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To: Willie Green
The sun's output is 100 mw under ideal conditions. When the birds crap on your solar cell array or bugs land on it, output goes to squat. Dust is similar. Clouds? Winter sun angles? Leakage current in solar diodes due to heat?
9 posted on 12/16/2002 5:59:48 PM PST by RLK
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To: RLK
Gee
Those can be a problem, but if you take a bit of time each day or weekend....you can stay ahead.
I have a small place that is solar (due to high cost power lines) we put on solar with 'salvage" or free panels and batteries purchased from a golf course for "scrap" value.

Not a big thing, but do-able

Have fun
10 posted on 12/16/2002 6:14:00 PM PST by ASOC
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To: RLK; boris
Along these same lines, I once saw a guy with a big frensel lens (I think that's what it was, sort of opaque looking and had grooves in it. Like what you would see in an old overhead projector maybe.) melt concrete..

If you could focus several of those, could you boil enough water with them to run a small steam turbine?

Hey, it melted concrete..

?

12 posted on 12/16/2002 6:21:28 PM PST by Jhoffa_
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To: RLK
When the birds crap on your solar cell array or bugs land on it, output goes to squat.

What are you talking about? Even if there were a completely opaque obstruction on part of the glass, panels are partitioned into zones and the other zones are unaffected.

I just cleaned bird stuff off a panel today. There was no measurable effect on output whatsoever. The solar insolation simply refracted under the spot and onto the photovoltaic grid. This was easily apparent looking at the silicon cell from the side. The cleaning is more so humans feel better about it than anything, although I'm sure a big enough bird could cause problems, but then that would cause problems on your windshield too.

Please explain the statement "The sun's output is 100 mw". Seems to me that if the sun can heat up the earth from so far away it must be greater than that.

15 posted on 12/16/2002 6:30:31 PM PST by steve86
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