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Snowed Under: SOLAR ENERGY IS USELESS

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From Powerline

By JOHN HINDERAKER

Or perhaps one should say: utility scale solar energy is useless. In northern climates, like where I live, solar panels produce electricity around 18% of the time–not a lot of electricity, any electricity. The vast majority of the time, they are inert.

It’s not just that solar panels do nothing during the night, as Duke Energy recently reminded its customers following a series of blackouts. In the North, solar panels also cease to function when it snows. Which it does, a lot. Sometimes on days when you want to turn on your lights, watch television or operate an appliance.

This is typical: a vast sea of solar panels, completely worthless because they are covered with snow:

What is most telling is that no one bothers to shovel off the snow. Do you shovel your driveway?

Yes, you need to.

But utilities don’t clear snow off solar panels, as one utility executive recently admitted, because they produce so little electricity that paying to shovel them–most likely, paying high school kids–is not cost-effective.

That is the ultimate proof of the futility of utility scale solar power.