Solar panels will "Suck energy from the sun"

Rilot · 8 Jan 2020 at 11:36

I don't normally post news items but this one just made me stare, unblinking at my screen for about a minute while my brain wresled with the utter stupidity of what I was reading.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-up-all-the-energy-from-the-sun-a6771526.html

A town council in the US has rejected plans for a solar farm because..... The panels will "suck energy from the sun and stop plants from photosynthesising."

What is truly shocking is that the person making these claims is a retied science teacher.

The makes me hark back to when a woman was on Reading local news complaining that she was worried that the proposed wind turbine at Madjeski Stadium might give her cancer and / or fall on her house...... in Caversham...... 4 miles away.

robgmun · 8 Jan 2020 at 11:38

I think we're a few thousand years away from this but it's possible

adolf hamster · 8 Jan 2020 at 11:40

it's a 2015 report, jus' sayin

that said, it's a pretty dumb thing to do regardless of what era of humanity you're living in.

Diddums · 8 Jan 2020 at 11:40

Yep. These people are out there, cooking your food, raising your kids, driving your buses. Think about that for a minute.

Puzzled · 8 Jan 2020 at 11:53

I guess any plants under the solar panels might struggle.

Hope that retired teacher hasn't seen this, soon we could be sucking up 80% of the sun rather than a measly 29%!

Orionaut · 8 Jan 2020 at 11:57

OTOH, what solar panels will do is suck (or at least intercept) energy from the ground.

An array of solar panels with (say) 20% efficiency will, pretty much by definition, absorb 20% of the incident solar energy and pump it down wires to somewhere else.

How large does a solar array have to be before this, not at all insignificant cooling effect, starts to have obvious consequences??

Terminal_Boy · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:00

Diddums said:
Yep. These people are out there, cooking your food, raising your kids, driving your buses. Think about that for a minute.

Not unless you live near Inbreeding, North Carolina, they’re not.

Or Royston, or to be fair, most of NE Hertfordshire.

NVP · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:03

Orionaut said:
OTOH, what solar panels will do is suck (or at least intercept) energy from the ground.

You are aware of shadows right?

adolf hamster · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:06

NVP said:
You are aware of shadows right?

i think what he's trying to say is that the energy that the solar panels absorb would result in local cooling of the area because that energy is getting piped off rather than just hitting the ground and warming up.

on the global scale it won't make a difference, that energy will end up as heat eventually anyway, and i suspect that any local cooling effect is going to be practically insignificant.

Orionaut · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:09

NVP said:
You are aware of shadows right?

Shadows shade the ground yes. But the sunlight is still absorbed by whatever is casting the shadow and the energy will eventually go to heat.

A solar panel is NOT a sunshade. It takes the solar energy, converts (Some of) it into electricity and then sends that electricity to somewhere else.

This is a very different thing altogether!

Orionaut · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:15

adolf hamster said:
i and i suspect that any local cooling effect is going to be practically insignificant.

Oh, I don't know about that.

An effective 20% reduction of insolation on a building could have a significant effect on the amount of energy expended in air con.

In a hot climate this might actually be more worthwhile than the electricity generated.

But what I was really asking about was large scale arrays. Something that was covering, say, a couple of square miles might well affect local weather.

NVP · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:15

Orionaut said:
Shadows shade the ground yes. But the sunlight is still absorbed by whatever is casting the shadow and the energy will eventually go to heat.

A solar panel is NOT a sunshade. It takes the solar energy, converts (Some of) it into electricity and then sends that electricity to somewhere else.

This is a very different thing altogether!

From a higher level, that 20% piped elsewhere will dissipate into multiple forms of energy.

The energy absorbed into concrete buildings and tarmac etc. Will dissipate as heat which also intercepts energy from the ground and I think was the point you were making.

Orionaut · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:21

NVP said:
From a higher level, that 20% piped elsewhere will dissipate into multiple forms of energy.

The energy absorbed into concrete buildings and tarmac etc. Will dissipate as heat which also intercepts energy from the ground and I think was the point you were making.

All energy degrades to heat.

That's one of the reasons why I have always been doubtful over the supposed benefits of low energy lightbulbs in an environment that needs space heating for much of the year and where the drive is to go all electric anyway.

But I suppose it makes people feel good!

Cities have always experienced "Heat Island" effects that can be really very significant. What I am suggesting is that large scale solar arrays (Say, City sized ones) might well have "Cold Island" effects. in humid weather one might actually get idiosyncratic rainfall or even small storms.

I am just wondering if anybody has ever done any studies on this?? (And what the results of those studies might be)

bazzabear · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:27

Orionaut said:
This is a very different thing altogether!

Everyone join in!

This is a very different thing!

#Airplane

Amnesia · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:29

Rilot said:
a retied science teacher.

Maybe she was asked to retire early for her stupidity.

NVP · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:30

Orionaut said:
Cities have always experienced "Heat Island" effects that can be really very significant. What I am suggesting is that large scale solar arrays (Say, City sized ones) might well have "Cold Island" effects. in humid weather one might actually get idiosyncratic rainfall or even small storms.

Ah ok, now I understand your stance.

BowdonUK · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:38

I've never understood why solar power hasn't been fully harnessed. I remember using a solar powered calculator in school in the 1980s. It only had a small solar strip on it yet powered the calculator as long as it had light.

There doesn't seem to have been much research done on solar power technology i.e. to maximise the power charge from the smallest strip possible. It's like its been held back. I did find yesterday on Amazon solar powered cctv outside cameras. I'd never understood why they used to sell wifi enabled cameras when they had to still be powered by a plug, or you had to go outside and bring them in to charge them.

Research in to solar panels as been very slow.

wolfie138 · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:38

Rilot said:
I don't normally post news items but this one just made me stare, unblinking at my screen for about a minute while my brain wresled with the utter stupidity of what I was reading.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-up-all-the-energy-from-the-sun-a6771526.html

A town council in the US has rejected plans for a solar farm because..... The panels will "suck energy from the sun and stop plants from photosynthesising."

What is truly shocking is that the person making these claims is a retied science teacher.

The makes me hark back to when a woman was on Reading local news complaining that she was worried that the proposed wind turbine at Madjeski Stadium might give her cancer and / or fall on her house...... in Caversham...... 4 miles away.

you're not reading it right.
"During the Woodland Town Council meeting, one local man, Bobby Mann, said solar farms would suck up all the energy from the sun"
and
"Jane Mann, a retired science teacher, said she was concerned the panels would prevent plants in the area from photosynthesizing, stopping them from growing. Ms Mann said she had seen areas near solar panels where plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight" which actually makes sense.

Orionaut · 8 Jan 2020 at 12:46

bazzabear said:
#Airplane

LOL

Haven't watched Airplane for a while. Must have a Video night sometime (Do people still call them Video nights??)

wolfie138 said:
Ms Mann said she had seen areas near solar panels where plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight" which actually makes sense.

Or, as I am suggesting, have the plants been unfavourably chilled??

Psycho Sonny · 8 Jan 2020 at 13:19

Orionaut said:
All energy degrades to heat.

That's one of the reasons why I have always been doubtful over the supposed benefits of low energy lightbulbs in an environment that needs space heating for much of the year and where the drive is to go all electric anyway.

But I suppose it makes people feel good!

Cities have always experienced "Heat Island" effects that can be really very significant. What I am suggesting is that large scale solar arrays (Say, City sized ones) might well have "Cold Island" effects. in humid weather one might actually get idiosyncratic rainfall or even small storms.

I am just wondering if anybody has ever done any studies on this?? (And what the results of those studies might be)

How can you not understand that having low energy bulbs means you are using heat and energy more efficiently?

For example lets say I need the heating on 6 months of the year. Then 6 months of the year I'm wasting the heat off lighbulbs.

So only of use 6 months of the year. The other 6 months you are wasting energy.

Then you have to factor in gas is much cheaper than electricity. So I'd rather my gas central heating was heating the home than my lightbulbs.

In fact it would be better to run a mining machine for heating which offsets heating costs for a profit or break even than paying for heating.

So no light bulbs are not the answer to heating your home.