Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Whooeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I thought Mrs. Elektra was a dumb ass. Yes, solar only meets the rated wattage in direct sunlight. And when you are installing it, you install enough for your needs by calculating how much wattage you will get in a given day. So latitude and climate play a factor. Of course a 400 watt panel does not deliver 400 watts 24/7. That wattage allows you to calculate how much it will generate per day, and, by that, per year. And one more point. You don't need a railroad or pipeline to bring in fuel. It falls out of the sky and is free. And the are not destroying watersheds and aquifers to get that free fuel. However, the proof of the superiority of solar is that the utilities are adapting solar and wind, and shutting down coal plants purely on an economic basis.Gee i thought you were the wind and solar sage of the n=message board and yet you don't know what capacity factor is?
What is capacity factor and how do solar and wind energy compare? – Sunmetrix
The capacity factor is the ratio of energy generated over a time period (typically a year) divided by the installed capacity.sunmetrix.com
if we install 10 solar panels rated at 250 watts each, we will have a capacity of 2500 watts, or 2.5 kW. However, determining the actual output from these panels is much more challenging
To illustrate how location impacts capacity factor, consider a 10 kW system installed in Phoenix (AZ) vs. Seattle (WA). With a Solar Score of 84, Phoenix has a very high solar energy potential. Using Sunmetrix Discover for Phoenix, we can see that this system would generate about 20,500 kWh of electricity during the year. If it were to run non-stop, 24/7 at peak capacity of 10 kW, it would have generated 24 x 365 x 10 = 87,600 kWh. Dividing 20,500 by 87,600 gives us a capacity factor of about 23%. With a Solar Score of 43, Seattle is an entirely different story. Here, a 10 kW system would generate about 14,000 kWh during the year. Consequently, the capacity factor of the solar energy system here is much lower than that of Phoenix at about 16%.