The reasons why solar power doesn't work in BC in winter when we need it most.

Solar panels lose power every year as they age, they don't last forever, so all that solar propaganda that they will make power forever.....complete BS!

A few points

1. When you purchase a solar panel it may say it’s a 250w panel it will never make that power.       Typically a 250 watt solar panel might make 200w.  A 20% loss right off the bat.

2. Solar panels age and make less power every year, after 20 years consider it a bonus if you are still making power, manufacturers claim losses are from .5% to maybe 1%/ year, see fig. below.

                                                                                Figure 1

Fig 1 shows an ongoing Japanese study, notice in 5 years some panels have lost 50%, pretty risky, could you have panels that will do this?     There was a recent major installation in Los Angeles, 34% of the solar panels were defective.

The largest solar plant at the time in Sarnia Ontario suffered major solar panel failures,  they put down the cost to "utility dollars",   will we be seeing that here in Nelson?  

Below is an actual Nelson solar site  showing daily solar power, the darker the block the less power is made.

Extrapolating this smaller system to the proposed 50 kW Nelson Solar garden, the solar garden power for January would be virtually Zero, the panels are in the snow.

Notice the dark squares, they are when no solar power is made,  the one highlighted shows .12kWh for the day,  to power a 100 watt light bulb for one hour  would require 833 days like that.                                              

         

This is a picture of the solar system providing the data shown.  Even though the solar panels are only covered near the bottom, they make virtually no power.

You have to understand that solar panels only make the power that the worst solarcell in the string can make, if the bottom cells are snow covered the panel is next to useless.   This picture is from November.  These were still covered as of the last day in January shown in the data .  

Would Nelson send out the electric crew to clear their solar garden for maybe $10 worth of power for the month?