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USA's largest solar farms

Eavesdropper
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Copper Mountain Solar Installation via Sempra Generation
 
In Nevada, 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas, sits the United State's largest solar installation. Sempra Generation's 775,000 solar panels fill 380 acres generating 48 Mega-watts of electricity. This site is adjacent to an older 10 Mega-watt facility in El Dorado. Together, these sites will power 14,000 homes in California via Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) over the next 20 years.
 

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Mesquite Solar I planned location via Sempra Generation
 
Sempra Generation is not stopping here. Mesquite Solar I, a project in its first phase, is planned to eclipse the Nevada location by a factor of 12.5. 600 Mega-watts will pour from this Arlington Arizona based solar farm, powering up to 56,000 additional homes. This is a commendable effort.
 
 
Perhaps they should bring the panels to power each home directly. I decided to do a little math and figure out how much space and average price this may cost each person.
 
I will use the Kyocera KC175GT, a 175 watt solar panel.
I let it collect sunshine for 6 hours a day. Giving me a total of (175x6) 1050 watt hours. 1.05kwh
The size is 4.2 feet by 3.25 feet. Or 13.65 square feet.
An average home requires about 50kwh. (2 - 3 story home)
So I need approximately 48 panels to power the home. (50/1.05 = 47.62)
Which is a total of 655.2 square feet. And this is 1/66th of an acre.
Each panel costs $770 USD at the moment, on sale. Or $36,960 total for 48 panels.

Although that his a high price to pay to be green, I am sure Sempra Generation could provide each person with panels for far less. I hope they read this and get inspired to go individual generation someday.
 
Eavesdropper
  • in reply to Former Member

    Electro_pa,

     

    50kwh a day is the worst case scenario. It more like 10 - 30kwh in most energy conscious homes.

     

    Us Americans are not all that bad.

     

    E

  • My God, No wonder USA is in deep manure! Get real Americans.

    You are either making a big error or need to take a hard look at yourselves.

    50kWh!! That is enormous! (You didn't say what you were intending to run though)

    My household electricity use is consistently below 8kWh!

    My 2.1kW solar install returns credits on my electricity bills.

  • When working out what a good life powered by renewables would cost, one must first look at what people need, which is grossly missmatched to what some people in some countries presently have.  If you are using more than 1kWh per day per person then you have made some major purchasing mistakes in the size and types of appliances being used.

     

    It is profligate living beyond the planets' means to use 50kWh per day.  Adding illegal speeding capability and more than a tonne of junk to standard motor vehicles gets through that much in imported petrol and failing to choose a sensible sized living space with good passive thermal properties wastes another 20kWh per day on heating if done badly enough.


    It is surprising how much use a single person can get from a single 175W solar panel and some DC-DC converters which you can study by looking inside a laptop.  Solar is more than enough for electronic comms, TV if it is an efficient 30Watt device, high performance computing with less than 100Watts .. More pragmatically, 4kWp solar photovoltaic plus 2 square meters of solar thermal heating provides lots of power for a large house, or half that will run a sensible European sized mid-terrace or semi-detached home.  Why use more?

  • in reply to Former Member

    In non-sunny areas, other energy solutions would have to be taken into consideration. Like geo-thermal differentials, wind/wave motion, etc. But each option has its own drawbacks.

     

    Waste water may be a good option to investigate.

     

    E

  • When reading that the 17 power plants have 55 reactors total in Japan - they only supply 24% of the power used...  Seems like an incredible price to pay for green -   How green is green when it is dead or contaminated...  These panels are taking up a great deal of space -  what is the ratio?  Your calculations are relatively close to my own and I think that your remark about going into a different direction is exactly right.  What about places like Washington and Michigan where constant sunshine is not such a regualrity?