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

[alephnull12]

No fault of macrumors.com, but how is it that journalists, such as the person writing the original article, can write an entire news article on a filing, without even bothering to reference the article with a link to the actual filing?

Journalists are so boring.

http://ncuc.commerce.state.nc.us/cg...2&suffix1=&subNumb=0&suffix2=&parm1=000137888

 

[sennekuyl]

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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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?

They **** all day, whereas they only need to be milked twice a day?

 

[justperry]

Each of the photovoltaic installations will consist of multiple SunPower E20 435-watt photovoltaic modules on ground-mounted single axis tracking systems," the filing states.

Wrong, look on their site.
That Panel deliver Max of: Peak Power (+5/-3%) Pmax 327 W

http://us.sunpowercorp.com/cs/BlobServer?blobkey=id&blobwhere=1300258525337&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadername1=Content-Type&blobheadervalue2=inline%3B+filename%3De20_327_ds_en_ltr_w.pdf&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs

20.000.000(20 MW) Watt / 327 Watt = 61162 Panels X 1.5m2 = 91.743 M2 = 9.1 Ha = 22 Acres!

They have 171 Acres to build this on and even with spacing in between there's a potential for a lot more of these panels.

Also these panels all seem to work on visible light, there are ongoing technology advances which use the far better Infrared spectrum of light so expect much better panels in the next decade.

How long does it take to offset the carbon emissions on building these panels and installing them?

 

[Can't Stop]

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 ****.

He saved a lot on sport club bills and ****.

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How long does it take to offset the carbon emissions on building these panels and installing them?

Fact is once you install them you are helping our God's green Earth.

 

[crepuscular]

How long does it take to offset the carbon emissions on building these panels and installing them?

Typically about 1-2 years.

How long does it take to offset the carbon emissions of a fossil fuel power station?
(Ironic.)

 

[justperry]

Typically about 1-2 years.

How long does it take to offset the carbon emissions of a fossil fuel power station?
(Ironic.)

I know that's much longer, it was just a question, not more, not less.

 

[Maury]

Bad idea. These cells need years until they have collected the energy that was needed to produce them...

If they are made in China using coal-fired electricity, "years" is about 3.5. If they were made in the US it's about 3. If they were made in Europe or Canada (where green energy is a higher percentage), it's about 2 years.

Modern solar panels are guaranteed to last 25 years, and are expected to last between 35 and 40 (actually, some say 60 to 100). They will pay back at least 10 times the energy they needed.

Read more.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf

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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?

Why not? A 2-axis tracker in that area will produce power at about 15 cents. I suspect that's cheaper than the peak rate they pay to Duke, after delivery and such.

Blackouts tend to be short, having the UPS's charged up when the grid goes down means the PV will extend the time that they remain operational. Yes, this is worthwhile, and much more effective than buying more batteries. That's why people do it.

PV is so cheap now that they use it to power street lights in parking lots, because that's cheaper than running the wire out to the pole. Copper is more expensive than silicon, after all.

 

[Liquorpuki]

Why not? A 2-axis tracker in that area will produce power at about 15 cents. I suspect that's cheaper than the peak rate they pay to Duke, after delivery and such.

Blackouts tend to be short, having the UPS's charged up when the grid goes down means the PV will extend the time that they remain operational. Yes, this is worthwhile, and much more effective than buying more batteries. That's why people do it.

PV is so cheap now that they use it to power street lights in parking lots, because that's cheaper than running the wire out to the pole. Copper is more expensive than silicon, after all.

You either use power for current operations or store it to cover future operations during blackouts. Operations = 100MW. Their solar farm covers 3-4% of that only. If Apple stored that 3-4 MW instead of used it, it would be paying Duke for 100% of their operations. Since that farm is supposed to cut costs, that would defeat the purpose.

Blackouts tend to be short because they're usually caused by wind blowing over power lines or drunk drivers hitting poles. Your plant stays running so all the utility has to do is fix the broken circuit. With solar though, a blackout is caused by the sun going down or getting obstructed. Worst case is a storm comes and the sun gets obstructed for weeks.

UPS's are not going to cover a 100 MW load for weeks. And a streetlight isn't a 100MW load that has to be on 24/7.