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Solar Farms

No issues with this personally but it's entirely possible (if not likely) that the same environmentalists who support renewable energy will either NIMBY the project or shut it down to unrelated concerns like bird deaths or whatnot. Spain has now pretty much completely backed away from their big investments in solar from a couple years ago.
 
glenn1 said:
No issues with this personally but it's entirely possible (if not likely) that the same environmentalists who support renewable energy will either NIMBY the project or shut it down to unrelated concerns like bird deaths or whatnot. Spain has now pretty much completely backed away from their big investments in solar from a couple years ago.
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Yea, something to do with them being broke.
 
Federal government or some other big money lender supporting the up front costs?

I notice it's a small deployment, not the molten salt tower which generates electricity 24/7. I'd like a study on which one is better - small farms or big array installations.
 
I have one of those half a mile away from me(live in MA). Farmer owns a few hundred acres (if not more) and sold some to the company building the farms.

They claim no glare, and no extra heat created. But I'm still happy it's not directly behind my house like the people next to the farm.
 
I know my father-in-law has talked to a company or two about putting one of these arrays on some of his farmland. Will be interesting to see how that plays out.
 
I think we are going to start seeing retailers start building these things in their parking lots and rooftops since those are large expanses that were already serving a purpose but can now return even more capital by becoming dual use.
 
ch33zw1z said:
I have one of those half a mile away from me(live in MA). Farmer owns a few hundred acres (if not more) and sold some to the company building the farms.

They claim no glare, and no extra heat created. But I'm still happy it's not directly behind my house like the people next to the farm.
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I think I'd much rather have that in my backyard than cows or chicken houses.
 
zephyrprime said:
I think we are going to start seeing retailers start building these things in their parking lots and rooftops since those are large expanses that were already serving a purpose but can now return even more capital by becoming dual use.
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I think you're overestimating (or perhaps haven't even considered it at all) the ability of the average retailer to afford the upfront cost of doing so, such projects typically require a massive amount of public and private support. Solar isn't cheap, even with substantial subsidies.
 
Zorba said:
I think I'd much rather have that in my backyard than cows or chicken houses.
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It was corn. We live out in the sticks for a reason 🙂

If I had to guess, it's about 15 acres of solar panels.

that much flat land is hard to come by in MA, compared to OK 😛 I'm sure the farmer got a good amount for the land. He lives across the street from me and has been renovating his house like crazy now.
 
zephyrprime said:
I think we are going to start seeing retailers start building these things in their parking lots and rooftops since those are large expanses that were already serving a purpose but can now return even more capital by becoming dual use.
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You know this is not a bad idea. Elevate the mirrors over the parking lot, and you not only generate electricity for the store, but create shade for the parking lot. In some of the hot sunny climates like Texas this could work.
 
bunnyfubbles said:
I think you're overestimating (or perhaps haven't even considered it at all) the ability of the average retailer to afford the upfront cost of doing so, such projects typically require a massive amount of public and private support. Solar isn't cheap, even with substantial subsidies.
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Large retailers are already doing rooftop solar deployments.
 
K1052 said:
Large retailers are already doing rooftop solar deployments.
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Not to mention customers with large campuses and data centers. typically leaves wide open roof tops and land that can be repurposed to solar fields. Anything to save some money (great idea imo), especially if saving money that way means jobs staying in the USA.
 
BoberFett said:
Except that he's right. If a project has a positive ROI, then being broke isn't an issue, capital can be found.
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Getting huge amounts of private money into solar is harder because of the ups and downs the market has seen over the decades, lots of people got burned. Though that is changing and some companies are exploring bond sales backed by power purchase agreements as a way open the money taps. With people like Musk and Buffett plowing ever increasing amounts of money into the industry the tide will probably turn in another year or two.
 
JEDIYoda said:
Unless it can`t be found!! If you are broke you do not go out and borrow....
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Moot point since they cut subsidies for existing plants in 2009 after cutting them for new builds the year before. If they were economically viable the existing plants would have remained open since the construction expenses were a sunk cost.
 
BoberFett said:
Except that he's right. If a project has a positive ROI, then being broke isn't an issue, capital can be found.
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I used to be an engineer at an airline, that was broke when winglets first came out. The winglets cost about $750K per aircraft to install, but had an ROI of about 1.5 years. The company refused to do it, because they couldn't afford it. We did aggressively install them 4 or 5 years later, though.

There were several projects like that for years, basically if it didn't pay for itself in less than a year we didn't do it. I later found out that our interest rates from that time period averaged 20%, so basically if we couldn't pay for it from cash flow we weren't doing it.
 
Zorba said:
I used to be an engineer at an airline, that was broke when winglets first came out. The winglets cost about $750K per aircraft to install, but had an ROI of about 1.5 years. The company refused to do it, because they couldn't afford it. We did aggressively install them 4 or 5 years later, though.

There were several projects like that for years, basically if it didn't pay for itself in less than a year we didn't do it. I later found out that our interest rates from that time period averaged 20%, so basically if we couldn't pay for it from cash flow we weren't doing it.
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Interest rates are a part of ROI if you have to borrow. So yes, Spain would have to take them into account.
 
glenn1 said:
Moot point since they cut subsidies for existing plants in 2009 after cutting them for new builds the year before. If they were economically viable the existing plants would have remained open since the construction expenses were a sunk cost.
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Do you have any links of existing and fully operational solar farms being shut down? It doesn't make a bit of sense, there is virtually no upkeep costs once the plant is operational other than maybe a few guys with water hoses to clean the panels a few times a year. Except for very significant impacts the panels never break so rarely does a panel need to be replaced (the first solar cell ever made still works today). The inverter will eventually need to be replaced but even those are usually guaranteed/warrantied for 15 years.
 
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