Alex P Roe - OLD ACCOUNTWhile touring #Andalusia in #Spain, I spotted a gleaming tower. Intrigued, I looked it up and found out it was the #Gemasolar Thermosolar Plant which can supply power to 27,500 homes and uses molten salt heat storage technology to keep generating power when there's no sun. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemasolar_Thermosolar_Plant - Perhaps #Italy could do with a few similar plants. #energy
Wow! #Spain is no slouch in the solar #energy generation department: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_stations - Sunny #Italy, on the other hand, is nowhere to be seen. Too busy wasting money on thinking about building a #bridge to #Sicily, alas.
Marcus Jenkins@alexproe It would be interesting to see how IT & ES compare for installed solar power from residential / rooftop. Spain's right wing government had a cosy arrangement with their future employers in the electricity business that, effectively, made it illegal to install solar at home (illegal or you had to set up to install a meter to pay a tax making it pointless). They repealed the law in 2018, but people are still a bit nervous that a future right wing govt might restore it.
@marcusjenkins Interesting. Didn't know about the rooftop solar panel situation. Will hunt for solar energy stats. Comparing Italy and Spain (and a few other Mediterranean nations) would be interesting. #solarenergy #impuestoalsol
@alexproe There is this which isn't giving the installed rooftop solar stats per se, I think, but certainly makes a nice comparison on how good each country is with respect to its encouragement & support for people to install solar panels on their rooftops.
Italy wins over Spain!
@marcusjenkins Thanks. From what you told me, I thought the difference might have been greater. Will look for total solar energy generation by Spain and Italy. I imagine Spain will win owing to its solar generation plants. I know some local councils in Italy won't always let people put solar panels on historic buildings. But solar roof tiles exist and look quite promising too. Don't know about the cost though.
@alexproe For sure roof-tile-lookalike photovoltaic panels are going to be a lot more expensive per kW than standard panels currently at €100 / 550W at my local DIY shop. Plus wiring and labour costs will be a lot higher. My sister in UK also has the historic building problem with rooftop solar. I was surprised by the report I just posted - Spain is more positive on rooftop solar than I thought!
@marcusjenkins Found the info via Wikipedia: As of 2022, #Italy has a total installed capacity of 22.56 GW. In #Spain in 2022, the cumulative total solar power installed was 19.5 GW, of which 17.2 GW were solar PV installations and 2.3 GW were concentrated solar power. Italy is ahead of Spain but not by much. Will check and see if Italy has any concentrated solar power plants. Can't think of any.
@alexproe Very interesting. Also, with respect to the concentrated solar power installation that you saw in Andalucía - whilst it certainly has a certain James Bond villain chic about it, I'm not sure whether they're still in favour compared to simply laying down hectares of (now) cheap PV. In a word: maintenance. No moving parts these days on PV farms. Just wash the panels occasionally and that's about it.
@marcusjenkins I quite liked the Andalucia plant! The gleaming tower was very scifi! Looks cool from the sky too. But that tower thing will need maintenance whereas, as you point out, fields of panels require little or no attention aside from cleaning which will eventually be done by robots.
@marcusjenkins #Germany puts both #Spain and #Italy to shame: Not so sunny Germany's overall capacity reached 42.98 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2017! #solarpower