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It's so strange that a mostly cloudy country at 51ºN spent so much money developing solar energy.
by prottog 3y ago
It's so strange that a mostly cloudy country at 51ºN spent so much money developing solar energy.
- soared 3y agoSolar works when it’s cloudy.
- the_third_wave 3y agoIt does but at a greatly reduced output (5-20% of rated output depending on the thickness of the cloud cover). Partly cloudy weather leads to a very bumpy output graph.
- prottog 3y agoI mean, of course, but is it really the best use of the limited resources of a nation? Germany isn't playing to its natural competitive advantage by pursuing solar, vs. someplace like Morocco. Nuclear would be a much better option, but we know how that ended up.
- bamfly 3y agoA country making solar panels doesn't necessarily plan to use all of them. It was an exports/services (consulting) play. "Skating where the puck will be" and all that—become the experts with plenty of production capacity before the market per se justifies it. IIRC they made similar efforts for other renewables, like wind power. Not sure how all that's going, but I know it was regarded by many as a good move, a couple decades back when they were investing in it all.