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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Completed Research
Forum: The Clean Energy Project - Phase 2 Forum
Thread: Interesting News Articles Related To Solar Energy |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 122
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Saw an interesting foreign language news piece flashing by where it said that 70% of all added energy generation capacity in Europe in 2011 had come from wind/solar/hydroelectric and a bit a of bio fuel. The leader is Germany who've now 21.x Gigawatts running. Found only a blurb in English at the Daily Kos for the solar bit: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/26/1095...he-equivalent-of-20-nukes
Snip: Norbert Allnoch, director of the Institute of the Renewable Energy Industry (IWR) in Muenster, said the 22 gigawatts of solar power per hour fed into the national grid on Saturday met nearly 50 percent of the nation's midday electricity needs. "Never before anywhere has a country produced as much photovoltaic electricity," Allnoch told Reuters. "Germany came close to the 20 gigawatt (GW) mark a few times in recent weeks. But this was the first time we made it over." The record-breaking amount of solar power shows one of the world's leading industrial nations was able to meet a third of its electricity needs on a work day, Friday, and nearly half on Saturday when factories and offices were closed. One-Third of the electricity needs is pretty darn impressive, and on a workday. --//-- |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Yes, I think Germany is a great example that moving towards renewable energy - which is clean and sustainable - is in fact a realistic goal. One should not forget that Germany is an industrial nation with a massive economy and consequently considerable energy consumption. At the same time it is not exactly blessed with excessive sunshine. Yet, the Germans manage to go green without breaking their economy or quality of life. Magical things can happen if there is political will and a society that supports it.
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l_mckeon
Senior Cruncher Joined: Oct 20, 2007 Post Count: 439 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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@Sekerob
"Saw an interesting foreign language news piece flashing by where it said that 70% of all added energy generation capacity in Europe in 2011 had come from wind/solar/hydroelectric and a bit a of bio fuel. The leader is Germany who've now 21.x Gigawatts running. Found only a blurb in English at the Daily Kos for the solar bit: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/26/1095...he-equivalent-of-20-nukes" That's probably peak-power Watts, but you'll only get that for four or five hours per day if the weather is decent, whereas a nuclear plant has an overall availability of 90% plus, according to American figures. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
@l_mckeon In the spirit of the thread, can you provide any articles/links supporting your speculation disputing the available wattage?"That's probably peak-power Watts, but you'll only get that for four or five hours per day if the weather is decent, whereas a nuclear plant has an overall availability of 90% plus, according to American figures." |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Germany actually gets most of its renewable energy from wind power, which is a bit more constant than solar power. Grid stability, i.e., the balance of centralized power generation in big wind parks in the North Sea vs decentralized power generation via rooftop solar cells (in particular in the sunny south) is a big challenge for renewable energy technology. Energy storage and supply of peak-demand are related aspects. Getting this right is not cheap in the short run, but I'm very glad that Germany is willing to spearhead this effort.
Here are a decent summaries on this topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?mai...ticle&article_id=3227 The 22GW were indeed peak-power, although the nominal capacity is already a good bit higher (I think around 30GW). Best wishes from Your Harvard CEP team |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The 22GW were indeed peak-power, although the nominal capacity is already a good bit higher (I think around 30GW). Begs the question: When are you guys going to start a grid project to identify materials suitable for use in superconductors, batteries, and capacitive devices?Best wishes from Your Harvard CEP team Although if you're in a hurry I don't suppose it would be a terrible amount of effort to make a couple of formula mods in order to review the existing polymer collection for useful thermal, capacitance, and conductance/charge-transfer properties. |
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l_mckeon
Senior Cruncher Joined: Oct 20, 2007 Post Count: 439 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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That's probably peak-power Watts, but you'll only get that for four or five hours per day if the weather is decent, whereas a nuclear plant has an overall availability of 90% plus, according to American figures. If you Google search "Germany insolation map" an eyeball average would be around 1100kWh/m^2. Dividing by 365 gives around 3 kWh of solar energy per square meter per day. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi ibsteve2u,
we'd love to expand in that direction, but it's a) not quite as simple as you make it sound, and b) we already have our hands full as it is. But it's certainly not forgotten. Hi l_mckeon, you might find this article interesting: http://www.ez2c.de/ml/solar_land_area/ The progress in Germany is nice and encouraging, but at the end of the day China and the USA are the key pieces that need to be moved in a sustainable direction. Best wishes from Your Harvard CEP team |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hi ibsteve2u, My apologies...didn't mean to entangle your photons with your phonons. we'd love to expand in that direction, but it's a) not quite as simple as you make it sound, and b) we already have our hands full as it is. But it's certainly not forgotten. Best wishes from Your Harvard CEP team  |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Oh, no problem - we are glad that you guys keep us on our toes ;).
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