4 ms·

I was left wondering why only 8% of roofs quality for rooftop solar. I haven't checked the underlying paper, maybe it has an answer.

• hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  That's what I thought was so great about this article. Even if you quadrupled the estimate of total rooftop solar, it is still just a drop in the bucket compared to the total energy generation needed. It's almost not worth talking about because it's such a minor amount of capacity. I didn't read the paper, but from personal experience: 1. Rooftop solar depends on lots of individuals to make an investment to put solar on their houses. If you say "let the government subsidize it", that doesn't really make much sense because the government can get a much better return on each dollar spent by investing in more efficient technologies. 2. Many roofs are not suitable for solar. They are either facing the wrong way, at a bad angle, shaded, or, in my case, too "origami-like". Solar panels need to have minimum clearance fro ridge lines on a roof, which can drastically reduce the total coverable area.
  • Tams80 3y ago
    Exactly. It's a quadruple whammy: 1. Most residences not being suitable for significant generation. 2. The return on investment is decades long (yes, so is double glazing, but that is useful for far more households), not that most households can afford it at all. 3. The total generation capacity is piddle, especially for government investment. 4. The materials that go into making PV panels are horrible to extract. I'm not saying PV panels are useless, but they are not much of anything. Not something my lecturers at uni liked hearing/reading, but lo and behold pretty much nothing substantial has changed since. They're too busy blowing Sustainable Development smoke up their own arses though.