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I get that it's a great solution for much of the world - and that is fantastic. But they were asking about its effectiveness in northern climates during winter

I get that it's a great solution for much of the world - and that is fantastic. But they were asking about its effectiveness in northern climates during winter (which I also live in). It sounds like your answer is: "it doesn't work there". If so, that's fine, we can focus on other approaches in such climates. What seems like an emerging shortsighted opinion (on HN at least) is: "it's so cheap, just use more". That doesn't really work when: - you're in a place that gets a small fraction of solar radiation during the winter - it's often overcast - the requirement for electricity for heat pumps goes up drastically during this time - the nighttime requirement is even higher, as temps can get to -20 C or lower I can't imagine the system you'd have to build to satisfy such demand with solar and battery (or similar) storage in the worst case, but I don't imagine it's "cheap".

megaman821 3y ago
There are solutions that are carbon-free; wind, enhanced geothermal (if fracking was legal in Europe), and nuclear. Solar electricity imports out of Spain or Morocco seems more feasible that solar situated in northern Europe.
cycomanic 3y ago
The OP was saying: "I don't get why solar is so popular" based on the fact it doesn't work as well in extreme Northern regions where only a tiny fraction of the world's population lives. That's sort of like saying I don't get why boats/ships are so popular because they can't drive on land.
- switchbak 3y ago
  I literally started with "I get that it's a great solution for much of the world - and that is fantastic." ... so I think I'm on board with what you're saying. I do agree that the OP sounded a little too sour on it though. And yes, I think we can all agree that Solar works well where .. it works well. The issue is many folks are pronouncing it as some kind of a panacea. The reality is that there's a lot of places where it's marginal (and needs effective dispatchable fallbacks) and others where it's just not suitable. Luckily there's comparatively few people that live in those places, so it won't make much of a difference on the environmental bottom line. But for folks like me, these distinctions are important. And "just add more solar" actually isn't a great idea, as it reduces the ROI on each panel, and there's a minimum amount of dispatchable capacity you need to keep online anyway. Sounds like it really does come down to storage at that level, most of which is still progressing to full productization.
ben_w 3y ago
Regions that get down to -20 C in a normal winter have a rounding error of the total human population in them, what with humans not functioning too well in such conditions either. There are three ways you can have winter power with PV when you're close to but south of the arctic circle: 1. more cells, which is basically fine because of the very low population density and the cheap cells. 2. storage, which you have to be careful about regardless, because (no matter how you actually store it) a month's worth of energy supply in stored form is an industrial accident waiting to happen, even if you're storing it as a petrochemical that we already have standards for. 3. transmission, which is basically fine for everyone except Russia and North Korea, because everyone else far from the equator has decent trade relations with someone closer, sometimes (US, China) it's another place inside the same country. And yes, although it would take a while to build, the losses from HVDC are low enough that this makes sense on paper. > I can't imagine the system you'd have to build to satisfy such demand with solar and battery (or similar) storage in the worst case, but I don't imagine it's "cheap". Correct, but this is why so few people live in those parts of the world in the first place: getting stuff there, and staying warm there in winter, is and always has been harder.

megaman821 3y ago

There are solutions that are carbon-free; wind, enhanced geothermal (if fracking was legal in Europe), and nuclear. Solar electricity imports out of Spain or Morocco seems more feasible that solar situated in northern Europe.

cycomanic 3y ago

The OP was saying: "I don't get why solar is so popular" based on the fact it doesn't work as well in extreme Northern regions where only a tiny fraction of the world's population lives. That's sort of like saying I don't get why boats/ships are so popular because they can't drive on land.

switchbak 3y ago
I literally started with "I get that it's a great solution for much of the world - and that is fantastic." ... so I think I'm on board with what you're saying. I do agree that the OP sounded a little too sour on it though. And yes, I think we can all agree that Solar works well where .. it works well. The issue is many folks are pronouncing it as some kind of a panacea. The reality is that there's a lot of places where it's marginal (and needs effective dispatchable fallbacks) and others where it's just not suitable. Luckily there's comparatively few people that live in those places, so it won't make much of a difference on the environmental bottom line. But for folks like me, these distinctions are important. And "just add more solar" actually isn't a great idea, as it reduces the ROI on each panel, and there's a minimum amount of dispatchable capacity you need to keep online anyway. Sounds like it really does come down to storage at that level, most of which is still progressing to full productization.

ben_w 3y ago

Regions that get down to -20 C in a normal winter have a rounding error of the total human population in them, what with humans not functioning too well in such conditions either. There are three ways you can have winter power with PV when you're close to but south of the arctic circle: 1. more cells, which is basically fine because of the very low population density and the cheap cells. 2. storage, which you have to be careful about regardless, because (no matter how you actually store it) a month's worth of energy supply in stored form is an industrial accident waiting to happen, even if you're storing it as a petrochemical that we already have standards for. 3. transmission, which is basically fine for everyone except Russia and North Korea, because everyone else far from the equator has decent trade relations with someone closer, sometimes (US, China) it's another place inside the same country. And yes, although it would take a while to build, the losses from HVDC are low enough that this makes sense on paper. > I can't imagine the system you'd have to build to satisfy such demand with solar and battery (or similar) storage in the worst case, but I don't imagine it's "cheap". Correct, but this is why so few people live in those parts of the world in the first place: getting stuff there, and staying warm there in winter, is and always has been harder.