alt Hacker NewsThey've fallen victim to a catastrophically easy scare tactic, unfortunately. "The sun only shines during the day therefore solar is bad!" Dumb, but easy.
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declan_roberts • yesterday at 3:46 PM
And in my experience as someone who is actually trying to DO something, is exactly right.
But to be clear, it's less about night vs day and more about summer vs winter.
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In Toronto there is only daylight for 9 hours in winter
Yes surely some days are cloudy
So some days you get 5% capacity factor, and need some other energy source as well
So it harms the economics of the venture
Look at the profitability of companies building utility scale solar farms, they cost 100 million and the company hopes to get a 10% return and pay a 3% dividend.
They still have to contend with moving parts for tracking the angle of the sun, fans on inverters, contactors, clearing snow, mowing grass, site drainage, tornadoes etc, so sometimes it is not as easy as it sounds
All for a 7%? Why shouldn’t they just buy the s&p 500 and call it a day