for permitting. Some govs want to push it more and make it easy (like Spain used to do it). Some don't need solar plants (like Switzerland). I heard Maryland in US is pushing it. I was planning to visit Maryland ministry of energy to learn more actually.
- Havoc 4y agoWhat about dust? Texas isn't exactly know for being spotless
- trhr 4y agoIt's SOLAR FREAKIN' PARKING LOTS all over again.
- Dazzler5648 4y agoIt's hilarious how some commenters are concerned about bird poop, when fact of the matter, birds die by the thousands each year in California alone either mistaking solar farms for lakes and attempting water landings, or by dying by fire in panels' collective solar flux. This pond will be covered in carcasses. This type of solar farm is doomed to spend that money saved in either prevention and/or cleanup and repair.
- hwillis 4y ago> by dying by fire in panels' collective solar flux That is exclusive to concentrated solar[1], which is essentially obsolete. > birds die by the thousands each year A BILLION birds die each year from flying into windows in the US[2]. In fact the majority of birds killed at Ivanpah are killed by flying into the tower, not from being cooked. > This pond will be covered in carcasses. Nope! If a bird tries to fly into a rack-mounted panel, it'll probably die, because it's basically flying directly into the surface. If it tries to land on a FLAT panel, it'll be totally fine. Birds don't try landing on water by smashing directly into it. Also, I have never heard of this "water landing" theory, I suspect its bullshit, and I'm very skeptical that there are many birds trying to do water landings in Texas due to the fact that there aren't a whole lotta lakes there because it's Texas. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird%E2%80%93window_collisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird%E2%80%93window_collisions
- jonnycomputer 4y agoNot impressed. - harder maintenance - more heat, less efficiency - will accumulate dirt and other debris with no tilt - will be damaged by animals and platnts - bigger ecological footprint (not everything is carbon; we share this planet) - better not be in any sort of flood plain (unless you think it'll survive the removal of an inch of silt across its whole surface)
- hwillis 4y ago- easier maintainance, since you can clean panels with a roomba-like rover instead of walking down with a hose. Replacements don't require ladders and cranes, since panels can be smaller without requiring more support -more heat may be irrelevant and anyway it's speculative -no plants growing under them to constantly be trimming -most places are not flood plains
- t0bia_s 4y agoLand for planting will be replaced by Made in China products that makes energy only during sunny day. What a green deal!
- bjowen 4y agoWill be interesting to see how this interacts with the ecology. Normally a complete shading like this would kill off everything underneath, which will mean it’ll produce loose soil and dust. In some hot environments it may produce a bunch of condensation overnight and if the panels aren’t raked at all that’ll be a challenge to deal with.