There is a massive solar farm on top of N China's Shanxi, stretching 80 kilometers as #China is moving forward to develop clean energy.
Recently, we wrote about declining costs in solar energy, and this is one example of what is going to start happening as these costs decline and solar panels get better at capturing energy.
There are actually some funny comments on a Reddit thread here.
- You must construct additional panels (in reference to Starcraft)
- This is China's Sim City
- This is real life minecraft
All humor aside, the comment that stood out to me as the most relevant and useful was this:
For all the other bickering going on in this comments section about how it looks, how nuclear would be more space-efficient, erosion (?), and plant-animal life impact, maintenance complexity is definitely the thing that jumps out at me.
The panels will provide shade for plants beneath, which will inevitably grow too much and damage/obscure the panels.
Just accessing all of them for cleaning due to the terrain seems difficult.
What about weather?
Aside from maintenance, Why not wind power on mountain tops? Wind is more or less a given up that high.
Why cover every side of a peak with panels? There’s bound to be some north-facing low-efficiency panels.
What do you think of this giant solar array on China's mountain? Should they build more?
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Technomancer
one year ago
