“A thousand watts per square meter...”
Really? Thats serious energy.
The poor fellow I told you of ewas a doctor who ran a clinic. he had 2 panels in the roof and all he had in the clinic on electricity was a refrigerator(with vaccine inside) and a single compact fluoresent light bulb. He lamented that he could not run both off the solar panels and had to shut the clinic at nightfall.
1000 watts is a lot of power
“A thousand watts per square meter...”
That is at 100% efficiency. We can only get about 15% at the moment, and that only during part of the day.
Well, not really. The earth’s distance from the sun allows it to have around 1366 W/M2 ABOVE the atmosphere. This sounds like a lot but one has to factor in many conditions.
On average, approximately half of this insolation is scattered, reflected, or absorbed by clouds and other phenomena. Furthermore, location, latitude, time of year, and local conditions must also be taken into consideration. The amount must also be divided in half to account for night. Lastly, conversion losses from DC to AC, storage drain, and transmission losses must be factored in.
Conversely, the conversion efficiency of the photovoltaic cells must be considered. These currently range from 5-25%. This should exceed 50% within the next three years, pending recent developments.
For example, Phoenix, AZ can expect around 6600 Watts per square meter per day on average throughout the year. This translates into an average of 550 Watts per sq meter every hour of daylight. OTOH, Chicago only averages 3100 Watts per sq meter per day throughout the year (258 watts per hour).
Now let`s look back at this poor doctor. His panels probably didn`t produce more than 1000 watts per day. If he had a small refrigerator, like a 4 cubit foot unit, that alone sucks up 1000 watts per day. No wonder he was screwed.