As someone living in the further north, the issue of sun not going above the horizon for months at a time makes them a non-starter without 100% coverage from other sources, making them rather expensive without externalizing the costs to someone else
Depending on the location, there could be sources of geothermal energy, like Iceland. There are also various prototypical approaches at storing solar energy for the winter months, like molten salt (obviously a bit too spicy outside of industrial settings), or generating hydrogen and storing it in iron ore. The latter approach was recently pioneered by ETH Zürich.
I don't live nearly that far north and the low sun angle for much of the year frequent cloud cover and couple weeks a year that a panel will have snow on it adds up to it just not being economically viable vs other generation methods. If you DIY the whole thing out of used panels and other low cost parts then it makes good sense but that is a huge time sink but that's kind of the exception. I hate my utility and look into stuff like this every year or so so it's not like I'm using 2010 numbers for panel prices either.
Have you also considered putting the solar panels straight up? This when using bifacial solar panels. Might help with getting the snow off. People started using them as fences, though you need the space/land for that.
Also, the various times I noticed talk about solar panels in the US it seems it is way overpriced, coupled with more expensive options being chosen. E.g. loads of micro inverters where a string inverter would make way more sense (economical).
Not affiliated, but e.g. https://www.solar-bouwmarkt.nl/ (use Google Translate), how do those prices compare to what you're seeing locally for panels and string inverters?
The other half needs energy too though! And high-latitude areas are known to have dense enough populations and exceedingly high economic productivity, from Sweden to Ireland to New England.
It could be viable to generate biofuels using solar energy and use these for heating. One would get the best of both worlds - carbon neutrality and the possibility to use existing infrastructure. But it requires that the price for biofuels falls below the price for fossil fuels.
>It’s economically viable to place them further north and in cloudier climates now
Which it really isn't unless we're neglecting to count in the need for long-term backup power. There still exists some amount of solar even now, though government subsidies and government provided peaker plants may have something to do with it
> Which it really isn't unless we're neglecting to count in the need for long-term backup power.
But that's not what the topic, no? It was about economically viable. It wasn't about fully relying on them. If someone can buy or place a solar panels/plant and it is economically feasible, then it is.
E.g. EU is finally connecting the various electrical grids together. So that electricity can more easily be exported/imported. Yet another way to deal with the fluctuations.
Connecting the various electrical grids together makes each part dependent on the grid as a whole, which transfers the dependencies and risk to each nation. When supply in the grid is low, everyone rushes to bid on the limited resources and prices spikes, leading to high instability in prices. Last time that happened the collective nations of EU spent ~800 billions in subsidies during a few months to bail citizens out, and multiple elections was won or lost based on the willingness to spend subsidies. Following that, grid taxation increased steeply in order to both cover the subsidies and build out new fossil fueled power plants and fuel supply chains in order to handle the next time supply drop.
It is not a perfect way to deal with fluctuations, and it was proven beyond doubt that voters will not accept power prices to run unchecked in a EU connected grid.
The irony of interconnected grids to "reduce volatility" is that any place that previously had a stable grid with low prices are suddenly seeing the exported volatility from the German energy suicide experiment crossing the borders to rape their wallets
> If someone can buy or place a solar panels/plant and it is economically feasible, then it is.
"then it is" what? economically viable? He still needs 100% backup from other sources, so you have to factor that cost in. Possible? Yeah, it's possible, but that wasn't the question.
> "then it is" what? economically viable? He still needs 100% backup from other sources, so you have to factor that cost in.
Nope, you do not need to factor that in. If I put solar panels on my house, I check if it's worth the cost/investment. I am not intending to go fully off-grid, that is not the aim. Similarly for a solar plant. If it's economically viable it means if there's a good return on investment.
> He still needs 100% backup from other sources, so you have to factor that cost in.
Again, if you put solar panels up or if you have a solar plant it does not make any sense to factor in such costs to make a business case/economical sense. You're adding complications that aren't there.
Globally it's the US that is the exception. Solars fall apart elsewhere be it solar irradiance or population density or prevalence of flying debris or whatever it might be.
Only in the US, Australia, and few other places it makes sense to just put up some panels for free energy. Incidentally also sometimes apply to EV arguments.
The next option for you would be to take the panels that you would have used and put them in an area where they work better.
Use the extra electricity to power machines that hydrogenate CO2 extracted from the atmosphere and turn it into methane.
Methane generated this way, (being the principal content of natural gas), would allow us to deliver nearly carbon-free fossil fuels to you and people in your biome, and everyone wins.
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