Maine's Energy futureSubmitted by mainething t3_11ym5f0 in Maine
Norgyort t1_jd8ah6w wrote
I don’t think the median is a good place for solar panels due to safety reasons.
Also not sure how the road dust would impact the efficiency of the panels.
Underground wires is not a bad idea, but there are places where the median is very small. It would also be a lot of work to route the cables over/under intersecting roads and bridges.
Now, what Augusta is doing with the solar panels on the ramp loops is a good idea IMO. We should be putting panels in all of those empty loops throughout the state.
ghostsintherafters t1_jd8sk6d wrote
Booooo! I hate that this is the top comment. Placing solar panels in the median is a brilliant idea and has worked in some of the dirtiest cities in India and Southeast Asia. The best part? Solar power is virtually free and they can't find a way to make it scarce in order to jack up our energy bills. Anyone leading us away from solar power is not our friend and these energy bills are fucking killing us common folk. Solar power in the medians all day, every day. Great idea.
3490goat t1_jd8wwdd wrote
I think the fact that is has worked well for other countries is the best reason to take a good look at the idea. The reality of American excellence has faded over time and we should start again to incorporate great ideas from other countries that work better. America has been surpassed in many areas in the last 40 years and we need to catch up on technology and infrastructure
WalkerBRiley t1_jd9hmki wrote
I think the fact that is has worked well for other countries is the main reason Americans are so against it. If it works somewhere else it can't be good, amirite?
3490goat t1_jd9itfb wrote
I think that is is attitude a lot of people have. Unfortunately
ralphy1010 t1_jdaewya wrote
I dunno man, I see a lot of European cars on the road everyday. They must be doing something right. /s
Embarrassed-One2182 t1_jd9mfi4 wrote
Don’t forget the dismissal/vilification as “socialism” bit
seanwalter54321 t1_jdc154f wrote
A cloud makes solar power scarce….
Betty2theWhite t1_jdbi15c wrote
People leading you away from just solar panels are your friends. Solar panels can't fix the world right now, we don't have adequate energy storage, especially in Maine where we have massive needs for power at the exact times solar stops producing. The duck curve just doesn't allow for it
In fact I'd argue only adding solar panels wouldn't change prices at all. Power plants are super costly to shut down and start up, and they have set flexibility in how much or little output they can sustain. So we can't just shut them off when the solar panels start producing and turn them back on when we need the power, and it turns out we consume the most power right before and right after solar panels produce.
All a massive solar panel project would do, right now, is flood the market with power at the times we need the least amount of power.
Now lunar panels, that's what we need.
seanwalter54321 t1_jdc19tu wrote
You’ll get downvoted but you seem to be the only one here that knows what they’re talking about. The price per MWH will actually go in the negatives making you have to shut down your main power suppliers when the suns out, then a cloud goes by, these things drop their output by 70% and now all the sudden things need to be up and running again. Without battery storage these things are creating disasters for grid stability.
Betty2theWhite t1_jddgbbd wrote
I did get down voted, but I'm an engineer so I'm used to people only respect my opinions on these matters when they have to pay me for them.
[deleted] t1_jde4tmk wrote
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[deleted] t1_jde47aa wrote
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mainething OP t1_jd8d24i wrote
Betty2theWhite t1_jdbi822 wrote
Pretty sure that area doesn't have the snow fall we do.
kirkwooder t1_jdd2hm9 wrote
ikr? Pretty sure MaineDOT actually counts on that median space being available for cost effective snow removal.
[deleted] t1_jd8rxlv wrote
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mainething OP t1_jd8tx0f wrote
maintaining the panels? here is a Massachusetts's installation..
[deleted] t1_jd8wwr5 wrote
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jihadgis t1_jd9qmc8 wrote
I'm not even remotely qualified, but it seems obvious that maintaining several/many solar farms along the median-located transmission line would incur less maintenance costs over time than tending a relatively delicate network over the course of hundreds of linear miles ... in traffic.
[deleted] t1_jd9sk4b wrote
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jarnhestur t1_jd8gr14 wrote
Yeah. Let’s talk about how great the Chinese power grid is in their rural areas. 😂
Erin-DidYouFindMe t1_jd8ny4a wrote
.... the reason why China is heavily investing into solar is because of their rural issues. Its their solution to it. Because its been repeatedly proven to be way more effective at providing consistent power to the small scale, decentralized rural communities.
You also have the benefit of creating a by-proxy mesh network, which prevents outages like you see in Texas when the centralized infrastructure fails.
jarnhestur t1_jd8omww wrote
Agreed. But taking a single picture of some solar panels stuck on the middle of a random road with no context doesn’t really prove anything.
China’s power grid is a mess, and still relies a lot of coal. Yeah, they are doing solar, but let’s not hold them up as some kind of leader in it. Their rural infrastructure is incredibly archaic.
Erin-DidYouFindMe t1_jd8rmlu wrote
...Not really sure what the issue is?
China went through their industrial revolution 110-or-so years after us. We've had almost a century to expand our infrastructure into our rural communities.
The things you're complaining about - it being a mess (underdevelopment, lack of robust infrastructure) and them using coal - both of those things are solved by the work their doing with solar panels, like in the picture above.
Hope that clarifies. Let me know if you'd like any other information.
jarnhestur t1_jd8xyte wrote
I don't think holding up China as an example of how the US should further develop our power grid is very smart or even applicable.
Erin-DidYouFindMe t1_jd8ypls wrote
China, Korea, Japan, and Nordic Countries are all doing this (or nearly identical) systems, many modeled off of the Chinese model you see above. China is - for all intents and purposes - the most prolific solar producer in the world.
Your feelings about the Chinese are blinding you to the solutions that are being created.
jarnhestur t1_jd99g1q wrote
China's power grid is an absolute mess. Also, China is one of the worst worst polluters. This isn't a feeling issue - it's a reality issue.
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This isn't about solar power - I'm all for solar power. However, holding the Chinese power grid up as what we should be aiming for is... laughable.
Erin-DidYouFindMe t1_jd9dwti wrote
> This isn't about solar power
That is the topic and I'm not deviating it to argue about something that no one is disagreeing with...
> Holding the Chinese power grid up
No one is doing this.
Saying China is doing a good job at building up their infrastructure isn't saying they have the best grid ever, its just stating a fact that their renewable energy and infrastructure spending is both modern-oriented and proven efficient towards their goal of creating a robust, green power grid. As proven by several European countries, Japan, the US, South Korea, and even super rural places in Africa. China is just doing a lot more of it - in part because they need to, to get off coal and make their grid more robust.
China is also working on curtailment efficiency (Mongolian parts wasted about 10-12% because the solar panels are producing more than the curtailment can handle) and are doing so, in part, by developing a combination of centralized and decentralized "mesh network" solar panel grid system that's shown to be highly effective. A model the US should be more oriented towards.
Again, for a country that went through their industrial revolution 100 years after us - who are, in effect, 100 years behind us in power grid infrastructure building and development.
By... doing things like what is specifically in that picture and in this post.
jarnhestur t1_jd9qyjl wrote
China is one of the worst polluters in the world:
https://ge.usembassy.gov/chinas-air-pollution-harms-its-citizens-and-the-world/
mainething OP t1_jd8leu5 wrote
jarnhestur t1_jd8o0n1 wrote
thehonorablechairman t1_jdbr775 wrote
Yes, China needs to modernize, that's why they're building a shit ton of solar panels, and it seems to be working pretty well so far.
US also needs to modernize, maybe we could also build a shit ton of solar panels, since it seems to be working in other places.
jarnhestur t1_jdcftr3 wrote
Sure - but the point of putting them in the middle of the road and saying that's how Maine should do it doesn't seem to be applicable to me.
Putting power related infrastructure in the middle of a rural road seems like a poor location.
I'm all for solar power, in general, but putting a bunch of panels where cars can hit them seems dumb.
AppexRedditor t1_jd8vd1i wrote
Not sure how this is supposed to convince anyone that putting solar panels in a median is a good idea
HarlemGlobefrotter t1_jd8pcxs wrote
That’s a chart of total installations; that doesn’t disprove the comment about how crappy Chinese rural power is. Just shows they install a lot, which is to be expected given the large urban populace and heavy urban shift since the 1980s.
mhb20002000 t1_jdakdr6 wrote
Considering how many cars end up in the median on a snowy day, putting panels in the median would lead to expensive replacement cost and higher insurance premiums as a state.
Norgyort t1_jdaq5dp wrote
My thoughts exactly.
GoldenLeftovers t1_jd8ryvy wrote
Safety reasons?
Norgyort t1_jd8t51f wrote
Cars going off the road and crashing into the panels.
GoldenLeftovers t1_jd9bts1 wrote
Better do away with trees, rocks, telephone poles, concrete dividers...
Surely you would crash into a guardrail before hitting the panels
FragilousSpectunkery t1_jd9aohy wrote
There are thousands of trees in the median. Or, are you thinking of the short bit between Gray and NH?
drewteam t1_jd94o0n wrote
Cars go off the road every where... People should slow down and put their phone down.
It's not like it's new, as someone said it works in South Korea. People are the issue. Put the phone down.
AppexRedditor t1_jd8vsi8 wrote
Instant BBQ
IdiotSysadmin t1_jd9uv6x wrote
More so with power lines and no one thinks twice about driving or walking under those.
MrFittsworth t1_jd9c2c2 wrote
Dust? Are you living in some different part of the state? Where have you seen large dust clouds from the interstate in any season other than a few short weeks in late spring when the salt and sand is dry on the roads?
dinah-fire t1_jdaghrk wrote
Pretty sure that person was responding to the person asking why they don't do that in the southwest.
Betty2theWhite t1_jdbie3v wrote
Dust here could mean air particulates, as in salt/sand, exhaust fumes and residue, or a plethora of others.
MrFittsworth t1_jdcf1vi wrote
Rain washes dust and said dust would have little impact on the efficacy of solar panels en masse in application.
SeawolfGaming t1_jdaxz2r wrote
Underground wires is actually a great idea, it's what they do in Germany and they have an average of 30 minutes of power downtime per year.
_Marat t1_jd8xf37 wrote
>solar power at the 45th parallel
Ishygddt
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