Something that has long been a dream of mine looks like it will be a reality soon. I have always wanted to see a solar powered solar panel factory, or a wind powered wind turbine factory. Basically you use a little fossil fuels to get started, then the first however many turbines/panels off the line power the factory, from then on in it’s all carbon neutral.
The good folks at Sharp (one of the worlds largest solar panel makers) are finally going to go and give it a try (or at least thats what I think this means). There “Sakai, coastal areas of mega solar power generation plan” (sorry for the bad translation), is a plan to install two solar power plants in Sakai District one with a power output of approximately 10 MW and one with an output of 18 MW The solar panels will be built over an old industrial waste landfill site.
Sakai, the city, has a plan aimed at the urban low-carbon “Sakai KURUSHITI” initiative in order to promote clean green living in the town. With a combined output of 28 MW, the solar farms will reduce CO2, by 10,000 tons per year.
The real question is, will these arrays provide enough power to power the solar plant? I would say that 28mw of solar power (one of the largest solar farms in the world) should put a good dent in the energy needs of this factory. Not to mention it looks like they could toss up a wind turbine or two for the days (and nights) when it’s windy but not sunny. A fully renewable energy powered renewable energy factory is not only possible it just makes sense.
Now you’re talking. This is an important sort of concept for humans right now. Forward thinking on the internets? Wowow.
It sounds good to me too.
might be carbon neutral, but how much silicon tetrachloride will it produce? will they just dump that back under the solar panels?
Wow now THAT is pretty impressive to say the least.
JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
Thats awesome, but how many MW are expected to be produced yearly?
@#6 sam
Watts are a momentary measurement of power. 28 MW total for the two plants described above at any given moment.
Over time, power is measured in Watthours. There’s 8765 (ish) hours in a year.
That comes out just shy of a quarter-million MWh per year.
Yes, it’s around 245,000 MWh per year.
However, that means the plant is running 24 hours a day, which is impossible, if we say around 3000 hours accounting for nighttime and cloudy days, then it works out to be 84,000 MWh per year, which just out of interest, is equivalent to about 3 grams if we had some magical mass to energy converting machine.
“if we had some magical mass to energy converting machine.”
Are they not called Nuclear Power Stations?
Well yes, but that’s on the order of 10^-27 kg per reaction. I meant something more along the lines of Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future :D
This is such a wicked cool idea. I wish we had been so thoughtful of the environment 100 years ago and we’d never be in this position. Now to clean up toxins in our water, yay!
Not to be a pessimist. . . How much energy is required to power the plant? Isn’t solar still just a scam like wind and Ethanol? I don’t have hard facts, but I believe even the most efficient solar is somewhere around 18%. Wind is around 16%, and Ethanol is in the mid 20’s. That means that it takes more energy to create it than you get back out of it. I looked at buying a few 45w panels for my office to power my 30A battery backups. At $400 per panel, it would take 17 years to recover the cost of the panels. It would take another 30 years to recover the cost of the $2800 battery backup. The only thing I couldn’t find info on, is how long before the solar panel breaks down. Sam commented about tetrachloride, that’s the real pollution. Oil burns into CO and CO2, which plants turn back into O2. Tetrachloride stays tetrachloride.
I live in Iowa, and we have a barrage of ethanol plant popping up. The sad science of it is that it takes about 3/4 gallon of oil to make 1 gallon of ethanol. Planting, fertilizing, harvesting, refining all take oil. On top of that, E85 ethanol get about 75%-85% of the mileage of regular unleaded. So the actual efficiency is around 10%.
It seems that renewable is still a pipe dream about 50-60 years from being practical still.
Like you said Charles, you don’t know any hard facts…
Nevertheless, Solar power will definitely be agood help in terms of production in different industries.
Solar Power is the way of the future. All the energy we need!
If we all pr heated out water before using fuel to do it would save millions. It is relatively easy and cheap. Need masses of solar electricity to heat water but if it is pre heated by simple black coils warming our cold water into the boiler first then very efficient.
Some of these so called money saving/energy saving ideas take 2.5 life times to get your money back cos they cost so much to install!
Shame really but I guess we are doomed as a planet unless the greedy oil people and others realise this.
I guess they dont care as they will be dead before it matters so its just their grand children that will suffer along with ours.
(doom and gloom)!!!
Sorry the solar panels are only going to account for 5% of the power used by the plant
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147465/sharp_to_power_solar_panel_factory_with_solar_energy.html
Have you ever seen the solar light
that you can put in your garden? They are super cute
Aloha!
I’ve put 18 solar PV panels and 2 solar water panels on my house in Hawaii and I’m saving about $500/month on my power bill. I’m trying to get off the grid by mid 2011. I’ve saved about 50,000lbs of CO2 according to my Sunny Boy Converter.
I want to get the word out about the monetary and Co2 savings available through solar power. Would you consider doing a blog post about my house? I can provide pictures and more details.
Here is some detail from my site http://www.alohatony.com/solar.php
What do you think?
Thanks,
Tony Kawaguchi
Even in england, the best saving would be heating water by solar power using black matt pipes, 14c outside but sunny and my solar water heater on the pond produced steam! Water heating costs us the most power. Obviously bugs live in the pipes so it needs to be heated and flushed now and then for the pond but if it was a closed unit then bugs don`t matter, just collect the heat.
Other systems seem to cost that much CO2 to produce the product that the saving is dis-counted.
Great project really.
Hi there,
I believe that solar panels are an excellent way to provide clean, green and renewable energy to power a wide variety of devices. The power from solar panels is strong, reliable and easy to maintain. And on top of that it is also good for our environment.
Thanks for a nice read. Wishing you all the best!
Cheers,
Roel
“Given rising energy prices and a growing awareness of the importance of energy conservation, a carefully conceived energy management strategy may well be one of the most important steps a business can take to sustain and grow business.” I agree with this statement. In this new age, businesses are becoming more social and more green. With proper energy management the business is showing an interest in natural and social capital- investing in our natural resources and in people power. It makes perfect sense that those companies that have such a plan would have a higher output- most consumers would put their money into companies that were striving to become more sustainable. It may cost more in the short term, but in the long term it may actually save the business some money.
Very nice information. I think solar panels are good alternative for living an Environment friendly future.
This makes lot of sense as they are producing products to save energy and saving. This will show they are also serious in saving and helping the environment
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