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I'm not really following your point. If the land/space is not the bottleneck but the grid, then that makes the idea of leaving old panels in place all the bette
by gwern 3y ago
I'm not really following your point. If the land/space is not the bottleneck but the grid, then that makes the idea of leaving old panels in place all the better. As the electrical output falls by the aging panels and underutilizes your grid connection, you could just top them up with new panels, up to the limit of your grid connection (putting them in the spare land you have by stipulation).
The question would seem to be, at what point is the marginal profit from the trickle of electricity from fully-depreciated old panels less than the cost of ripping them out & selling the scrap? Presumably there is such a point, as the old solar panels increasingly approach zero electrical output, if their materials aren't so worthless as to not even be worth the cost of scrapping.
- londons_explore 3y agoUnfortunately, electrical grids are very rules and procedures based. I could totally imagine that most installations aren't allowed to top up a few old solar farms with new panels without also bringing the rest of the farm up to modern standards re: fire and electrical safety. Also, I could totally imagine that grid connections are based on the manufacturers rated power output, and not the lowered output because the panels are old.
- gwern 3y agoIf grids are very conservative, that would also seem to suggest that grid operators would want existing solar farms topped up rather than replaced - old debugged solar farms declining, to be replaced by excitingly untested new ones, seems like an unnecessary risk? Compared to if one could just instead just slot in the new solar panels one by one, gradually, incrementally, into old trusty solar farms...