A 100MW solar farm in Texas will mount panels directly on the ground

Re:A 100MW solar farm in Texas will mount panels directly on... by JoeAltmaier on Saturday December 10, 2022 @06:50AM (#33931788)

From one point of view, they are exactly as efficient as tilted panels? If your metric is sunlight intercepted per acre, then 100% is as good as it gets.

Tilting gets a better angle of incidence with the sun, which matters if that improves conversion rate (does it?).

If you have plenty of land and cheap panels, then your metric might be dollars-per-watt. Then this solution is a big step up. Less cost per install means more money for acres. You end up with more acres installed, you have more electricity.

And I suspect this is the right metric for some areas (like Texas), since panels are cheaper every year and they have plenty of acres.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A 100MW solar farm in Texas will mount panels directly on... by vagrantJin on Saturday December 10, 2022 @11:20PM (#33940034)

> Less cost per install means more money for acres.

Less cost smells like cutting corners in this case. Kinda of like saying concrete and rebar are expensive and you could build a bigger house without them.

Is that true though?

Flat panels may be good enough but slapping such a high tech piece of equipment on the groud sounds suspiciously too good to be true. I suspect the cost per panel to be insanely high if not upfront then in maintenance.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A 100MW solar farm in Texas will mount panels directly on... by JoeAltmaier on Tuesday December 13, 2022 @09:51AM (#33969574)

Cheap, cheap hi-tech. That's the trend and it is inevitable it will change the sweet spot for installation techniques.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A 100MW solar farm in Texas will mount panels directly on... by vagrantJin on Monday December 19, 2022 @06:53AM (#34051067)

Do you really believe that though?

Slapping high tech panels on the ground seems peculiar.

[ Parent | on HN ]