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Germany discovers solar energy’s design flaw: no sunshine, no power. “Solar farm operators and homeowners with solar panels on their roofs collected more than €8 billion ($10.2 billion) in subsidies in 2011, but the electricity they generated made up only about 3 percent of the total power supply, and that at unpredictable times.” Well, we can fix that – anybody got a really big candle?

Contributed on February 23, 2012 by Bonfire of the Absurdities, who has submitted 1409 posts.

{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }

ooddballz February 23, 2012 at 7:26 am

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Wait, you mean these things need LIGHT to work?????
(slaps forehead)

Maybe they should build a nuclear plant to provide lights to make the solar power cells work.

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poppajoe49 February 23, 2012 at 10:39 pm

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Solar generators, the original perpetual moron machine.

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hisham February 23, 2012 at 7:34 am

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DOH!!!?!!!

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Old Goat February 23, 2012 at 8:03 am

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Why is it all these countries insist upon finding out for themselves that all these daft renewable ideas fail miserably?
Why can’t they take the word of those who have already tried and failed, instead of wasting time, money and effort pushing on and reaching the same conclusion?
Sheer madness.

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jukin February 23, 2012 at 8:33 am

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Sure but it made the Liberals in Germany feel good, screw results.

In Spain for every 1 green job created 2.8 real jobs were lost. I had an online debate with our local assembly man a dunce named Pedro Nava. This guy was so stupid he could not understand the basic math that 2.8 (lost jobs) – 1 (green job) = 1.8 lost jobs. He just kept coming back with how the government spent a few billion to open this institute for solar design or think tank at some university. Finally I gave up after several posts of “Do you not understand basic math?”

In short ladies and gentlemen, Liberalism IS a mental disease. That is proven. The question does one have to be mentally disturbed to be a Liberal or do the contrary opinions you must keep in your head to be a Liberal drive one to mental unstability? Result is the same.

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StrinaM February 23, 2012 at 8:36 am

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Hawaii is probably one of the only places solar makes sense. We get sun 360 days a year. Ever since we got our hot water heater converted to Solar, I think we’ve had one day since (its been a year) where we needed to turn on the electricity to work it. We also have had 4 electric rate hikes since July. And with every rate hike comes more people converting to solar, causing another rate hike due to the fact that HECO is losing revenue and need to make up there costs (they don’t admit that, they blame oil prices, etc.). With new constructs now requiring solar, and so many people biting the financial bullet and getting solar here, we may be the first state to run our electric company out of business. We also installed a single circuit of solar and cut our rates in half (was only supposed to cut by a third). Looking to install another circuit this year. However, places like Germany, Canada, states that have winter, it doesn’t make ANY sense.

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FormerlyDeanH February 23, 2012 at 8:39 am

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I don’t want to seem petty but if the water is already hot, why would you need to heat it? A water heater only makes sense if the water isn’t hot.

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PsychoDad February 23, 2012 at 8:43 am

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C’mon. Old joke. We can do better than this.

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PsychoDad February 23, 2012 at 8:49 am

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“With new constructs now requiring solar”

Not to be overly argumentative, but if it’s as good an option as it seems to be, why must it be mandated?

Also, looking down the line, if the electric company actually does fail, I’m sure the state is going to lose a heluva chunk of tax revenue from them. (Not to mention lost jobs and UE benefits due.) Is the state just going to kiss that off, or do you imagine another wave of taxes to make up for that – effectively killing any savings you’ve accomplished (at the individual level)?

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StrinaM February 23, 2012 at 9:27 am

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I got you @FormerlyHDean.
I’m not saying I agree with the requirement. It’s Hawaii run by Governor “I was there when Obama was born” Ambercrombie. We have ONE repub state rep and she tried to track us online because she got hacked. All I’m saying us all these Green energy projects, SOLAR SOLAR SOLAR, it really only works in a place that actually gets sun, if they insist on pushing it, it should make sense. But that is the issue. They don’t really have sense.

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FormerlyDeanH February 23, 2012 at 9:41 am

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In 78 the man who would become my father-in-law installed some Carter heaters on his roof in Milwaukee because of the tax credit that gave them their name. I recall him bragging about the 3 six packs of Schlitz he gleaned each of the two years they were functional, due to the ‘savings’ and the tax credit.

One of em slid off the roof one winter. This was not some little deal either. The roof would never be called a walker and the house was a big duplex situated on a walk up from the sidewalk. The peak of the roof was around 45 or 50 feet above the sidewalk. The resulting crash could easily have killed a few people, but fortunately no one was. We were picking shards of the device out of the lawn for years.

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PsychoDad February 23, 2012 at 11:42 am

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Hi Strina -I didn’t mean to be challenging you with any of this, just trying to pick your brain a bit. I agree, if solar is a viable option anywhere, seems Hawaii would be one place. So I’m just trying to figure why it would STILL have to be legislated into existence, rather than letting an apparently obvious benefit speak for itself and let the market achieve the goal. Seems to me there’s still some joker in the deck that makes this less of a bargain than it seems.

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Bonfire of the Absurdities February 23, 2012 at 1:07 pm

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Challenge is good. Groupthink kills.

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StrinaM February 23, 2012 at 7:47 pm

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Didn’t think you were. & yes, group think can kill brain cells.

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sa_rose February 24, 2012 at 11:42 am

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As evidenced by the Left.

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CO2Insanity February 23, 2012 at 9:13 am

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The water company here does that. They scream drought, then jack the prices up to get you to conserve water, then when everyone’s conserving and they’re not selling as much, they jack the rates up because they don’t have enough revenue.

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Sidekick February 23, 2012 at 9:49 am

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Just like cigarettes and every other highly taxed and demonized product. As Old Goat said, sheer madness.

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sa_rose February 24, 2012 at 11:45 am

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Yeah, they keep harping on people to stop smoking, then they attach huge taxes on it, and when folks actually stop, they lose the tax revenue and have (another) budget shortfall.

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flashingscotsman February 24, 2012 at 11:54 am

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I actually like it when they have a “revenue shortfall.” Money is power, and the government should have very little of both.

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sa_rose February 24, 2012 at 11:44 am

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CO2 Where are you! That is exactly what they did this past year in San Antonio! And our electric provider is a “public utility” owned by the city. Any profit goes into the city’s general fund.

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poppajoe49 February 23, 2012 at 10:45 pm

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Strina, just remember one thing, keep an eye on those solar water heaters. I have had to repair a number of roofs, soffits, and fascias due to them leaking and people not noticing the leaks.

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sa_rose February 24, 2012 at 1:01 am

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Here in Texas we get a fair amount of sun. If I had solar panels to take the edge of the AC bills, I ‘d be ecstatic!

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poppajoe49 February 24, 2012 at 5:22 am

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Rose, the problem is that the cost of the solar panels doesn’t offset what you save on electric. It’s like mortgaging your house to save a few bucks on your taxes. What you pay in interest on the mortgage is more than what you save in taxes.

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sa_rose February 24, 2012 at 11:48 am

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True. Of ocurse I live in an apartment that won’teven FIX the roof, much less upgrade anything on the property. But it would be nice. Even for my tiny apartment, and keeping the house at around 80 degrees,my AC bill runs about $150-$175 a month during the summer. And I don’t have a dishwasher, personal water heater, washer or dryer. And my stove/oven is gas.

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Progressive Hemrrhoid February 23, 2012 at 2:05 pm

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Even at best, photovoltaic cells, (AKA Solar Panels) only produce around 13% efficiency. To produce anywhere near a kilowatt of energy requires 6 4X8 foot panels, at $800 each, and direct sunlight. Since the average house uses 58 KWH per day, and you don’t receive 24 hours of sunshine, you need 5,000 watts of solar panels. That equals 30 4X8 panels.
It gets to be a real bummer when it’s cloudy, and if it snows, forgetaboutit!!!

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ooddballz February 24, 2012 at 2:45 am

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My folks in S. Florida had solar panels installed a few years ago. They did it with a specific purpose in mind. With their battery bank, they will have enough power to keep the fridge and oven/stove operating due to power outages during hurricane season.
The cost was kinda high, but with the rebates it was not too bad. As long as you realize the limitations, and use them wisely as a backup plan and not attempt to run the whole house on them it does not seem like a bad deal.

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poppajoe49 February 24, 2012 at 5:27 am

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Yea, my parents got solar panels without even asking me what I thought. The problem is that they were sold them on the premise that they won’t have electric bills, but the guy forgot to tell them that without battery backup, when the power goes out at night, you will be sitting in the dark just like everyone else!
When that happened, I got a panicked phone call wanting to know what they can do to save the food in the freezer! I asked about the battery backup and they never heard of it. I told them to just keep the freezer door closed.

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sa_rose February 24, 2012 at 11:48 am

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That sounds likea great idea ooddballz. Would the panels SURVIVE a hurricane?

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flashingscotsman February 24, 2012 at 12:02 pm

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This was the original idea when I put in some panels and a wind generator at my home in the desert. Our power went out quite often, and the line that served the canyon I lived in was always one of the last to be repaired. I did have batteries, and they always got me through the outages.

Thing is, in that part of the desert, the sun almost always shines, and the wind almost always blows, so I either had to use the power generated, or let it go to waste. So I powered my garage off of the system.

Did it give me piece of mind when the power went out? Yes. Did it generate enough power to offset it’s original cost, and it’s maintenance? No.

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Alien February 24, 2012 at 9:36 am

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They’ll work out nicely when we can suspend vast solar plantations at L1, L2 et al and beam the power back to Earth.. Except, by then, we’ll have collossal matter scoops making it moot, sucking hydrogen out of mighty Jove to power fusion monoliths spread across the inner solar system, and fringe environmentalists will be blowing up installations on Europa trying to protect some hitherto unknown microbe.. I hope my brain survives in a 22nd century jar to see it

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Alien February 24, 2012 at 9:40 am

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edit failing.. L4 L5 more stable

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sa_rose February 24, 2012 at 11:50 am

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Alien, what have you been smoking?

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Alien February 24, 2012 at 3:17 pm

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lots of SciFi

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