US Army deploys its first floating solar array

Re:US Army deploys its first floating solar array by vastbinderj on Friday June 17, 2022 @04:11PM (#31783637)

I run a 46 panel array on my rooftop at my home in Florida. On a good day it generates around 80 kWh. On a cloudy day, 35-45 kWh. On stormy days it generates about 15 kWh. It cost me $40,000. At night, it generates no power, but needs a 20amp AC connection for the controller and 60 amps for the micro inverters.

I save about $50-80 a month on my electric bill. Solar in its current incarnation is not ready to power the world, it destroys the biome in which the panels are deployed, costs an awful lot to fabricate....

I am more interested in personal nuclear energy or recycled nuclear energy production. Solar is a distraction that when you start asking the right questions, feels more like gas-lighting than a solution to renewable sources of energy.

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Re:US Army deploys its first floating solar array by bojan on Friday June 17, 2022 @04:35PM (#31783974)

That sounds horribly expensive. I have a 12 panel array here in the Netherlands, and I paid € 3500 for it.

There was no biome on my roof that I was aware of.

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Re:US Army deploys its first floating solar array by ncmncm on Friday June 17, 2022 @07:40PM (#31785879)

You paid over 2x, too.

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Re:US Army deploys its first floating solar array by ncmncm on Friday June 17, 2022 @06:55PM (#31785519)

You can buy a pallet-load of 45 350W-peak panels for under $7000 nowadays. A used Nissan Leaf at 60% battery capacity is another $7000, and a converter/inverter to charge/discharge it is under $1000.

Furthermore: personal nukes will never happen. And, solar does not destroy biomes. And, its cost to fabricate is still falling at an exponential rate. So, you are zero for three, and paid too much.

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Re:US Army deploys its first floating solar array by nomel on Friday June 17, 2022 @04:57PM (#31784278)

Lets say 50kWh/day average, giving 1,500kWh/month. If it's only saving $65 on your electricity, doesn't that mean your electricity is around 4c/kWh? My math must be wrong. Are there other fees, or did you also include the payment for the panels?

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Re:US Army deploys its first floating solar array by vastbinderj on Thursday June 23, 2022 @09:23PM (#31856939)

A few points, my array was installed in 2018, so fairly recently. It still is one of the largest home arrays my installer, PES Solar maintains.

This amount of money I save on my monthly bill is the amount of money my local electric company pays me for the electricity the array generates. The way I was forced to install my array is such that it feeds the grid directly. They deduct this from my monthly bill where my home generally uses around 4500 kWh.

Now, I think they are not giving me fair market value for the electricity and I'm looking into purchasing either Tesla Powerwalls or another brand so I'm drawing from a battery bank and the array before drawing from the grid.

However, my conclusions at this time are that Solar is NOT ready for primary home usage unless you want to live a subsistence lifestyle.

I don't want panels in a field or on a lake for the same reasons I don't like our current versions of pavement or cement. Everything under it dies. Further, birds above the arrays are killed. This is not a reasonable alternative to energy dense fossil fuel yet.

We need to be more creative and realistic in our future energy sources.

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