[Deathridesahorse]

Originally Posted by spadlet

I notice Deathridesahorse that you live in Australia so you will have different solar conditions to the UK. I would be very interested to see any studies you know of that display the potential of solar electricity to provide baseload solar electricity in Australia. It certainly appears to be one of the most promising forms of renewable energy generation for the country.

In the UK we are not as fortunate with our solar resources. Technologies such as solar collectors have not exhibited the same potential as in countries such as Australia. From what little I know this appears to be the combination of a different average lattitude, a lower surface area and an increase in cloud cover. The cloud cover issue is rather important in the UK because it means that a significant proportion of the sunlight reaching solar pannels (thermal or photovoltaic) is diffuse radiation and thus can be from any direction. As solar collectors concentrate the solar energy comming from a limited range of directions they would be excluding a significant ammount of the solar resource in the UK.

So in this country we currently appear to be limited to solar electricity generation as and when the sun is shining. The magnintude of the generation will also be affected by cloud cover. The range of potential cloud cover in an area appears to be predictable, so a range of the potential ammounts of electriciy/heat energy that can be obtained should be reliable. However the exact cloud cover at any single time is not as predictable. This limits the ability of solar technologies to deliver a secure base load electricity supply in the UK.

Australia a hot spot for solar energy - SBS World News Australia

(If it can't be done here it can't be done anywhere on earth!!!)


The government who got the boot last year has totally flipped and is now calling for Australia to become a "solar continent".

Coalition calls for 'solar continent' | The Australian