by Tanada » Mon 26 Dec 2016, 23:22:26
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')6: The Best Places For Solar And Wind Are Usually Far Away From Consumers
That reminds me of an older post on Tom Murphy's blog:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/201 ... ure-trove/It's a long and nerdy post about how surprisingly small the differences in PV output between the best and the worst US locations are - Alaska and S. California differ by a factor of merely two.
And here's the National Renewable Energy Lab's online PV calculator:
http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.phpVery nice and simple tool. Just enter a city name, leave everything on the next page on default settings (a standard single-family rooftop installation) and here's the results in kwh/a:
Anchorage 3,454
NYC 5,097
Fargo 5,308
Houston 5,356
St. Louis 5,462
San Diego 6,438
So the best place for solar is probably pretty much wherever you happen to live. OK, if you live in Alaska you're screwed, but then if you live in Alaska you already know that.
(edit: Houston gets as much output as Fargo, North Dakota? What is it, your ten-gallon hats shading the roofs or what?)
Annual production is one thing. What you can get on a winter day quite another. Unless an Alaskan resident has batteries to store a six month supply they are out of luck. On the other hand Texas will still produce a good amount mid winter, Fargo not so much.