Largest Solar Array in NorthEast

Largest solar array in the northeast goes online at BNL
Officials from the Long Island Power Authority, BP Solar International and Brookhaven National Laboratory gathered with elected officials today at the lab in Upton to flip the switch on the Long Island Solar Farm, a 32-megawatt, 164,312 solar panel installation.

Co-owned by BP Solar and MetLife through Long Island Solar Farm LLC, the facility will introduce approximately 50 gigawatt-hours-per-year of clean, Long Island-based renewable energy into LIPA's electric grid. This amount of solar energy is equivalent to the electrical consumption of roughly 4,500 households.
 

Cheeky1

Yae warsh wif' wutr
Nice, but why not put all that in a desert where the sun shines most of the year?

Not all types of solar panels require direct sunlight, but direct sunlight is always best in all cases.....
 
Nice, but why not put all that in a desert where the sun shines most of the year?

Not all types of solar panels require direct sunlight, but direct sunlight is always best in all cases.....

Because you put it where the people are, not necessarily where it's most convenient or efficient. Costs too much to transport the power from the desert to the east coast.

That's like asking to have the deer crossing sign moved so the deer don't cross there.....

:lol:
 

Cheeky1

Yae warsh wif' wutr
Because you put it where the people are, not necessarily where it's most convenient or efficient. Costs too much to transport the power from the desert to the east coast.

That's like asking to have the deer crossing sign moved so the deer don't cross there.....

:lol:

Would you, please, expand upon what the "cost" of transporting power would be?
...are you speaking of the building and maintaining such a system?
...high voltage/energy loss transmitted over long distances?
 
Would you, please, expand upon what the "cost" of transporting power would be?
...are you speaking of the building and maintaining such a system?
...high voltage/energy loss transmitted over long distances?

If you have to install new feed trunks, that's expensive. If you can take advantage of existing trunks, you have to pay each power company along the route for the use of their lines, or tariffs. The further you are away from the end point, the more it's going to cost. There will always be line loss, so the closer you are to the source, the more power you can deliver more cheaply. These would not be offset by any gains in power gained by the desert location, but rather by the efficiency of the solar panels.

But all of this is moot. BNL is a government research lab which was granted funds to develop this project with assistance from the local power authority in that location. They are going to build the project in their backyard where the proof of concept can benefit the local community and provide jobs, not thousands of miles away with no benefit to the local economy.
 

Cheeky1

Yae warsh wif' wutr
Down here at PAX river there is a solar panel project underway. The cost is enormous and the project will never pay itself off - and it is only complementary. It won't even power the entire Moffett building (the building located directly beside the panels - which are being mounted to the top a parking garage).

:shrug:


All those panels for [only] 4500 homes?
 
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Railroad

Routinely Derailed
Down here at PAX river there is a solar panel project underway. The cost is enormous and the project will never pay itself off - and it is only complementary. It won't even power the entire Moffett building (the building located directly beside the panels - which are being mounted to the top a parking garage).

:shrug:


All those panels for [only] 4500 homes?

Two different scenarios. The local waste of money is purely political - "your Navy is going Green!" - whereas the other thing is a proof-of-concept best done in realistic conditions. The requirements drive the engineering. If someone tells me to power a 5,000 user (Homes and Shopping Centers and Businesses of various descriptions) community using 1.5Gw/hour in all kinds of weather, I will develop a much different solution than powering the same community in a desert, 90% sun environment. One could estimate joules from the sun in a 4-seasons of New England environment as opposed to a Las Vegas environment, and quickly see that it is much easier to do the solar thingy in arid sunny conditions than frequently hazy to cloudy conditions.
 

Cheeky1

Yae warsh wif' wutr
How many ACRES will 164,000 panels cover??

Aren't panels usually like 3X5 feet?? Get ready, here we go..


So 15 sq ft per panel, * 164,312 = 2,464,680 sq ft...

An acre = 43560

2,464,680/ 43,560 = 56.58 acres ... Holy SNIKEYS!! To provide enough power for 4500 homes?? Ludicrous..

The picture displayed in the link looks bigger than a 3x5. I'm thinking 4x6.

24*164312=3943488

3943488/43560=90.53 acres lol
 

itsbob

I bowl overhand
The picture displayed in the link looks bigger than a 3x5. I'm thinking 4x6.

24*164312=3943488

3943488/43560=90.53 acres lol

Either way, that's a LOT of wasted Real Estate..

Way too inefficient to produce eclectricity of any value..

Take away the cost of the panels and just figure out how much an acre of land costs there.. They will never recover that cost. Thank God for Obamsidies..
 

Cheeky1

Yae warsh wif' wutr
What the article (writer) says is a panel, may actually be the 12 segregated sections of each "panel".

164312/12=13692 individual solar panel frames. This would make more sense with the picture.

I didn't count the panels, but looking at the picture I don't see 160k of them. Maybe I'm incorrect.
 

Railroad

Routinely Derailed
What the article (writer) says is a panel, may actually be the 12 segregated sections of each "panel".

164312/12=13692 individual solar panel frames. This would make more sense with the picture.

I didn't count the panels, but looking at the picture I don't see 160k of them. Maybe I'm incorrect.

Either way, coming up with enough panels to do the job in "average world" vs. the desert takes a LOT of space and the cost-vs-benefit analysis shows that this is not the smartest thing.

Nevertheless, in history people have continued investing in things when they seem a waste of time, only to see huge successes (and returns).
 
Impact Study:
http://www.bnl.gov/community/docs/pdf/FINAL FINAL EA - BP Solar Project.pdf
4.1.1 Project Site Location
The proposed project would cover an area in the south central to southeast and east
central portions of the BNL property within the Compatible Growth Area as
delineated by the Core Pine Barrens and Compatible Growth Areas line (see Figure
3). The proposed area is divided into north and south sections. The north section is
composed of approximately 78.5 acres (32 hectares) and is located in the vicinity of
the former experimental agricultural fields. The south section is located just north of
the line delineating Core Pine Barrens from Compatible Growth areas and mostly
east of First Street. The south section is approximately 111 acres (44.92 hectares).
Additionally, brownfield1 areas composed of the Former Landfill, Interim Landfill,
Slit Trench, and Glass Holes is available for possible placement of solar panels
and/or Laboratory dedicated array facility. This area is immediately west of the
southern portion identified above. The brownfield areas cover approximately 18.26
acres (7.84 hectares) and may be used within the controls established in the BNL
Land Use Controls Management Plan [BNL 2009a].
 

Cheeky1

Yae warsh wif' wutr
...Nevertheless, in history people have continued investing in things when they seem a waste of time, only to see huge successes (and returns).

True.

I hope that since they now have a farm of solar panels, they innovate, test, change, challenge the status quo ad infinitum. If those panels simply sit there and are expected to do all the work for their creators, it won't work, and I fear this very large investment will slink to becoming a blunder as opposed to a success.
 
But think of the TREES!!!!!!
Trees uprooted at Brookhaven Lab for BP solar project

CONTRACTORS for energy giant BP this month began clearing land at Brookhaven National Labs to make way for the state's largest solar energy farm, a $300 million "green" project that has even some proponents wincing over the loss of an estimated 42,000 trees.

The sprawling solar array, which will provide up to 32 megawatts of energy to the Long Island Power Authority grid - enough for 4,500 homes - required removing trees with excavators and mobile saws from 153 acres of undeveloped land at the federal property in Yaphank. Most are native oak and pitch pines.

"I would have preferred they use less sensitive property that had already been cleared," said Dick Amper, executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society.

Solar power is not cheap, nor a source of production electricity yet. Panel costs have to come way down and efficiencies go way up.
 

Railroad

Routinely Derailed
True.

I hope that since they now have a farm of solar panels, they innovate, test, change, challenge the status quo ad infinitum. If those panels simply sit there and are expected to do all the work for their creators, it won't work, and I fear this very large investment will slink to becoming a blunder as opposed to a success.

I expect it will turn out to be a blunder (using a polite term for it).
 

Cheeky1

Yae warsh wif' wutr
you know...the word blender sounds a lot like blunder.

Stick a good thing in a blender and you get a blunder.....


meh.:coffee:
 
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