what is the annual consumption of solar energy

(Online version in colour. Figure 8. By the metric of average power per unit area, solar power is one of the most promising renewables. Closed-loop biomass, where power is generated using feedstocks grown specifically for the purpose of energy production, is generally considered to be carbon dioxide neutral because the carbon dioxide emitted during combustion of the fuel was previously captured during the growth of the feedstock. Variation of average sunshine with latitude and with time of year.

(See tables13 for data.) (Online version in colour.). The Department of Energy has found that theuntapped generation potential at existing U.S. damsdesigned for purposes other than power production (i.e., water supply, flood control, and inland navigation) represents 12 GW, roughly 15 percent of current hydropower capacity. Electricity demand in the UK and modelled solar production, assuming 40GW of solar capacity. Line segments show 15 years of progress (from 1990 to 2005) for Australia, Libya, the USA, Sudan, Brazil, Portugal, China, India, Bangladesh, the UK and the Republic of Korea. The largest production models, designed for off-shore use can generate 12 MW; some innovative turbine models under development are expected to generate more than 14 MW in offshore projects in the coming years. To envisage solar making a dominant contribution to energy demand in such locations, we must therefore think carefully about how to store or transport energy from times and places with more plentiful sunshine. We now explore some of these three options, starting with storage. ), Figure3 shows a map of the world in which the horizontal axis is a country's population density, and the vertical axis is its energy consumption per person, in kWh per day per person. Solar farms' average power per unit land area versus their load factor (i.e. The ideas of storing large quantities of useful energy when Nature provides it and of transmitting useful energy long distances from one country to another are not new. Solar collectors (i.e., parabolic troughs) capture and concentrate sunlight to heat a synthetic oil called therminol, which then heats water to create steam. Like biopower and unlike intermittent wind and solar power, geothermal electricity can be used continuously. The area of Greater London is 1580km, National Council for Science and the Environment. Fourth, in all locations in the USA with insolation above 160Wm2, the power per unit area of every ground-based farm is between 4.3 and 11.4Wm2. Production data that are labelled by an asterisk denote actual production; otherwise, the production stated is a published estimate. Traditional biomass, including waste wood, charcoal, and manure, has been a source of energy for domestic cooking and heating throughout human history. Moreover, in the UK, daily electricity demand has its maximum not at noon but at 18.00. The average output, year round, is 4.6GW. Solar farms' average power per unit land area versus their load factor (i.e. Could energy intensive industries be powered by carbon-free electricity? Batteries and pumped storage are not the only storage solutions. The diagonal lines are contours of power consumption per unit area. Today, new onshore turbines are typically in the range of 2 5 MW. (Much as, in a town with some crowded buses and many empty buses, the average number of passengers per bus may be small, but the vast majority of passengers find themselves on crowded buses.) From just 0.34 GW in 2008, U.S. solar power capacity has grown to an, Since 2014, the average cost of solar PV panels has, Solars abundance and potential throughout the United States is staggering: PV panels on just 22,000 square miles of the nations total land area about the size of Lake Michigan could supply, CSP is another method for capturing energy from the sun, with about, Moreover, the solar industry is a proven incubator for job growth throughout the nation. The interconnected North American power grid enables two-way trading and benefits both Canada and the United States with enhanced , View Details Figure 13. Electricity, gas and transport demand; and modelled wind production, assuming 33GW of capacity, all on the same vertical scale. Decarbonizing such countries will only be possible through some combination of the following options: the embracing of country-sized renewable power-generation facilities; large-scale energy imports from country-sized renewable facilities in other countries; population reduction; radical efficiency improvements and lifestyle changes; and the growth of non-renewable low-carbon sources, namely clean coal, clean gas and nuclear power. Costs of battery storage are from Poonpun & Jewell [13]. Nearly all countries had renewable energy policy targets in place at the end of 2020. In some places, hot springs and geysers have been used for bathing, cooking and heating for centuries. In principle, some of these renewable power densities might be increased by technological progressfor example, Dabiri [5] calculates that closely packed vertical-axis wind turbines might produce roughly 18Wm2but this prediction has yet to be verified in a real-world demonstration at megawatt scale; Dabiri's small experiments on a six-turbine 7.2kW array demonstrated daily mean power densities ranging from 2.1 to 10.5Wm2(here I have scaled the results (630Wm2) reported by Dabiri [5] by the ratio of the convex hull of the six turbines (48.6m2) to the area of the six squares (138.24m2) they would occupy in a larger square-lattice array); and the capital cost per MWh of the turbines would probably be significantly greater than that of standard horizontal-axis turbines. Generally, the capacity of these devices is small, ranging from 1kW to 250kW. (Average powers per unit area are sometimes measured in other units, for example kWh per year per square metre; for the reader who prefers those units, the following equivalence may be useful: 1W= 8.766kWh per year.) Data for the other farms in Italy are estimates from pensatopartners.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/20120406-eng-pp-company-presentation.pdf. CSP is another method for capturing energy from the sun, with about 1.8 GW of capacityin the United States. Contour plot of the total cost of a photovoltaic system, in a sunny location, capable of giving a steady 1kW output with (a) 14h of storage (as might be appropriate in a location such as Los Angeles); (b) 120h of storage (as might be appropriate in cloudier locations), as a function of the cost of the panels and the cost of storage. Figure8 shows the solar farms average power per unit land area versus the local insolation (i.e. In 2011, a 254 MWtidal power plant in South Koreabegan operation, doubling the global capacity to 527 MW. Predicted or actual electricity production by solar photovoltaic farms in Italy and the UK versus their electrical capacity and the land area occupied. From this perspective, energy from the sun is virtually unlimited' (National Geographic; http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2009/09/solar/johnson-text). On each day, the theoretical clear-sky output of the panels is scaled by a factor of either 1, 0.547, or 0.1, to illustrate sunny, partially sunny, and overcast days. According to The Eco Experts (http://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/Solar-Panel-Infographic): The UK could meet all of its power needs by devoting just 1 per cent of its land area to solar panels. Wind production is modelled by scaling data from Ireland. Space heat could also be stored from one month to another in hot rocks. Increased demand and procurement requires more of these technologies to be manufactured and developed, causing reduced costs due to learning and economies of scale, which increases the incentive for additional procurement. Solar energy resources are massive and widespread, and they can be harnessed anywhere that receives sunlight. The highest ambition for domestic solar photovoltaics would be for them to be able to emulate baseload generation, with the help of electricity storageprobably the most costly of the three options just listed. Discussion Meeting Issue Can solar power deliver? organized and edited by Peter P. Edwards, Richard H. Friend, S. Roberto Amendolia and Can Li, Solar energy in the context of energy use, energy transportation and energy storage, Predicted or actual electricity production by solar photovoltaic farms in various countries versus their electrical capacity and the land area occupied. usage pepco chart power bar solar yearly electrical want know electric convey delmarva graph uses annual In a decarbonized world that is renewable-powered, the land area required to maintain today's British energy consumption would have to be similar to the area of Britain. The tables below quantify roughly how much electrical energy one would have to store to make it through a typical night, one winter night, five dull winter days and an entire winter. When we take into account the variation in time of solar output, what contribution could solar power credibly make in the UK and in other countries? (Online version in colour. In principle, sufficiently large volumes of hot water could store energy for space-heating; a space-heating demand of 20kWh per day per person would correspond to a hot water demand of 100000kg per year per person. Download (pdf, 1 MB), Business Environmental Leadership Council, Mayors/Business Alliance for a Sustainable Future, Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21, states with a renewable portfolio standard, The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, untapped generation potential at existing U.S. dams, Clean Connection: Canadian and U.S. Electricity, Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century REN21, Renewable & Alternative Fuels, Energy Information Agency, Hydropower Vision: A New Chapter for Americas 1st Renewable Electricity Source, U.S. Department of Energy, An Assessment of Energy Potential at Non-Powered Dams in the United States, U.S. Department of Energy, Renewable Energy Credits Factsheet, World Resources Institute. Figure 6. In 2011, a much wetter than average year in the U.S. Northwest, the United States generated 7.9 percent of its total electricity from hydropower. The steam is piped to an onsite turbine-generator to produce electricity, which is then transmitted over power lines. In the year 2020, it is expected to grow to 20terawatts. (Online version in colour. An alternative way to transmit power over long distances would be to convert the power into chemical formfor example, liquid hydrocarbonand send the chemicals by ship. Figure6 shows that, in a world that is renewable-powered, the land area required to maintain today's British energy consumption would have to be similar to the area of Britain. Wood biomass, for example, contains sulfur and nitrogen, which yield air pollutants sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, though in much lower quantities than coal combustion. Solar energy hasnt reached its full potential as a clean energy source for the United States, and significant work remains to be done to drive deployment of solar technologies. OECD, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Aluminium electrolysis at a rate of 35kg per year per person would consume about 80W per person. Stepping back from this highest ambition, an alternative way of handling solar intermittency would be for solar to play a role in flexible production of storable energy-intensive products that are required in appropriately large quantities. Several other high-density, high-consuming countries are in the same boat as Britain, and many other countries are rushing to join us. Note that, under these assumptions, summer/winter balancing would require lakes for pumped storage having a total area that is 5 per cent of the area of the UK! Moreover, if the round-trip efficiency of storage were 75 per cent, then to make up for the 25 per cent loss, the number of solar panels would have to be increased by 33 per cent. Figure12 displays the cost of emulating baseload with an electricity store, as a function of the photovoltaic cost and the storage cost, assuming a sunny location with a load factor of 20 per cent. (See tables13 for data.) The economics will always favour locations with high insolation.

Concentrating solar power in deserts has enormous technical potential for delivery of industrial heat and electricity, and I find it hard to imagine the world achieving the climate-change action aspired to by recent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations without significant deployment of solar power in sunny locations.

Potential order-of-magnitude enhancement of wind farm power density via counter-rotating vertical-axis wind turbine arrays, Organic materials for large area electronics, Steps towards a 2000 watt society. Wind resources are abundant in the Great Plains, Iowa, Minnesota, along the spine of Appalachian Mountains, in the Western Mountains, and many off-shore locations. Typically, photovoltaics are found on the roofs of residential and commercial buildings. Direct synthesis of hydrocarbons with air capture of CO2could guzzle the highest amounts of electricity, under the following assumptions. The capital costs per kW are equivalent to the following undiscounted costs per kWh, assuming 20 years' operation: per kWh; per kWh; per kWh; per kWh; per kWh. TheInternational Energy Agencynotes that the development and deployment of renewable electricity technologies are projected to continue to be deployed at record levels, but government policies and financial support are needed to incentivize even greater deployments of clean electricity (and supporting infrastructure) to give the world a chance to achieve its net zero climate goals. Contours of equal energy consumption per unit area in figures35 are straight lines with slope 1. (Online version in colour.

Hydrokinetic electric power, including wave and tidal power, is a form of unconventional hydropower that captures energy from waves or currents and does not require dam construction. Factors affecting renewable energy deployment include market conditions (e.g., cost, diversity, proximity to demand or transmission, and resource availability), policy decisions, (e.g., tax credits, feed-in tariffs, and renewable portfolio standards) as well as specific regulations. Our World in Data is free and accessible for everyone. solar california graph power energy commercial andrew Small hydropower projects, generally less than 10 megawatts (MW), and micro-hydropower (less than 1 MW) are less costly to develop and have a lower environmental impact than large conventional hydropower projects. Data for Springerville Generating Station Solar System are actual data from www.tep.com/tracker/systems/springerville/. These facilities were built when solar electricity was paid handsome tariffs (45per kWh); if land area were valued more highly relative to renewable power, then no doubt a re-optimized solar farm could have higher power per unit area, but the maximum possible in locations such as Vermont (incoming power 143Wm2), Munich (124Wm2) and Edinburgh (94Wm2) would be 23, 20 and 15Wm2, respectively, if we assume a module efficiency of 20 per cent and a filling factor of 80 per cent. [9] and Jochem [10] for discussion of the research and development challenges of delivering a 66%reduction in per capita energy consumption in a European country); lifestyle changes that save energy; and the growth of non-renewable low-carbon sources, namely clean coal, clean gas and nuclear power. Solar farms produce less power per unit area than individual solar panels because the filling factorthe ratio of functional panel area to land areais small, say, 14 per cent. (This figure lies between leadacid batteries and lithium-ion batteries, which have energy densities of about 30 and 160Whkg1, respectively.). Capacity is expensive, so to get a good return on investment one desires a big load factor. All the software and code that we write is open source and made available via GitHub under the permissive MIT license. The Carbon Plan sketches a corridor of pathways in which: per capita demand in the UK falls by between 31 and 54 per cent; nuclear power generation capacity increases from today's 10GW to between 16 and 75GW; renewable electricity-generation capacity increases from today's 10GW to between 22 and 106GW; carbon capture and storage electrical capacity increases to between 2 and 40GW; and bioenergy use increases from today's 73TWhyr1 to between 180 and 470TWhyr1 (2154GW). An individual photovoltaic panel, even in the UK, delivers about 20Wm2; a solar photovoltaic park delivers about 5Wm2in duller locations such as the UK and up to 10Wm2in sunnier locations, and concentrating solar power in deserts may deliver about 20Wm2. (Online version in colour. The farm's land area is 0.1km2. There is a fairly strong correlation between insolation and load factor; in the sunniest locations, load factors around 20 per cent are common, and almost all the farmswhether roof-mounted or ground-mounted satisfy the rough relationship. These data are shown graphically in figures810, and the figure in appendix A. aDenotes fixed structure (not Sun-tracking). )Download figureOpen in new tabDownload PowerPointFigure 2. (Online version in colour. In rural areas of the developing world, it remains the dominant fuel source.

Table 2.Predicted or actual electricity production by solar photovoltaic farms in Italy and the UK versus their electrical capacity and the land area occupied. (For comparison, the land area occupied by buildings is 48m2 per person.) Solar hardware costs have fallen dramatically, but, In September 2021, the Energy Department released the, Read the latest on the solar energy market in the National Renewable Energy Laboratorys, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary's Office, Weatherization and Intergovernmental Programs Office, competitive with conventional energy sources, enough electricity to power the entire United States, market barriers and grid integration challenges, now constitute up to 65% of the cost of a residential PV system, About Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. The solar farms in Germany and the UK have the lowest load factors of all (roughly 1012%). (See tables13 for data.) British company ICAX builds underground thermal stores that are used in winter to supply heat to ground-source heat pumps for space-heating. If 120h (five dull days) of storage were provided for a solar farm by dedicated pumped storage, then the lake area required in a mountainous location would be about the same as the area of the solar panels in the farm.

Solar farms' average power per unit land area versus the local insolation (i.e. (Online version in colour.

Businesses with sustainability goals are also driving renewable energy development by building their own facilities (e.g., solar roofs and wind farms), procuring renewable electricity through power purchase agreements, and purchasing renewable energy certificates (RECs). These averages are whole-year averages over day and night. Figure11 shows the time variation of the output of a simply-modelled fleet of 40GW of solar panels in the UK (670W of capacity per person), whose average output (4.4GW, if we assume a load factor of 0.11) would equal 11 per cent of current electricity demand. Ammonia is produced from hydrogen and nitrogen by the HaberBosch process. Generating electric power using wind turbines creates no greenhouse gases, but since a wind farm includes dozens or more turbines, widely-spaced, it requires thousands of acres of land. Seven statesgenerated electricity from geothermal energy: California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah. The Longannet power station in Scotland (2.4GW capacity) occupies 1.6km2, including all the land associated with the Longannet coal mine; its average power output is about 1.2GW, which implies a power per unit area of 740Wm2. Figure8 conveys several interesting facts.

For six storable substances (ice, ammonia, hot water, aluminium, hydrogen and gasoline), figure13 shows on the horizontal axis rough estimates of the energy intensity of production in kWh of electricity per kg, and on the vertical axis a guess of the demand that exists or could exist for each substance in kg per year per person.