I was talking to a wind energy guy and he expects loads of these wind farms to get solar added soon.
He explained to me
- The cost of connecting to the grid is already covered.
- Sun tends to be best when wind is lowest. Daytime and the summer both have lower levels of wind.
- These land owners do business with electricity companies already. Setting up that relationship is a big challenge that is already covered.
- Most of the land wind farms are on now is fairly hilly and not of huge value for farming. Herd reduction is not huge from solar farms.
There are about 300 wind farms in Ireland
The one solar farm we have generates enough electricity for 3600 homes.
There are about 2 million homes and apartments in Ireland. Which would be 3600 houses* 300 farms is about 1 million homes. That solar farm is 25 hectares. If all the wind farms had the same size solar added thats 300*25 hectare is 7500 hectares or 75,000,000 square meters. 75 square km. Which is a fair chunk of land
This calculation is very back of the envelope. There are also all sorts of constraints about how much solar power can reasonably be put into the grid. Windless nights happen and electricity has to be available then so backup to wind and solar is needed. Also I am not sure if it is not just more efficient to put the same panels in Morocco but given the points above it is probable Irish Government subsidies will go to Ireland.
It seems a lot of solar power will be added to what are now wind farms soon.
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