MORE MISINFORMATION?

The latest on the radio from the solar garden promoter,  some of our power comes from coal.
That might be true, BC does buy Alberta power at night, those power plants cannot be ramped up and down quickly like a hydro dam.  BC Hydro buys this at night for peanuts, otherwise its dumped, this saves BC water for power when its more valuable.   A symbiotic relationship that has worked to each others benefit.  Alberta has announced all coal and gas plants will be gone by 2030.

The concept of solar is that it avoids the burning on non renewable fuels and that saves GHG.  Since solar power can't be made at night, there are no GHG savings from Nelson's solar garden.  And its unlikely BC Hydro is buying Nelson power at night anyways, so the solar garden does nothing.

          Show me the data that makes solar have any value or benefit to this community.

Any excess annual power for sale from Nelson hydro comes when the lake level is up from April through August as shown in the graph below.   Also the time most annual solar power is earned.

Below is a daily consumption graph for the average home, a peak around breakfast when no solar power is made, little use through the day when all solar is made, another larger peak at suppertime through bedtime, when no solar power is earned.   The suggestion that most Nelson hydro extra power is made at night, to suggest solar has value is false.   Midday when solar is maximum we can't use it, don't need it, another piece of misinformation.  Misinformation is what this project has been about since the beginning.

             Power consumption peaks at breakfast and supper into evening, when solar is worthless.

Fortunatly "BC Hydro applied to the BC Utilities Commission to no longer buy anyone's solar power.  Why would they pay full retail for this worthless power and let their own clean green waterpower spill down the river with profits!

Fortis electric said it best  "it will be a challenge when the public begins to understand the economics of solar power"

Is the Nelson solar garden information deceptive? Read my letter to the editor.

My letter to the editor at this link

Is the Nelson solar garden information deceptive?

Will this change anything?  Not if people don't speak out.....

Click here, let city council know, or it will be your pocket being picked once again.

Ask them the questions that remain unanswered,  under whose authority and when did the project change from only $25,000 the rest paid for by those opting in, to everyone now paying what will likely be far more than half this project with no benefit to the community.

And the question, where will the credit come from  for those opting in?

The contractor says solar will reach parity in 7 years?  HUH!!!

There will be a Return on Investment in 10 or 12 years?  How does she get away with making these statements?

Where is the Green House Gas saving?

AN UNWILLING PARTICIPANT

Looking back on my blog I see its very repetitive.   Also far to much information that is not easily understood by the average person.

This blog is revised.  This short piece of information is just another piece of the knowledge base that will help you understand solar power in terms of sunhours.

A sunhour is not the same as sunlight hours in terms of solar calculations.


An analogy might help complete the picture. Imagine that you have to pour sunshine into buckets , and each holds 1,000 watt-hours of solar energy. The fastest rate of filling that bucket will occur at solar noon in the summer, when the sunlight is overhead and perpendicular to the solar panel.  At that time, you could fill a 1,000-watt-hour bucket in 1 hour (1 KWH per hour). At any other time of the day, however, it will take longer than 1 hour to get an equivalent “bucket” of 1 peak sun-hour.

Years of data for Nelson shows we receive from 900 - 1000 annual sunhours for solar calculations.

The 50 kW Nelson solar garden might earn from 45 - 50,000 kWh annually.  About 4 average homes.

That is in a perfect world where everything is new and working.  Dust, dirt, snow, underperforming panels and aging panels that make less power every year will change this.

Yet the consulting engineers report and financial calculations are based on their figure of 61,000kWh.
Of the dozens of public sites in BC offering public data this isn't found other than in Canada's only desert climate - around Osoyoos and Oliver.

The Nelson solar garden contractor has stated publicly, experts say we might earn in excess of  70,000kWh.

With dual axis tracking where motors track the sun in azimuth and elevation, there is a gain, some suggest 30% or more.  All expert advice says its cheaper to add 30% more panels than to involved dual motors attempting to move a set of solar panels every few minutes up and down as required for the next 20 years if solar panels last that long.    But no explanation is given to these claims that continuously form part of the internet "free" solar power propaganda.

Here is a classic....another waste of public money for solar power.  The washroom at the skatepark.

Look at the picture, two engineers and a building technologist...

A city councillor in the middle at the time of this project, a green washroom, super insulated, solar light and hot water (it didn't make enough power for a mouse to wash its foot).   Enough money spent here to put a washroom in every city park.  This one closed for the winter and at night.  A big skylight and simple building not the mud straw demonstration whatever it was.

And did the solar panels see any sunlight?  NO they are under trees!!!