As to dust, economies of scale make a huge difference. It’s rarely worth it, but using a farm truck to spray water across miles of panels is much more efficient than tens of thousands of homeowners doing the same.
Much of the distinctive beauty of traditional building in sunny areas comes from the roofs.
Solar tiling, which is still not a mature technology, doesn't add danger: we have to put something on a roof, and if installing solar tile takes extra time, it isn't by much. And it looks good.
Less efficient and more expensive? Sure. But as the meme would have it, it's free real estate. And since we're living through a grotesque failure of robustness on a civilizational scale, let me point out that it's more robust as well, particularly combined with on-site batteries.
people used to say wind turbines are unattractive. Culture determines what's attractive, and it can be made to look nice.
Just isn't going to compete with stuff like this.
Currently instillation is the primary, but not only risk. You also get electrical accidents and in rare cases fires. Plus an increased tendency for people to go onto a roof to check them out and or clean them etc. And some extra roof maintenance due to leaks from improper installation etc.
Personally, I don’t think it’s a major deal at the individual level. However, I thik it should be considered in terms of public policy.
The fact that you see far more home installations than farms means farms aren't economically viable, neither is home PV without subsidies, but people buy into the "empowerment" fantasy.
Im thinking just from a national security/redundancy/risk reduction standpoint it makes sense to move more generation closer to demand. There are lots of single points of failure in our power grid currently.
Edit: this is assuming the solar setup is designed to enable use when power is out; I assume homeowners who care about empowerment would make that investment, but you know what they say about assuming.
Seems easier to get a generator or a Power Wall, but either ends up being pretty expensive for handling the 2 hours of rolling blackouts for the first time in 20 years. There are also longer-term outages, maybe several hours every few years? And this is for people in population centers. Living in the mountains is a different story.
> Im thinking just from a national security/redundancy/risk reduction standpoint it makes sense to move more generation closer to demand
I'd rather put the money towards removing those single points of failure.
The price of electricity changes over the day along with demand. I don't know by how much, but maybe if the Power Wall could be used in the high-cost hours and charged in the low-cost hours, it would make a difference?
They increase efficiency a lot (up to 40% for dual-axis trackers) but they also decrease ground a lot coverage, they increase cost of installation and cost of ownership, and they decrease availability.
It's also a company which wants to sell heliostats, they're not going to tell you it sucks.
I know that this is meant to be a humorous comment, however, desert sand is not really usable for most things that we want sand for, for example, it is not suitable for concrete, since it is too fine. (https://petroleumservicecompany.com/blog/could-desert-sand-b...)
This is why, desire being in a desert, Dubai imports its sand! (https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20160502-even-desert-ci...)
There are two kinds of solar: one that adds to the existing signal from the mains, or one that is self-contained. The second kind is more complicated and therefore expensive. I wasn't aware of the distinction before, but I definitely am now.
Even a small home solar installation puts out enough power to easily kill unsuspecting maintenance personell working on the grid, for example.
So the utility company has to have 100% control over he mains at all time for safety reasons (i.e. your meter must never run backwards). If they cut the power (e.g. for maintenance or repairs), no one must be able to feed power into the grid.
That's why even if you have a battery, said battery can either feed into the grid, or be connected to separate outlets in your house, but never both at the same time.
This is controlled independently by the solar inverters's software, not the utility via any sort of signal. That software is mandated by regulation as you say for the safety of line workers. Recent batteries allow for an "islanding" mode, which allows continued backup power delivery to the house during a grid outage but cuts off the grid connection.
> your meter must never run backwards
... during a grid outage. During normal operation it's fine for it to run backwards. That's what net metering quantifies.
> said battery can either feed into the grid, or be connected to separate outlets in your house, but never both at the same time.
I think this is a technical limitation, since it would require a current divider and 2 inverters, which is a level of complexity not worth it for the application.
Hm. Different countries, different regulations I guess. In my country you have to install a second meter instead.
The setup is more expensive, and it does have to meet certain requirements, but it is definitely an option.
I don't actually know whether that's legislatively illegal, or simply banned by PG&E; but the effect is much the same.
It turns out that the same California that you criticize now requires solar on newly built homes, just as you recommend, and much to the chagrin of people who feel like the state government is impinging on individuals' rights to build however they please.
The California blackouts started around sunset, when solar dropped off the grid. Building more solar without an appropriate amount of storage just makes the problem worse.
Better to put them on home roofs, and arrange for them to be owned by the homeowners, designed so that the occupants are (literally) empowered when the grid is mismanaged, as in California.
On highway medians control is more centralized, and they would require more maintenance and cleaning, which would be more disruptive in that location.