Solar Panel Acreage To Replace Us Oil Production

Sunshine from the new solar energy.

Solar panel acreage to replace us oil production.

Benefits to solar developers include. Reduced installation costs the use of previously tilled agricultural may prevent the need for expensive grading to flatten land to a usable level. Then it makes energy with no energy cost at all for the rest of its life. Even ten years ago this study said it takes about 2 years of energy generation to pay back the energy used to make the solar panel.

On the other hand the united states apparently devotes about 10 000 sq km of land just to golf courses. A solar pv facility must have an installed capacity of 3 300 mw and 5 400 mw to match a 1 000 mw nuclear facility s output requiring between 45 and 75 square miles. Although solar energy is a clean alternative to fossil fuels making the panels themselves can have a negative environmental impact. On the one hand they are.

Starting with some conservative assumptions from a 2013 national renewable energy labs nrel report we know that it takes on average 3 4 acres of solar panels to generate a gigawatt hour of electricity over a year. Massachusetts where i reside spans about 27 000 sq km for comparison. The decision to transfer land use from agricultural production to solar panel electrical production solar farms should be made by careful examination of immediate and long term potential risks and benefits. Those sound like big numbers.

World oil costs at a time when the solar industry is trying to bring. A better approach is to look at real world data captured from real world solar arrays and just extrapolate from there. If we concentrate solar production in the sunniest regions the total land footprint falls to 12 000 sq km. Our goal is to replace.

There are different benefits of co locating solar and crop production for solar energy developers and farmers. So a solar panel will make many times more energy than it takes to make it. Currently the transition seems a logical and profitable venture since payments made by contractors are much greater than revenue received from farmland rental. The researchers say this surprisingly modest figure provides a tantalising vision of what could be achieved if the nation phased out a power source that while renewable takes a significant toll on ecosystems.

Solar panel output is expressed in units of watts w and represents the panel s theoretical power production under ideal sunlight and temperature conditions. For comparison the district of columbia s total land area is 68 square miles. Most home solar panels on the market today have power output ratings ranging from 250 to 400 watts with higher power ratings generally considered preferable to lower power ratings.