Anthony Watts: First, let me say I’m a fan of solar power when done correctly and without financial carrots hung out for electricity generation that entice abuse of the system. I put solar on my own home.
Bishop Hill points out that some solar power installations in Spain were producing power at night.
Bishop Hill points out that some solar power installations in Spain were producing power at night.
…The prices paid for green energy were so high that it appeared to be profitable to generate that energy by shining conventionally fuelled arclights on the solar panels.
But finds truth to be stranger than fiction:
Although the exact details are slightly different there is now an intriguing report of the scam in practice. The text is based on a machine translation of the original German text:
After press reports, it was established during inspections that several solar power plants were generating current and feeding it into the net at night. To simulate a larger installation capacity, the operators connected diesel generators.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said one industry expert to the newspaper “El Mundo”, which brought the scandal to light. If solar systems apparently produce current in the dark, will be noticed sooner or later. However, if electricity generators were connected during daytime, the swindle would hardly be noticed.
As I said last time around, this is the insanity of greenery.
Here is the Google Translation of the article.
You too can generate energy with your solar system at night, all you need is an 850 million candlepower WWII era searchlight, now available for rent.
Hey, it’s not crazy. There are so many fees, taxes, add ons, etc to power bills here in California now it is actually cheaper to generate your own electricity running a diesel generator than it is to buy it from PG&E. Anyone have a used diesel-electric locomotive I can buy?
