If you haven't heard of them by now, let me introduce you to vertical bifacial solar panels
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In short, they're a pretty new area of research, but they promise to be a superior way to arrange/install solar panels:
- The panels face east and west, meaning they generate peak power in the morning and evening, which corresponds to peak demand => less need for energy storage to bridge the gap between the mid-day peak in production from traditional PV and the aforementioned morning and evening demand peaks.
- The panels are vertical, which makes them easier and cheaper to maintain, as dust, snow, and rain naturally shed from their surfaces.
- The panels get less direct energy during mid-day, keeping their surfaces cooler. Turns out cooler solar panels are more efficient at converting light energy into electrical energy.
- The arrangement lends itself very naturally to agrivoltaics, which means you can derive more yields from a given piece of land and use less land overall than if you had segregated uses.
- The compatibility with agrivoltaics allows farmers to diversify their incomes streams and/or become energy self-sufficient.
This makes me think that rooftop systems that are bi-facial can be placed over a nicely reflective surface but is also set up with a solar concentrator at something to channel the air across the underside of the panels to help cool them. Maybe with some sort of heat sink system as well
Rooftop systems are extremely inefficient. About 5 times the cost of a utility scale system.
They primarily rely on inefficiencies in how electricity is billed and generous subsidies.
That stands to reason doesn't it? Of course a rooftop solar setup will be relatively expensive compared to someone buying thousands of panels. Or is that not what you mean?
They primarily rely on inefficiencies in how electricity is billed and generous subsidies.
Not sure what you mean by this. Which inefficiencies and subsidies?
One of the main reason for a a home system to be more expensive is storage and capacity issues.
If you take a dozen homes that all share the same energy storage it is much easier and cheaper to scale the system. They don't have to have as many panels per home and significantly less storage per home to deal with peak demand and lows in generation.
Apart from that, this guy's attitude seems to be "if its not the best then its not worth doing" which i disagree with. Also if you could make your inefficient home system a few % better.... why wouldn't you? Its not always about money
Of course a rooftop solar setup will be relatively expensive compared to someone buying thousands of panels.
That is part of it. The utility system is also much easier to install and gets much higher efficiency because they can track the sun.
Not sure what you mean by this. Which inefficiencies and subsidies?
So if we look at California as an example the average wholesale electricity price during peak solar times sits around 5 cents per KWH . That is what the grid will pay a utility scale system and that is what the grid is saving when a home-owner generates their own solar power. Sometimes, power prices even go negative and California has to pay other states to take it's power.
Meanwhile, the residential homeowner is saving more like 30 cents per KWH, the retail rate. The value of electricity should be worth the same to the grid and to the homeowner, but because the grid includes other charges with consumption there is a massive gap.
As a result, you have a system where homeowners are saving 30 cents per KWH by generating their own power, while simultaneously the grid is saving very little or even having to pay other people because it has too much power. Very inefficient.
Utility solar rarely tracks the sun. Panels are so cheap now it costs less to just build more panels rather than have a motorized system which can break and needs maintenance. In some places panels aren't even mounted, practically laid on the ground