No, just that I know where DaveB lives
I didn't see that in any of the earlier posts. Not saying it wasn't there, just that I didn't see it. And without that, or any other hints that he lives in the arctic tundra, I didn't realise we were talking about a "harsh environment installation"
I've heard a lot of people make the claim that PV is much better and more reliable than wind, and they're maintenance free.
For most of the world, that's true
For you fringe-dwellers, it might be different
For us here, that's not the case in winter. They make a trickle of power, but the days are too short to depend on solar at all. And, like last winter we didn't get a single day of sunshine from Jan 7 to February 18.
If you'd included that at the get-go, I'd have agreed with you entirely. Those qualifications put your site in a completely different scenario to most other PV installations I've ever seen.
I know some people who have PV arrays installed where they get enough snow to quite litterally LOSE VEHICLES when they wander off the side of their driveway. Burried in snowdrifts. Its ok, they come out again when the snow melts in a couple of months. BUT.... they get good to great PV output.
I'm not disappointed with them at all. They supply us with good power in the summer when the days are longer and we get less wind. But they have their limitations. I'm just pointing out the realities of solar PV when you live in an area where things get buried under 6 feet of snow. You can put a solar array on a 6 foot high stand here, and what will happen is that the array breaks the wind and forms a drift that will bury the array under snow that is as hard as cement. Already been there, done that. The only way to mount them there so you can keep them working in the winter time is to put them on the edge of a south facing roof so you can reach the array with a snow rake.
Again, nicely qualified as to why they're not suitable in your environment.
Thinking solar panels are maintenance free in a winter environment is flawed thinking.
Unqualified statement might apply in YOUR area, but totally, utterly wrong in *MOST* others, including mine.
My PV in winter doesn't produce enough for all my power needs... but my modest 3.5 kW worth supply more than half my winter power needs - and that includes two home offices and a whole pile of computer equipment. Some days this winter I didn't need to run the generator at all, most days it needed one or two short runs. Previous winters before I had all the PV I needed at least two runs of 3hrs each, sometimes a 3rd run early afternoon. My outlay on PV has virtually paid for itself in saved propane bills over the last 18 months. But then, I'm only 36 degrees south.
Wind turbines are way less maintenance than solar PV.
Strongly disagree around here. But statements like those get found by people searching in google or whatever, and they "become fact". People don't read a whole thread to get the context. And if it's a statement in a post that doesn't have any sort of obvious qualification, it'll get taken and quoted (or mis-quoted) out of context.
Remember all the dramas some guys are having with ordinances and laws about putting up wind turbines? All the "proof" about noise and dangers of things flying apart and killing birds and making people go mad etc? You and I know most of that is utter crap. There might have been ONE CASE of a turbine killing some rare bird... and that ONE CASE gets used as "proof" that all turbines kill birds indiscriminately. In the lack of evidence to the contrary, by idiots in power, it becomes "fact", and before you can say "WTF?" there's a law.
Solar arrays in the winter time require attention and cleaning every time it snows.
Again - completely nonsense in MOST places.
If you'd said "Solar arrays in the winter time *around here* require attention and cleaning every time it snows." it's clear you're not talking about all installations everywhere.
(emphasis added for clarity)
So that's all I'm saying. Don't get too excited about how great solar panels are, and how maintenance free they are, until you go thru your first winter with them, when you live in an area where winter weather closes roads in entire counties for days.
Qualified and agreed. Where I live, wind is cheap per watt of capacity - but kWh/month is quite low. Solar ranges from quite cheap (if you source your own panels, mountings etc and don't pay some ripoff merchant to do it for you) to stupid expensive... but is far more productive (per $ invested) than wind.
