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it would be nice to conquer overcast day on solar energy. (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I have been thinking on how to claim every energy that comes on my plot. Technology goes more and more into harvesting the smaller left over energy. Ive seen examples in the Netherlands where startups try to get energy from a chip (I have been thinking on how to claim every energy that comes on my plot. Technology goes more and more into harvesting the smaller left over energy. Ive seen examples in the Netherlands where startups try to get energy from a chip (http://www.nowi-energy.com, https://memsys.nl) and a transparent solar panel layer on windows etc. Here in Lithuania sometimes the whole day has an overcast sky and that is the solar energy that we are getting. I know that with heavy overcast days a standard solar panels output can be as low as 10%. So a 5kWp can generate instead of 3.75kW produce only a meager 370W. My question to you, arent there other solar technologies that are adjusted to this overcast circumstances? So to gain more efficiency from diffuse lighting or from frequencies that can pierce the clouds more (like infrared spectrum)?

Some sunday morning pondering....

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

If it's cloudy it's cloudy, there is less sun, and if there is less sun to harvest then photovoltaic panels will produce less. We can maybe optimize the panels for cloudy days but whatever happen they will always produce less energy in cloudy days than sunny days.

So there is multiple alternatives:

Adapt electric consomption to the weather. I think this is a really important step. With technology we progressively disconnected ourself from the weather. Whatever season it is, whatever the outside temperature we always go to school/work at the same hours, eat the same kind of meals at the same time ... I think with renewables we have to think differently, of we have a sunny day we can do laundry, stay up late, use the electric oven ... In cloudy days we reduce our use of electricity.
Storage, storage is good for predictable energy variation, maybe to extend a bag day but not more. Whatever amount of storage we install we will still have days when it's not enough, the worst case scenario
Alternative energy, for when there is no production and the storage is empty then we need to rely on alternative energy. It can be an alternative generator, individual or collective, or it can be having wood stove for cooking and heading and candle for the light. This will cover the x% of hours in the year when we run out.