Apple's NC Solar Farm to Utilize High-Efficiency SunPower Panels, Online as Soon as October

[Arne]

Maybe but you gotta start sometime.
The first few years/decade will be the most expensive but in the long run, it will make the technology cheaper for the masses.

I'm not referring to the money. If you want green energy, you want to keep these cells running for as long as possible. If you keep replacing them whenever there is a technological improvement, there is lithe benefit from that.

 

[jwhazel]

Creating Bio Gas is not a difficult or unproven technology and the Grass grows using Solar Power or also called Sunshine, you might have noticed and the neat thing that Cows even **** in the Dark, and the Bio Gas is available even if the Sun dose not shine, which is around 60% of the time (24hours) which the Datacenter will be running.
And if you uses the Bio Gas in the BloomEnergy Fuel Cells which deserve the Name Efficient. That is Future Technology developed for the Mars Mission. Your Marketing might actually be telling the Truth, instead of BS.

Well how bout this. I'll set up my grid of innefficient solar panels and you obtain your land, harvest crops year round, and shovel cow dung into your expensive fuel cell. At the end of the day we both have power to our homes, but one of us did zero work and the other smells like cow ****. 😉

 

[ChristianVirtual]

Well how bout this. I'll set up my grid of innefficient solar panels and you obtain your land, harvest crops year round, and shovel cow dung into your expensive fuel cell. At the end of the day we both have power to our homes, but one of us did zero work and the other smells like cow ****. 😉

Just put some cows around the panels; more efficiency 😛

 

[MattInOz]

To put it into perspective to non-Mechanical Engineers, an ideal Carnot Thermodynamic Cycle for a Power Plant is 44.5%. In reality, a far lower efficiency of Work/Heat for an ideal Nuclear Power Plant is possible.

An highly efficient Engine for an Otto Cycle you'd see in a Car is only 27%. Typically, it's around 22%.

Solar Panels are going to leap frog both. The hate for their superior efficiencies will be drowned out by the cost efficiencies of their systems in real world conditions.

And those numbers are from when the fuel arrives in the engine, with no accounting for supply and any processing done. Then you have the distribution side as well. So a tech that is 20% efficient but on the roof with little to no resource demands after installation could be more efficient than one that is twice as efficient and 100km away with heavy resource demands.

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Well how bout this. I'll set up my grid of innefficient solar panels and you obtain your land, harvest crops year round, and shovel cow dung into your expensive fuel cell. At the end of the day we both have power to our homes, but one of us did zero work and the other smells like cow ****. 😉

If dairy cows can be trained to walk to the dairy at their appointed milking time, why can't they be trained to poop in the most efficient place to feed the bio-fuel reactor?

 

[Nostromo]

Excellent.

Apple joins the future-minded fans of clean energy and less dependency of the crazy oil sheikhs and oil mullahs.

 

[Liquorpuki]

And those numbers are from when the fuel arrives in the engine, with no accounting for supply and any processing done. Then you have the distribution side as well. So a tech that is 20% efficient but on the roof with little to no resource demands after installation could be more efficient than one that is twice as efficient and 100km away with heavy resource demands.

But when the sun goes down, your solar efficiency goes to zero. Meanwhile your power plant stays running.

To be fair there are two efficiencies to consider. First is energy conversion (panel efficiency). Second is capacity factor. Capacity factor of solar is 15-20%. Capacity factor of nuclear/conventional = 90%. Meaning this solar panel is converting 20% of energy received from a source that's only reliable 15-20% of the time anyway. It's a fraction of a fraction gained.

In the end, all that 20% panel efficiency means is that Apple was able to build a 20MW solar farm in a smaller space.

 

[jwhazel]

If dairy cows can be trained to walk to the dairy at their appointed milking time, why can't they be trained to poop in the most efficient place to feed the bio-fuel reactor?

Haha... I grew up on a farm. Cows aren't house pets. The thought of trying to train them where to crap...😀

Seriously though, I'm not against biofuel. Its just that grid parity on solar is way lower, eapecially when the "bloom cell" is brought into the equation. Theres the added plus 100% of solar work input energy is done by the sun with no interaction required. Give me solar, hydro, geothermal, tidal, etc any day od the week over shoveling cow ****. 😛

 

[jimbobb24]

Would be kind of silly to use the old and busted not ultra high efficientcy ones, wouldn't it?

 

[Maury]

I thought Spectrolab had produced panels up to 40% efficiency back in 2007. What happened to them?

Only hits 40% under 1000 suns of illumination. To get that, you need massive 2-axis mirror or lens systems. They cost more than just buying more 20% panels instead.

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But when the sun goes down, your solar efficiency goes to zero. Meanwhile your power plant stays running.

And as a large data center is literally stuffed to the gills with enormous batteries, who cares?

Solar + UPS = perfect

 

[jimbobb24]

To put it into perspective to non-Mechanical Engineers, an ideal Carnot Thermodynamic Cycle for a Power Plant is 44.5%. In reality, a far lower efficiency of Work/Heat for an ideal Nuclear Power Plant is possible.

An highly efficient Engine for an Otto Cycle you'd see in a Car is only 27%. Typically, it's around 22%.

Solar Panels are going to leap frog both. The hate for their superior efficiencies will be drowned out by the cost efficiencies of their systems in real world conditions.

This may happen and would be awesome, but they have to be cheaper without government subsidies than natural gas - which is YEARS AND YEARS off. We just pull this stuff out of the ground and burn it - its cheap and we have an insane amount of it.

The second problem is 20% with max sunlight is still not alot of energy - going to take up lots more land than a plant burning natural gas 24*7.

I did research on photovoltaic cells when I was 12 for a school project and met with an engineer and at that time (25 years ago) the efficientcy was <1%. Impressive, albeit slow gains. I hope it continues. Every source of cheap affordable energy is a good one.

 

[Maury]

someone with knowledge of solar panels how do they differ from these 2 that say they have higher efficiency?

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/08/two-us-startups-break-solar-efficiency-records-aim-to-light-up/

These are not production systems, they're basically a single cell encapsulated in the plastic they *would* use in a panel, for testing.

There's no way to know they can actually make an actual panel at this efficiency and at a price that makes it worth while.

Time will tell. I've been watching this and the quantum dot guys very carefully.

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20% Efficiency is a Oxymoron.
even if 20% is the best we can do with Solar it is not efficient.

Ummm. Does anyone know what this is supposed to mean?

That is Marketing BS and nothing else. You could probably reach a higher efficiency by grown hay on the plot of land feeding Cattle an using there **** to fuel a Bloom Energy Fuelcell with the Biogas.

Photosynthesis can do between 3 and 6%.

These panels kick plant ass.

Yes, I saw the smiley.

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I did research on photovoltaic cells when I was 12 for a school project and met with an engineer and at that time (25 years ago) the efficientcy was <1%.

10% systems were common 25 years ago.

They still are, many of the panels built 25 years ago are still in use.

 

[MattInOz]

But when the sun goes down, your solar efficiency goes to zero. Meanwhile your power plant stays running.

To be fair there are two efficiencies to consider. First is energy conversion (panel efficiency). Second is capacity factor. Capacity factor of solar is 15-20%. Capacity factor of nuclear/conventional = 90%. Meaning this solar panel is converting 20% of energy received from a source that's only reliable 15-20% of the time anyway. It's a fraction of a fraction gained.

In the end, all that 20% panel efficiency means is that Apple was able to build a 20MW solar farm in a smaller space.

Capacity Factor comes about because our current model means everyone expects power on demand. So we end up generating a vast over supply to make sure that is true. The glut ends up wasted.

I guess if Apple had some demands in the data centres that could make use of the glut power they could sign a contract to sell the 15% of capacity that is reliable and use the rest themselves.

 

[Liquorpuki]

Capacity Factor comes about because our current model means everyone expects power on demand. So we end up generating a vast over supply to make sure that is true. The glut ends up wasted.

I guess if Apple had some demands in the data centres that could make use of the glut power they could sign a contract to sell the 15% of capacity that is reliable and use the rest themselves.

Not really. There are power plants that supply base power and are always on and additional plants that are turned on/off as needed. There is no real glut.

And that 15% generated power is all there is, there's nothing beyond that. It's also an average. So for a 20 MW solar farm, Apple will generate 3 MW over time. If it was using a 20 MW conventional plant with a 90% capacity factor, it would be generating 18 MW over time.

Meanwhile its data center needs 100 MW to run.

 

[Xtremehkr]

This should help dispel misconceptions that solar power isn't ready for widespread implementation in the economy yet. Apple leads again.

 

[Rocketman]

If Apple wanted to be a bit forward leaning on this issue, they could issue a brief white paper on the installation specifications and vendors and issues so others could duplicate their efforts.

I for one think solar and wind is far too small potatoes and too capital intensive to ever matter, but plenty of governments and firms don't care about economics. They are true believers and will install it despite any fact.

If you want to solve the real problem, just buy about 1000 local neighborhood nukes from Toshiba (cannot melt down) and provide 20-30 years of fully green BASE LOAD power to large sections of the United States, starting with where poor people live, and where air pollution is worst.

Rocketman

 

[Liquorpuki]

And as a large data center is literally stuffed to the gills with enormous batteries, who cares?

Solar + UPS = perfect

100 MW Data Center. 20 MW Solar installation, which actually turns out to be something like 3-4 usable MW because of the capacity factor.

Meaning Apple still has to buy like 96 MW of electricity from Duke Energy just to keep their data center from going down.

So why would they store what little energy they generate?

 

[motulist]

Creating Bio Gas is not a difficult or unproven technology and the Grass grows using Solar Power or also called Sunshine, you might have noticed and the neat thing that Cows even **** in the Dark, and the Bio Gas is available even if the Sun dose not shine, which is around 60% of the time (24hours) which the Datacenter will be running.
And if you uses the Bio Gas in the BloomEnergy Fuel Cells which deserve the Name Efficient. That is Future Technology developed for the Mars Mission. Your Marketing might actually be telling the Truth, instead of BS.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Burning any type of hydrocarbon for electricity generation, be it burning bio gas, coal, or gasoline, only ever has an efficiency between 30 to 60%, and usually is only around 30 to 40%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil-fuel_power_station#Heat_into_mechanical_energy

Fuel Cells which deserve the Name Efficient. That is Future Technology developed for the Mars Mission. Your Marketing might actually be telling the Truth, instead of BS.

Energy captured from solar can and is extremely easily converted into hydrogen for use in fuel cells just as well it can come from any hydrocarbon.

But more importantly, you're not fully understanding the meaning behind the word "efficiency" in this context. When you burn a fuel at any quoted percentage of efficiency then you've captured that percent of potential energy that was stored in the fuel - but you're still burning fuel, which creates significant amounts of pollution, and this doesn't include ANY of the energy input that's required to refine and deliver that fuel to the power plant, and it also says nothing about the additional environmental pollution that's generated in that process as well.

However, when you capture any percentage of solar power, then you've simply captured that percent of energy which was *already* arriving to that spot on the earth anyway, and which creates zero amounts of pollution to acquire after the panels have been manufactured delivered and setup.

It really is a no brainer. Its benefit is made obvious by the fact that many private companies are spending very large amounts of money to build their own non-fossil fuel power plants. They wouldn't do it if it wasn't going to save them money, and whatever small bit of good press they get from it wouldn't come anywhere close to making it worth their investment in building those power plants.

 

[RicD]

...Farm to Utilize High-Efficiency...

Folks enough with the word "Utilize". Use, use, used, and using.

Using utilize instead of use makes one sound pompous and illiterate. So, if you want to continue using utilize I guess we all will utilize utilize instead of utilizing use. D'oh!

 

[bopifas]

I hope that it uses a modular design, so that in a few years, when they are capable of producing 25% or even 30% efficient cells, that they can be easily swapped out.

Why would you want to invest in solar only to swap out panels in a few years?
You would be making a foolish investment.

In order get a good return on your investment you would want to keep the same system for 20+ years. Buying a solar electric system based of the efficiency of the panels isn't necessarily the best solution. What you should be most concerned about is cost effectiveness.

If you can get more kWh more less money with a less efficient panel why would you pay more? Bragging rights?

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someone with knowledge of solar panels how do they differ from these 2 that say they have higher efficiency?

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/08/two-us-startups-break-solar-efficiency-records-aim-to-light-up/

SunPower is claiming they have the most efficient crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells.

The link you referenced was a story about gallium arsenide based photovoltaic cells.

 

[hansende]

I think we will only be able to access the icloud on sunny days?

 

[bopifas]

20% Efficiency is a Oxymoron.
even if 20% is the best we can do with Solar it is not efficient.
That is Marketing BS and nothing else. You could probably reach a higher efficiency by grown hay on the plot of land feeding Cattle an using there **** to fuel a Bloom Energy Fuelcell with the Biogas.
But it its harder to Market if you had write "Powered by ****" even if they are saying the same with 20% Efficiency.

😛

Are you aware of the efficiency of the internal combustion engine in the vehicle you drive to work everyday? How efficient do you think it is?
Do you even care?

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I think we will only be able to access the icloud on sunny days?

Most solar electric grid-tied so Apple will always has access to energy from the utility in the region.

 

[bretm]

Excellent.

Apple joins the future-minded fans of clean energy and less dependency of the crazy oil sheikhs and oil mullahs.

Except coal is still the main producer of electricity here. Shame on Apple for putting all those coal miners and generation plant workers out of work.

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Folks enough with the word "Utilize". Use, use, used, and using.

Using utilize instead of use makes one sound pompous and illiterate. So, if you want to continue using utilize I guess we all will utilize utilize instead of utilizing use. D'oh!

Just who is sounding pompous?

 

[imageWIS]

Well, not only that but cows polute and use a crap load of natural resources to get big. I think it's kind of like the Matrix power source to look at cows for energy. Uhh, unless we combine it with a form of fusion.

The whole red pill, blue pill thing wouldn't work with cows since the pill would have to go through 4 stomachs... and the cows would go into replication.

 

[SuperCachetes]

Except coal is still the main producer of electricity here. Shame on Apple for putting all those coal miners and generation plant workers out of work.

Are you serious, or did you just forget to use the "sarcasm" font?

People who making a living digging **** out of the ground so we can burn it at low efficiency and fill the atmosphere with CO2 need a career change. Apple is, in theory, helping create jobs that utilize renewable energy. Bravo.

Since SunPower and Apple are two of the three stocks I bother to own, I find this whole thing pretty cool.

 

[Liquorpuki]

Except coal is still the main producer of electricity here. Shame on Apple for putting all those coal miners and generation plant workers out of work.

So Apple's supposed to make a coal mine appear under their data center.

you're smart