3 ms·

> Polycrystalline panels last 20 years, sometimes longer (the sales pitch is "up to 25 years") but the 20% fal Your numbers seem off by atleast a facotor of 2.

by shkkmo 3y ago

> Polycrystalline panels last 20 years, sometimes longer (the sales pitch is "up to 25 years") but the 20% fal Your numbers seem off by atleast a facotor of 2. Average degradation is .5% per year so panels are guarantees are usually that you'll have 90% capacity after 10 years and 80% after 20 years. > Now it's a game of Backblaze storage stats only with solar panels - how does an at scale solar farm balance purchase costs and maintainance costs, The failure mode for solar is unlike traditional spinning hard drives. There isn't a "data loss" downside to waiting to replace. There won't be any risk mitigation, just calculations of when the opportunity costs become high enough to warrant replacement. I suspect in areas with cheap land, it'll be easier to build additional capacity than to replace existing degraded panels.

defrost 3y ago
As I mentioned in a peer comment I'm more interested in tropical | equatorial performance and the vast majority of PV performance studies are in temperate climates - it's not currently clear whether monocrsytalline deliver peak power in such climates .. quoting a study I have here: His work has shown that in this tropical climate, with high ambient temperatures and high humidity during the wet season, the a-Si array produces up to 20% more energy than ... (It's an ongoing bit of work ATM) The optimisation issues include other factors, the cost of panel cooling techniques Vs their benefits for one. Your average degradation figures are the figures from big meta studies such as the US Dept of Energy NREL lab Photovoltaic Degradation Rates https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf which you'll notice is dominated by temperate climate studies at the latitudes of Perth | Melbourne | Germany | Arcata, California etc.
- shkkmo 3y ago
  > As I mentioned in a peer comment I'm more interested in tropical | equatorial performance Perhaps you should qualify your statements, because this: > Currently panels drop to 80% efficacy after 10 years and are doorstops in 20 This is an unqualified factual statement and is simply not true. > Your average degradation figures are the figures from big meta studies The big meta studies do show that degradation is a bit faster in higher temp environments for some kinds of panels. There is however zero evidence that solar panels will be "door stops in 20".
  - defrost 3y ago
    > There is however zero evidence that solar panels will be "door stops in 20". If you're building a large area solar farm to ship power to Singapore would you keep a panel after 20 years or door stop it? What if the peak power output for particular climatic conditions comes from lesser used cheaper PV types that degrade faster than common ones at temperate latitudes? The people studying this are coming at this with mindset of those that move 800 million tonne of iron ore per annum. My original comment was framed to indicate the interest was hyper efficient at scale deployment in specific environments .. not running a beer fridge in Melbourne.
    - shkkmo 3y ago
      > My original comment was framed to indicate the interest was hyper efficient at scale deployment in specific environments No, it wasn't. If that was your intent, you should go reread it to see why everyone else sees you making a clearly false claim that does not contribute to the discussion. > If you're building a large area solar farm to ship power to Singapore would you keep a panel after 20 years or door stop it? That's gonna depend on land value, non-panel infrastructure costs and replacement costs. If replacement costs are high then and land value and other infrastructure costs are low, then solar farms will be expanded and replacement will be delayed. If the opposite then you'll see existing panels replaced sooner. I do expect that in a couple of decades we will see solar panel reconditioning and recycling becoming increasingly important.

by shkkmo 3y ago

defrost 3y ago

As I mentioned in a peer comment I'm more interested in tropical | equatorial performance and the vast majority of PV performance studies are in temperate climates - it's not currently clear whether monocrsytalline deliver peak power in such climates .. quoting a study I have here: His work has shown that in this tropical climate, with high ambient temperatures and high humidity during the wet season, the a-Si array produces up to 20% more energy than ... (It's an ongoing bit of work ATM) The optimisation issues include other factors, the cost of panel cooling techniques Vs their benefits for one. Your average degradation figures are the figures from big meta studies such as the US Dept of Energy NREL lab Photovoltaic Degradation Rates https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf which you'll notice is dominated by temperate climate studies at the latitudes of Perth | Melbourne | Germany | Arcata, California etc.

shkkmo 3y ago
> As I mentioned in a peer comment I'm more interested in tropical | equatorial performance Perhaps you should qualify your statements, because this: > Currently panels drop to 80% efficacy after 10 years and are doorstops in 20 This is an unqualified factual statement and is simply not true. > Your average degradation figures are the figures from big meta studies The big meta studies do show that degradation is a bit faster in higher temp environments for some kinds of panels. There is however zero evidence that solar panels will be "door stops in 20".
- defrost 3y ago
  > There is however zero evidence that solar panels will be "door stops in 20". If you're building a large area solar farm to ship power to Singapore would you keep a panel after 20 years or door stop it? What if the peak power output for particular climatic conditions comes from lesser used cheaper PV types that degrade faster than common ones at temperate latitudes? The people studying this are coming at this with mindset of those that move 800 million tonne of iron ore per annum. My original comment was framed to indicate the interest was hyper efficient at scale deployment in specific environments .. not running a beer fridge in Melbourne.
  - shkkmo 3y ago
    > My original comment was framed to indicate the interest was hyper efficient at scale deployment in specific environments No, it wasn't. If that was your intent, you should go reread it to see why everyone else sees you making a clearly false claim that does not contribute to the discussion. > If you're building a large area solar farm to ship power to Singapore would you keep a panel after 20 years or door stop it? That's gonna depend on land value, non-panel infrastructure costs and replacement costs. If replacement costs are high then and land value and other infrastructure costs are low, then solar farms will be expanded and replacement will be delayed. If the opposite then you'll see existing panels replaced sooner. I do expect that in a couple of decades we will see solar panel reconditioning and recycling becoming increasingly important.