Can it be too big?

[AE-NMidlands]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... solar-farm says

A proposed new £600m solar farm in eastern England – covering an area eight times bigger than Hyde Park in central London – faces opposition over claims it would be a “blight” on the countryside.

The scheme, which would provide power for up to 100,000 homes, will cover nearly 2,800 acres near Newmarket, more than 10 times bigger than any scheme built to date in Britain. It is one of more than 900 solar farms in the planning pipeline to help provide green energy.

Campaigners say the Sunnica energy farm, which will span several villages in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, will change the unique character of a vast area of countryside shaped by farming and horseracing. Suffolk county council said last week it would not support the scheme in its current form.

I can see that some sorts of agriculture fit in with dispersed pv installations, but is this going too far?
From above I imagine that huge areas will present a blinding risk for flyers looking down: occasional glints are tolerable, but if you are on the wrong flight path you might have a few minutes of blinding reflected light shining up from a huge farm.

A

[spread-tee]

One of the complaints which is reasonable to some extent is that there is usually nothing to be gained by the local population, the developers and investors make a lot of money, the land owner probably does quite well too. Whereas the locals have to live with a pretty big change in their locality but get no benefit. I can sympathise with that to a degree, I know some of these schemes allow locals to invest and have a stake in the development, which I bet would change the situation quite a lot.

Desp

[Stan]

From above I imagine that huge areas will present a blinding risk for flyers looking down: occasional glints are tolerable, but if you are on the wrong flight path you might have a few minutes of blinding reflected light shining up from a huge farm.

A

I don’t believe that solar panels dazzle. Their coatings are designed to absorb the maximum light.

[AE-NMidlands]

From above I imagine that huge areas will present a blinding risk for flyers looking down: occasional glints are tolerable, but if you are on the wrong flight path you might have a few minutes of blinding reflected light shining up from a huge farm.

A

I don’t believe that solar panels dazzle. Their coatings are designed to absorb the maximum light.

Not sure about that.
Unless they have a velvet "black body" surface they will reflect, and to stay clean they must be smooth - and anyway they look shiny.
With incident rays normal to the surface they might have negligable reflection (but that is just physics.) However I am sure that at lower angles physics will still apply: the shallower the angle, the more bounces off.
Also, by coincidence, https://camelot-forum.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... 9414#p9414
has a link which says "Large-scale solar farms could increase rainfall in some arid regions: According to the researchers, simulations show that such installations could change the reflectiveness of the land enough to unsettle coastal air circulation" which certainly suggests that they reflect...
EDIT p.s. on reading it again, it says that they absorb enough energy to heat them up so that they will change the convection patterns and hence increase rainfall. Maybe they aren't as reflective as they appear!

[CrofterMannie]

Is there no community benefit funding that solar developers pay?
Onshore wind developments are expected to give around £5000 /installed mw/ yr to the local community.

[Mr Gus]

I'm surprised local communities & local govt still have not figured out that clubbing together & getting wind turbines for megawatts as part of the set up for this with rolling returns.

that would be a few more wind turbines doing a lot more good

SO, down the road from me as fag packet math, a field of 18 x 2 megawatt hour turbines could "potentially" earn £3,600,000 in 20 years (not adjusted for inflation)

Local govt ought "do the math" & get better value for lots of reasons, ie get some co-operatives in place, placed at the same time as the wind farms going up (logically) if ripple can calculate based on people being all over the uk, then...

[billi]

... working/driving around domestic and industrial areas , i always do, look at roofs .... PV covered or not

In Germany there are now close to 60 GW of PV installed , but most of the builder supplies, shopping centers flat roofs are empty

and many roofs of private homes

It simply does not make sense to me , to cover farmland with PV ( as an self understood idea) , if there is so much Roof area available , that, by its Nature "destroyed" farmland/ sealed surface ...

I am pretty sure that all suitable roof/building/sealed areas , if covered with PV , would be more than enough, to avoid farmland to be"occupied" for a single use , over a long span ,

We should concentrate


Roofs first


Billi

[dan_b]

A solar farm of 100 square miles would power the whole of the US. That's probably big enough?

[billi]

True , lets do it