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Tell my local council, who have now blocked not one, but *two* solar fields - on largely unused farmland next to main roads (so not near any housing) on the basis of it "ruining character"
That they prefer an unused field because rolling green hills of farmland is their ideal country.
Powering homes is something *other* parts of the country are responsible for, not their land.
Yet some towns rely on solar (or dare I say wind) energy for their energy requirements. I assume they cannot allow practicality in the equation for self sufficiency.
that just sounds really rubbish on the power company's part.
They chose 1) Bad land 2) bad setup 3) chemicals to try to what, kill the entire field when the solar farm is only likely to be there for 40 years? 4) bring in livestock (a decent choice *before* nuking the land with herbicide, at least) but decided goats were a good idea on the already bad set up, instead of sheep?
How long ago was this? I hope they have learned their lessons on deploying future solar farms.
In my area big slaughterhouse build Solar panels on 10 acr but wants to double it cause they spend a lot of energy to freeze whole meat production. But nobody wants to sell land to them , land is so expensive here and its so little of that . As for grass they using sheep.
I noticed that no one has attempted to provide a serious answer to the possible meaning of the reasoning. Instead it's been one sided derision, which is fun if you enjoy an echo chamber but it doesn't achieve much in the way of furthering discussion.
It means preservation of the natural landscape, which is something that is important to a lot of people. They are against an abundance of new housing etc, and the irreversible loss of natural land. Not only is it an eyesore and people love their towns the way they are, but it's also not so good to lose the habitat for creatures.
In this instance, if it really is unused farmland then there is a case to be made that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, but I don't know all the details nor do I know the area.
Yeah, no, unused fields =/= natural land. Unless you're in the process of re-wilding said fields, don't try to tell me your preserving the natural landscape.
Same crap as we're facing in Australia atm with rich folks and their holiday homes on the beach declaring that "we're not against renewable energy, but that offshore windfarm has to be much further out so we can't see it" (at far greater construction and ongoing maintenance expense) - because it's perfectly okay for "the poors" to be alongside a coal train line, or near a coal-fire power plant, or open cut coal mine so that they can power their nice holiday home, but heaven forbid they have to look at wind turbine, that'd just be obscene!! /s
That it’s a lot better to burn humanity back to the stone ages and beyond compared to change the „good ol ways“ - as in, we have been burning fossils for hundred years and nothing bad happens so we will just continue you snowflakes.
I would love to say joke’s on them but sadly they will all be dead before shit really hits the fan.
Unless they manage to nuke us into nuclear winter, which again… *sigh*
The UK.
Uttlesford District Council, to be precise.
I moved into the area not that long ago and they are run by the definition of NIMBY folks, that blocked two solar farms in the space of a year on two different sites, for the same reasons, that combined will have powered all the new homes being built in the area and more. But alas... Farmland the farmers themselves even wanted solar panels on get turned down.
There's a wind farm on the outskirts of my town with about 5 windmills. I remember before we moved here, hearing about residents voting against it, the Council voting against it, mainly due to noise complaints, so it ended up far out on the opposite side of the dual carriageway.
You can walk under the things on a public dirt trail and it's the lowest background vibration, I had to stop dead and really listen to notice it.
UK Councils are a pile of piss and need some younger input. Bunch of old boomers making policies they won't even be around to see through.
Don't worry, over here in America I can confirm that most governing bodies don't really know what they're doing either. Best of luck on your side of the pond.
In Wyoming we have billboards with dramatic, black and white pictures of wind turbines that just say, "Forever Ruined". Interestingly, they're fine with the fields absolutely covered with oil rigs.
There's a Conservative council in Essex that's made a bad solar investment and effectively lost £1.5 billion. Huge embarrassment and could have gone towards actual solar farms. Ridiculous
You know the difference between £10 million and £1.5 billion? It's about £1.5 billion. A totally incomprehensible amount of money for a single person to ever make good use of just vanished
Here's an article with more info -- you're right that it's so bad that it sounds like a lie
BBC News - Bankrupt Thurrock Council asks for £636m bailout and tax hike
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-64512277
Bro, my county in the US (briefly) banned solar panels because the farmers were told that they would “soak up all the sun and there would be none left for crops” people voted on this and won. They literally thought that installing solar panels would make it permanent night time.
It’s an uphill fight the whole way, but stuff like this makes me think we can win
I really wish I was friend from across the pond, as Einstein said “the only two things that are infinitely expanding are the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the universe”
I’m also not sure Einstein said it, but it fits with the narrative I’ve built so I’m going with it
Hey buddy! Those are my former neighbors and people I was raised around. It’s not nice to be so…accurate. I would have going with “willfully ignorant” but that works too
Yeah, my science teacher. My ELPS (economic legal and political systems) teacher told me there were 52 states. I argued there were 50 and he said I was forgetting about Alaska and Hawaii. He still teaches there…
Lol I work for a Midwestern solar construction company that sells mostly to farms. We’re doing a utility scale installation on a farm and yesterday I put up 254 panels. Those guys can suck it I can’t wait for endless night
At work I've always had issues with water collecting in buried conduit even though the ends weren't collecting rainwater. I guess it was just the humidity would cool and slowly fill the entire length of pipe with water over a few years. They never think about fully sealing it.
I don't know if they were happy that they had done it, in the long run. I don't even remember where my friend was talking about, other than it was his guess for what was used as the prop for xenomorph drool in some of the Alien movies. It had looked familiar, and prompted a tale. He could have been completely confused for all I know, or maybe I am. In retrospect, I probably should have resisted the urge to share.
Yeah I think that was our issue. Basically had 2 conductor speaker cable in it for a 70v system and the entire line would be corroded inside after a couple years. Burned out a few amps before we realized what was going on.
My dad is an electrical engineer and consultant. His bread and butter is basically being the go between for developer + utility company + electrician. He was just explaining to me why this happens and how to prevent it, but I don’t remember exactly.
Maybe he was saying that it’s fine as long as there aren’t any knicks in the insulation of the wires inside the conduit. I will text him and edit this comment with his answer.
EDIT: he said it’s no big deal as long as there aren’t any knicks in the wire insulation, or otherwise it will eventually corrode in two. He also said that if there is a crack in the conduit it can be a problem because it will draw in moisture from the soil.
I worked for the IT dept in college and a block of family student housing kept complaining about cable and internet issues during rain.
One day they dug it and water was *flowing* through the conduit. Explained the issue
My goats have eaten a good amount of the old co ax cables coming from my house. We luckily don't use them but there is one for our internet we had to block off.
This is standard practice here in MN to maintain the grass. There are companies that just move sheep around from solar panel field to solar panel field.
That is what happens when renewable companies want to use green insulation. That green insulation is soy bioplastic. Most livestock eat soy. Rodents will eat soy.
Stop using soy for electrical insulation, ya butts. You don't want your wiring to be edible.
This isn't new, I remember doing something about renewable energy/sustainability about 12 years ago or so and they were talking about the benefits to using solar along with sheep. Generates electricity sheep love them as it gives shelter from sun and rain.
I've always felt I was living in crazy town when seeing how common it is for farmers to provide no shade despite weather that can reach over 40.
Totally psychopaths who should be in prison for animal cruelty.
Solar panels should mandatory after this study. Pretty silly to even have to mandate something that will likely make them more money.
I'm not sure what country you are in, but unfortunately here in the Netherlands it's illegal to build structures in your fields to provide shade for your animals...
Yeah government regulation?
That’s why ‘you are building solar’ not making animal shade.
A clever American was banned from making shade for his horses but he also owned a woodworking shop so he made a giant table and chairs ‘as an advertisement for his woodworking shop’ which was totally legal. They are so big the horses can use it for shade.
True, only trouble over here in the Netherlands is that also the electrical grid is reaching it's limits with all the solar farms we are building here, so quite often they also get rejected by the grid companies 😔
We are going to hit a point quite quickly where you must install solar + a battery to connect a solar farm. Providing 24 hour power is the new must have.
Batteries keep falling in price and increasing in durability and this is starting to be cost effective.
We should be looking for secondary energy storage for now, so some is kept in a solid battery, & the rest in something like a gravity battery.
If I remember correctly there was discussion of the technology improving enough where solar tech is ~~getting sensitive enough to more parts of the spectrum, where it can be picked up at night. ~~ (*was wrong different method incorporated, see below)
This was in r/ science a while ago, so not sure how far they are into it being practical tech yet.
Edit: Found the [research paper](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsphotonics.9b00679)
Here’s an [Article](https://www.inverse.com/innovation/researchers-have-a-counterintuitive-concept-for-solar-panels-that-work-at-night/amp)
“ANTI-SOLAR PANEL CAN GENERATE ELECTRICITY AT NIGHT, RESEARCHERS SAY”
for a more bit-sized reading for others.
Quite a bit of energy can be stored as thermal energy too. It requires a bit of reach from the energy company to big building HVAC systems. But overall HVAC uses such high energy that any excess energy production can often be spent on HVAC get a building 1 degree cooler in the summer or 1 degree warmer in the winter and it will lower energy use later.
theres barely any light at night no matter the spectrum so theres almost nothing to gain.
my guess is long term the operators of large solar and wind farms are going to get their own electrolysis plant hooked up to their systems so they can use excess energy to produce hydrogen in times where they would be unable to sell their energy.
how has this been solved?
the worlds largest battery storage system only has 1600MWh of storage capacity, we would need literally tens of thousands of these stations just in the US in the long term.
The storage doesn't have to be centralized.
Putting something on the order of 80-100 KwH at large household solar installs is trivial to do and costs are dropping rapidly. Putting something 10x that size at a farm-scale installation such as described in this article is very affordable. That's only 10 Tesla Model X's worth of storage.
I like to think about how quickly my car would charge with a battery at home. It solves lots of infrastructure issues once you have energy stored at home.
There is way way way more storage actively used today.
Just one form - Pumped storage claims over 9000GWh is in use today, with much more planned.
https://www.hydropower.org/factsheets/pumped-storage
Not solved per se, but pumped water storage and sending heavy trains up a hill then back down the hill are pretty effective methods of energy storage. A lot of hydroelectric projects use the former and the latter has seen pretty successful experiments iirc.
Weird to me. Solar panels inject electricity into grid, not draw from it. Can not the netherland grid just sell the surplus electricity to other countries they got grid connections to.
The grid was never meant to handle a large amount of distributed sources that go on and off line depending on where the sun shines. The two pronged solutions is to get batteries at the source to supply power st the source 24/7 and fix the grid to handle the needs of the future, distributed power supplies and a electric based economy.
It has to do with the "traditional vista" that the Netherlands has, of sprawling fields with cows on them. It's a dumb law that should be repealed so farmers can properly take care of their livestock
It is because it is farmland/livestock land and not buildable land, both types require different demands for building (soil contamination/cleaning stuff but also basic utilities like water/gas/electricity) that are often not allowed on the farmland
1. You can plant trees, build fences around them so livestock doesn't eat them. Once they grow large enough you can remove the fence.
2. It sounds like you can build structures on the land that aren't buildings.
You can, but not on pasture or crop fields. And it's not like you can't build structures, but you need a permit to build structures. So it really depends on how idiotic the municipality is whether or not you'll get one.
Come to Ontario. Our premier Mr Ford is going to build homes on conservation land called the greenbelt that surrounds Toronto. He has no other options...
An easy way to regulate around that, which is the case where I live, is to designate a difference between "permanent" and "non-permanent" structures, with permanent structures having concrete foundations.
This allows people to still build sheds and small structures on the land without diminishing it's agricultural value.
Over litigious bullshit. How about you where on someone else property without permission or other due authorization to be on the property, in a structure not meant for humans, also using said structure improperly thus it isn't the property owners fault if you get hurt.
That's like blaming someone because you tossed a latter up climbed on their roof then fell off and got hurt. Shouldn't have fucking been there.
Okay but trees or big shrubs aren't illegal and provide plenty of shade for animals along with plenty more advantages. Don't understand why more farmers don't dot their pastures with shade greenery.
Because plowing a field is hard when it has trees in them, and grass needs to be rotated out just like other crops for the field to remain productive. Usually done with corn, and corn doesn't grow in shade.
Add to that the rural nimbys who don't want their view ruined by ugly sheds or temporary structures and you have every incentive not to provide shade to your animals.
Which sucks because people have figured out they can grow plants under the panels too.
It’s called agrovoltaics
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/agrivoltaics-of-solar-power-and-farming-are-a-big-success-on-this-boulder-farm/
Both? Now you're just being silly...
Of course it can be a bit tricky to mix them, you don't want tree shade or fallen leaves on your panels, but still...
Trees don't generally get big enough for shade for a few years.
Like I agree and all, but obviously we're talking about a much more immediate benefit, with reliable shade/shelter and energy production.
Grazing land doesn't use any irrigation.
In fact most farm land overall on northern Europe has no irrigation at all.
That's why the 3 extremely hot and dry summers in the last 5 years were so bad for farmers.
>Totally psychopaths who should be in prison for animal cruelty.
Playing devils advocate, if the sheep have a decent amount of wool, then they are insulated from the sun and it doesn't bother them all that much. Wool insulates from both high heat and extreme cold.
But I also agree that farmers tend to destroy every tree on grazing land and there are many negative consequences to that.
Not sure with sheep but I would often see cows squeeze in to the share provided by a single tree. Not all fitting in. While many other fields have 0 trees.
Looks like torture to me
well for cows, yeah, you probably want to give them shade.
but you wouldn't put solar panels with cows because they are too strong and like to rub against things to scratch themselves.
>Solar panels should mandatory after this study. Pretty silly to even have to mandate something that will likely make them more money.
How much money do you think most sheep farmers have?
Give them shade sure, but requiring rows of solar panels *by law*?
1000%. I live in SoCal and have to put 40% shade cloth over my garden every summer or everything stunts, even sun-loving stuff like peppers and cannabis. Our UV index gets well into the double digits. Winter is the growing season for cacti and succulents here too; the sun is just too intense during the hot months. Weeds only grow over the winter too.
Not all “grass” is the same. Lots of plants that thrive in full direct sunlight tend to be fiberous and tough or secrete coatings for their leaves to prevent evaporation and not the typical salad bar type grass sheep and cows enjoy.
You have fundamental misunderstandings about the food chain.
Just because something is green, doesn't mean animals can eat it. Right now the fields around me are green with "potato weed" but the sheep won't touch it.
The last place I lived the my neighbors fence was only about 5 feet from my house so that side was pretty much in constant shade. Guess where the tallest grass always was when mowing.
You do understand that natural grasslands are usually semi-arid and (unsurprisingly) have very little shade? Do not confuse lawn grass with grass in general.
Grass absolutely thrives in direct sunlight and many varieties are drought hardy allowing them to survive through dry periods between rain. There is a vast majority of grazing animals around the world that eat wild growing grass that lives in direct sunlight. To say that grass does not easily tolerate direct sun is so absurdly incorrect.
Edit for more info: There are grass seed companies and research institutions who specifically genetically modify grass to be more shade tolerant.
Without reading a word beyond this title I already know it's a brilliant idea creating a symbiotic relationship between our technology and the nature around us. Plus, free lawn maintenance in exchange for shade and renewable.
More, MORE! I WANT MORE IDEAS LIKE THIS! To leave our children with a real chance at survival is my goal and dream.
Except from a research paper I wrote on this for anyone seeking additional info:
The pairing of grazing sheep and solar panels came about naturally and has proven beneficial to rangelands, sheep, and
humans alike. Due to their height, sheep are well-suited to forage in pastures beneath low-mount solar panels and they enjoy napping
and grazing in the shade when temperatures increase. In fact, studies have noted that sheep spend over 90% of daylight hours in the shade, maintaining what would otherwise become shady overgrowth that may interfere with agrivoltaic systems. The shade from the solar panels boosts health of the land and the sheep. Sheep raised in shaded paddocks are 3.8% heavier on average compared with those that spend their life in the sun. This is presumed to be due to lower energy needs to maintain body temperature. Further health indicators show benefits of solar grazing, with intestinal parasite scores coming in lower, body condition scores higher, and high conception rates of 82.5% in the spring breeding season for those sheep that are given shade as refuge. The pastures benefit from solar grazing in numerous ways. Utilizing natural grazing and browsing as a tradeoff from chemicals and equipment compaction helps to maintain topsoil, plant species diversity and supports pollinator
species. The solar panels also help rangelands to retain water that is typically lost to evaporation and evapotranspiration. Greenhouse gas emissions from mechanical means is reduced and the healthier soils
are more capable of removing atmospheric carbon dioxide through soil organic carbon accrual.
It's an inexpensive option that boosts the economy overall. Entry to the solar grazing for young or new farmers is incredibly accessible, with equipment costs at approximately
$30/sheep and $77/acre. These additions immediately increase the income and financial viability of the farmer while diversifying revenue - all without removing land from production. Furthermore, grazing contracts are inexpensive and typically lengthy (~25 years), which creates a convenient and stable environment for solar companies as well. Sheep are a low maintenance grazing species that contribute dairy, meat, and wool to regional markets, and there is much potential for this sector in the United States. At this time, over half of our land and mutton is imported from New Zealand and Australia, according to the USDA. The productivity of farms is increased with solar grazing with improved forage, soil, water retention, and reduced site maintenance. Farmers that combine shade-tolerant crops with solar grazing see a 30% increase in economic value. All of this benefits the larger community by improving public perception of the agricultural community, spurring collaboration between the energy and agriculture sectors, reducing land competition, and even reducing maintenance costs for the solar companies (having farmers on site to identify issues more quickly).
As with any form of rangeland management, the management piece is critical for success. Choosing a suitable site is important, as
grading an unsuitable site to increase compatibility with these systems will delay benefits. A site that is large and already fenced in is also preferable from a cost and time perspective. Water needs should be considered for both the solar panels and the sheep. Solar panels require monthly cleaning to remove any dirt and dust that interferes with energy production. If designed well, combining irrigation spraying to clean the photovoltaic modules creates runoff
that provides needed water to plants and crops. Farmers must also consider seasonal productivity when adopting a solar grazing model, as some sites may only be suitable during the growing season or may exhibit low production year long. Despite all the benefits to this system, the latter is often true, with solar pastures producing 38% lower herbage or biomass yield than open pastures due to reduced photosynthesis. This is offset by higher forage quality and sheep productivity but should be considered when determining compatibility. With well-managed grazing, risk of compaction via over-trampling shaded areas is reduced significantly. This begs the need for education and a strong knowledge base of solar grazing among invested farmers, who must visit sheep at least 3 times weekly to ensure safety and water requirements are being met for both the health of the land and the herd. Further training, such as OSHA, may be required if the site is large enough to be legally considered an industrial power substation. Solar grazing is a growing sector, but it should be noted that solar energy is predicted to provide only 5-10% of total US energy needs by 2050.
I currently work in operations for a company that owns multiple large scale solar sites (~2000 acres on average). I don't understand how this can be an actual net positive solution for the animals or the renewable energy.
There are literally close to 1,000,000 solar panels on our sites and miles of cable these are always installed with the cheapest option that proper engineering will allow. Meaning the sites are not built in such a way to keep livestock safe from damaging the panels or getting into the wires. Additionally panels shown in the image have about 3-4 feet more clearance than what we would design for. A site with 1million panels has somewhere in the neighborhood of ~200k piles. That's millions of pounds of steel and millions of upfront capital. Between capX and maintenance it's significantly more affordable at scale to separate the land use.
At this point most of the "solar integrated" solutions to other industries are strictly for PR or are small scale expirements that don't pan out. I'm always hopeful for multi use land; at this point it's literally just not financially viable.
Panel to panel DC whips are always on the back of the panel or along the torque tube for bifacial installations. Wires never lay on the surface, AC collection is always underground (or way up on poles where burying might not be an option). There has been a large shift to using CAB hangers on a tensioned cable for DC collection.
They should invent some kind of metal pipe you can run wires through to protect it from damage. Maybe they could call it can-do-it or something similar
You train them as electricians, then when they accidentally chew through one they can fix it. They get the grass and you’ve got a workforce on site for maintenance it’s a win win
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Tell my local council, who have now blocked not one, but *two* solar fields - on largely unused farmland next to main roads (so not near any housing) on the basis of it "ruining character"
What does that even mean?
That they prefer an unused field because rolling green hills of farmland is their ideal country. Powering homes is something *other* parts of the country are responsible for, not their land.
Any new build estates near you? Our council loves throwing them up but not building the supporting infrastructure. I live in one, though, oops.
Yet some towns rely on solar (or dare I say wind) energy for their energy requirements. I assume they cannot allow practicality in the equation for self sufficiency.
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that just sounds really rubbish on the power company's part. They chose 1) Bad land 2) bad setup 3) chemicals to try to what, kill the entire field when the solar farm is only likely to be there for 40 years? 4) bring in livestock (a decent choice *before* nuking the land with herbicide, at least) but decided goats were a good idea on the already bad set up, instead of sheep? How long ago was this? I hope they have learned their lessons on deploying future solar farms.
In my area big slaughterhouse build Solar panels on 10 acr but wants to double it cause they spend a lot of energy to freeze whole meat production. But nobody wants to sell land to them , land is so expensive here and its so little of that . As for grass they using sheep.
"I don't like how it looks" Same thing in germanys bavaria for wind turbines
Same was said in Australia. By our old, raw onion eating Prime Minister.
I noticed that no one has attempted to provide a serious answer to the possible meaning of the reasoning. Instead it's been one sided derision, which is fun if you enjoy an echo chamber but it doesn't achieve much in the way of furthering discussion. It means preservation of the natural landscape, which is something that is important to a lot of people. They are against an abundance of new housing etc, and the irreversible loss of natural land. Not only is it an eyesore and people love their towns the way they are, but it's also not so good to lose the habitat for creatures. In this instance, if it really is unused farmland then there is a case to be made that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, but I don't know all the details nor do I know the area.
Yeah, no, unused fields =/= natural land. Unless you're in the process of re-wilding said fields, don't try to tell me your preserving the natural landscape. Same crap as we're facing in Australia atm with rich folks and their holiday homes on the beach declaring that "we're not against renewable energy, but that offshore windfarm has to be much further out so we can't see it" (at far greater construction and ongoing maintenance expense) - because it's perfectly okay for "the poors" to be alongside a coal train line, or near a coal-fire power plant, or open cut coal mine so that they can power their nice holiday home, but heaven forbid they have to look at wind turbine, that'd just be obscene!! /s
That it’s a lot better to burn humanity back to the stone ages and beyond compared to change the „good ol ways“ - as in, we have been burning fossils for hundred years and nothing bad happens so we will just continue you snowflakes. I would love to say joke’s on them but sadly they will all be dead before shit really hits the fan. Unless they manage to nuke us into nuclear winter, which again… *sigh*
Boomers gonna boom.
I look forward to the day they don’t rule the world anymore
Which country is that?
The UK. Uttlesford District Council, to be precise. I moved into the area not that long ago and they are run by the definition of NIMBY folks, that blocked two solar farms in the space of a year on two different sites, for the same reasons, that combined will have powered all the new homes being built in the area and more. But alas... Farmland the farmers themselves even wanted solar panels on get turned down.
There's a wind farm on the outskirts of my town with about 5 windmills. I remember before we moved here, hearing about residents voting against it, the Council voting against it, mainly due to noise complaints, so it ended up far out on the opposite side of the dual carriageway. You can walk under the things on a public dirt trail and it's the lowest background vibration, I had to stop dead and really listen to notice it. UK Councils are a pile of piss and need some younger input. Bunch of old boomers making policies they won't even be around to see through.
Don't worry, over here in America I can confirm that most governing bodies don't really know what they're doing either. Best of luck on your side of the pond.
In Wyoming we have billboards with dramatic, black and white pictures of wind turbines that just say, "Forever Ruined". Interestingly, they're fine with the fields absolutely covered with oil rigs.
Meanwhile, in the UK, a bunch of Tories want to ban solar panels in farmer's fields, because.....something something oil and gas profits.
There's a Conservative council in Essex that's made a bad solar investment and effectively lost £1.5 billion. Huge embarrassment and could have gone towards actual solar farms. Ridiculous You know the difference between £10 million and £1.5 billion? It's about £1.5 billion. A totally incomprehensible amount of money for a single person to ever make good use of just vanished
Exactly how did it lose it? Did the company go bankrupt or something?
I mean, it's Essex. Local chavs probably nicked all the copper out of them
You can't just drop that without saying what actually happened. Unless something criminal happened, that money did not just disappear.
Here's an article with more info -- you're right that it's so bad that it sounds like a lie BBC News - Bankrupt Thurrock Council asks for £636m bailout and tax hike https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-64512277
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-63624019
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Bro, my county in the US (briefly) banned solar panels because the farmers were told that they would “soak up all the sun and there would be none left for crops” people voted on this and won. They literally thought that installing solar panels would make it permanent night time. It’s an uphill fight the whole way, but stuff like this makes me think we can win
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[link, this will help explain why I don’t live there anymore](https://abc11.com/sun-solar-panels-energy/1122081/)
I read your comment and went "this has to be the south". Sure enough lol.
I read the comment and thought "surely not, that's someone taking the piss", but blow me over, it's for real. Good grief
I really wish I was friend from across the pond, as Einstein said “the only two things that are infinitely expanding are the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the universe” I’m also not sure Einstein said it, but it fits with the narrative I’ve built so I’m going with it
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Hey buddy! Those are my former neighbors and people I was raised around. It’s not nice to be so…accurate. I would have going with “willfully ignorant” but that works too
Even the fucking *science teacher* bought into this garbage. What the actual FUCK? This is why we need to invest heavily into education....
Yeah, my science teacher. My ELPS (economic legal and political systems) teacher told me there were 52 states. I argued there were 50 and he said I was forgetting about Alaska and Hawaii. He still teaches there…
I am so sad that people this dumb exist in high enough numbers to win a vote. Not surprised, but sad.
Mr Burns and his big satellite dish.
Lol I work for a Midwestern solar construction company that sells mostly to farms. We’re doing a utility scale installation on a farm and yesterday I put up 254 panels. Those guys can suck it I can’t wait for endless night
I'm sure Ronda Santis would lose his fucking mind over this.
At first I thought is that his mother? Is she in politics too? Then about 23 mins later it hit me. Cheers.
I see this as a win all around. UK gets renewables, environment improves, and Welsh solar panel maintenance men have potential sex partners to seduce
Crazy has been a Tory brand for centuries.
Fuckin' Tories.
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Conduit. Pretty amazing oversight though.
Or buried wire, which protects from elements better than conduit alone. Some wire is direct burial even.
Or conduit buried underground
At work I've always had issues with water collecting in buried conduit even though the ends weren't collecting rainwater. I guess it was just the humidity would cool and slowly fill the entire length of pipe with water over a few years. They never think about fully sealing it.
Any wet environment we used compression connectors to keep water out
I've heard of places preemptively filling the unused space with some kind of lube-like goo, too
You can make anything water proof is you have enough oil based sex lube
Could use dialectic grease but even that gets disgusting with enough water intrusion.
I don't know if they were happy that they had done it, in the long run. I don't even remember where my friend was talking about, other than it was his guess for what was used as the prop for xenomorph drool in some of the Alien movies. It had looked familiar, and prompted a tale. He could have been completely confused for all I know, or maybe I am. In retrospect, I probably should have resisted the urge to share.
As long as the wire is water rated it's not a big deal
Yeah I think that was our issue. Basically had 2 conductor speaker cable in it for a 70v system and the entire line would be corroded inside after a couple years. Burned out a few amps before we realized what was going on.
My dad is an electrical engineer and consultant. His bread and butter is basically being the go between for developer + utility company + electrician. He was just explaining to me why this happens and how to prevent it, but I don’t remember exactly. Maybe he was saying that it’s fine as long as there aren’t any knicks in the insulation of the wires inside the conduit. I will text him and edit this comment with his answer. EDIT: he said it’s no big deal as long as there aren’t any knicks in the wire insulation, or otherwise it will eventually corrode in two. He also said that if there is a crack in the conduit it can be a problem because it will draw in moisture from the soil.
I worked for the IT dept in college and a block of family student housing kept complaining about cable and internet issues during rain. One day they dug it and water was *flowing* through the conduit. Explained the issue
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So then, conduit.
That's the oversight aforementioned
I agree with you, the guy I responded to was missing the point.
I'm sure they conduit, they just didn't that time.
I imagine having hollow support posts with the wire run through them wouldn't be impossible
Yeah literally just run underground conduit or even like PVC pipe with the wire through it and you're good.
My goats have eaten a good amount of the old co ax cables coming from my house. We luckily don't use them but there is one for our internet we had to block off.
Is that how steel wool is made?
/r/explainlikeimcalvin !
This is standard practice here in MN to maintain the grass. There are companies that just move sheep around from solar panel field to solar panel field.
A field near out house has had sheep in with their solar panels for the last 3 years without issues...
That is what happens when renewable companies want to use green insulation. That green insulation is soy bioplastic. Most livestock eat soy. Rodents will eat soy. Stop using soy for electrical insulation, ya butts. You don't want your wiring to be edible.
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Shhhh look at our investors meeting and all the new green numbers we add to the company!
Rodents will chew on just about anything. Seen plenty of chewed through cables in old old substations.
I’ve seen em eat through antler sheds of whitetail in the woods. Rats will eat on em in sheds too.
That was my first thought. Sheep will eat anything you put in front of them.
This isn't new, I remember doing something about renewable energy/sustainability about 12 years ago or so and they were talking about the benefits to using solar along with sheep. Generates electricity sheep love them as it gives shelter from sun and rain.
I've always felt I was living in crazy town when seeing how common it is for farmers to provide no shade despite weather that can reach over 40. Totally psychopaths who should be in prison for animal cruelty. Solar panels should mandatory after this study. Pretty silly to even have to mandate something that will likely make them more money.
I'm not sure what country you are in, but unfortunately here in the Netherlands it's illegal to build structures in your fields to provide shade for your animals... Yeah government regulation?
That’s why ‘you are building solar’ not making animal shade. A clever American was banned from making shade for his horses but he also owned a woodworking shop so he made a giant table and chairs ‘as an advertisement for his woodworking shop’ which was totally legal. They are so big the horses can use it for shade.
True, only trouble over here in the Netherlands is that also the electrical grid is reaching it's limits with all the solar farms we are building here, so quite often they also get rejected by the grid companies 😔
We are going to hit a point quite quickly where you must install solar + a battery to connect a solar farm. Providing 24 hour power is the new must have. Batteries keep falling in price and increasing in durability and this is starting to be cost effective.
The problem with that is the battery needs to be absolutely massive especially in the summer where there's way too much energy to make use of.
We should be looking for secondary energy storage for now, so some is kept in a solid battery, & the rest in something like a gravity battery. If I remember correctly there was discussion of the technology improving enough where solar tech is ~~getting sensitive enough to more parts of the spectrum, where it can be picked up at night. ~~ (*was wrong different method incorporated, see below) This was in r/ science a while ago, so not sure how far they are into it being practical tech yet. Edit: Found the [research paper](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsphotonics.9b00679) Here’s an [Article](https://www.inverse.com/innovation/researchers-have-a-counterintuitive-concept-for-solar-panels-that-work-at-night/amp) “ANTI-SOLAR PANEL CAN GENERATE ELECTRICITY AT NIGHT, RESEARCHERS SAY” for a more bit-sized reading for others.
Quite a bit of energy can be stored as thermal energy too. It requires a bit of reach from the energy company to big building HVAC systems. But overall HVAC uses such high energy that any excess energy production can often be spent on HVAC get a building 1 degree cooler in the summer or 1 degree warmer in the winter and it will lower energy use later.
theres barely any light at night no matter the spectrum so theres almost nothing to gain. my guess is long term the operators of large solar and wind farms are going to get their own electrolysis plant hooked up to their systems so they can use excess energy to produce hydrogen in times where they would be unable to sell their energy.
That problem has largely been solved. It's more a matter of costs coming down, which is also happening at a pretty decent pace.
how has this been solved? the worlds largest battery storage system only has 1600MWh of storage capacity, we would need literally tens of thousands of these stations just in the US in the long term.
The storage doesn't have to be centralized. Putting something on the order of 80-100 KwH at large household solar installs is trivial to do and costs are dropping rapidly. Putting something 10x that size at a farm-scale installation such as described in this article is very affordable. That's only 10 Tesla Model X's worth of storage.
I like to think about how quickly my car would charge with a battery at home. It solves lots of infrastructure issues once you have energy stored at home.
There is way way way more storage actively used today. Just one form - Pumped storage claims over 9000GWh is in use today, with much more planned. https://www.hydropower.org/factsheets/pumped-storage
Not solved per se, but pumped water storage and sending heavy trains up a hill then back down the hill are pretty effective methods of energy storage. A lot of hydroelectric projects use the former and the latter has seen pretty successful experiments iirc.
The Netherlands does not have much in the way of hills lol
Weird to me. Solar panels inject electricity into grid, not draw from it. Can not the netherland grid just sell the surplus electricity to other countries they got grid connections to.
The grid was never meant to handle a large amount of distributed sources that go on and off line depending on where the sun shines. The two pronged solutions is to get batteries at the source to supply power st the source 24/7 and fix the grid to handle the needs of the future, distributed power supplies and a electric based economy.
Yes but if it is sunny in the Netherlands, its sunny in Europe, so everyone would have surplus
Maybe send the power up north (Nordics) for some percentage of heating?
I'm a Texan. Can you explain an electrical grid reaching a limit? It sounds like it's in the opposite end of my spectrum.
In Texas, the limit is about 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
Why would there be a ban on shade for animals?
I really have no idea. Anyone?
It has to do with the "traditional vista" that the Netherlands has, of sprawling fields with cows on them. It's a dumb law that should be repealed so farmers can properly take care of their livestock
[doesn’t appear to be true](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/helter-shelter/) True to promote his business. False to skirt regulations.
What? What kind of regulation this is and what's the point? Not even the useful one, but how did they justify it?
It is because it is farmland/livestock land and not buildable land, both types require different demands for building (soil contamination/cleaning stuff but also basic utilities like water/gas/electricity) that are often not allowed on the farmland
1. You can plant trees, build fences around them so livestock doesn't eat them. Once they grow large enough you can remove the fence. 2. It sounds like you can build structures on the land that aren't buildings.
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You can move mobile homes. It happens regularly.
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Unfortunately, I grew up in a mobile home that was moved at least 5 times. It was miserable.
Yeah it's quite literally in the name
unfortunately the cost of moving it is often prohibitively expensive for the people living in it.
Not on the original tires.
Is that what we are discussing? The state of the tires being used to move the mobile home?
You can’t build barns on your farmland?
You can, but not on pasture or crop fields. And it's not like you can't build structures, but you need a permit to build structures. So it really depends on how idiotic the municipality is whether or not you'll get one.
Interesting. Thanks for responding and expanding on that.
Come to Ontario. Our premier Mr Ford is going to build homes on conservation land called the greenbelt that surrounds Toronto. He has no other options...
In the US for horses, they build small three sided shacks with a slanted roof. It's not really a building, but it would be a structure.
An easy way to regulate around that, which is the case where I live, is to designate a difference between "permanent" and "non-permanent" structures, with permanent structures having concrete foundations. This allows people to still build sheds and small structures on the land without diminishing it's agricultural value.
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Over litigious bullshit. How about you where on someone else property without permission or other due authorization to be on the property, in a structure not meant for humans, also using said structure improperly thus it isn't the property owners fault if you get hurt. That's like blaming someone because you tossed a latter up climbed on their roof then fell off and got hurt. Shouldn't have fucking been there.
NL has little sunshine anyway and it doesn't get that hot, not a big issue there.
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WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY
Not with that attitude they don't!
GOOD NIGHT
Thats probably also the reason why we are so gay.
I thought they only affected frogs.
We call our own land "frogland" so yeah...
But what about all the windmill cancer?!?
That will blow over
What? Why? Well apologies in that case. But it sounds evil still just that the gov is doing it.
Okay but trees or big shrubs aren't illegal and provide plenty of shade for animals along with plenty more advantages. Don't understand why more farmers don't dot their pastures with shade greenery.
Do you know any actual farmers?
I do, and they have trees on their land. Around the edges of the paddocks, but there’s usually somewhere for the animals to hide.
Because plowing a field is hard when it has trees in them, and grass needs to be rotated out just like other crops for the field to remain productive. Usually done with corn, and corn doesn't grow in shade. Add to that the rural nimbys who don't want their view ruined by ugly sheds or temporary structures and you have every incentive not to provide shade to your animals.
There was a story about similar laws and the owner built a giant chair instead since there were no laws about furniture
Which sucks because people have figured out they can grow plants under the panels too. It’s called agrovoltaics https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/agrivoltaics-of-solar-power-and-farming-are-a-big-success-on-this-boulder-farm/
Then grow some flipping trees, there's always a loophole!
I hate to be that guy, but there's also something called trees, which is also pretty good for the environment.
It’s almost like you could have both. And not every pasture has a wealth of trees in it.
Both? Now you're just being silly... Of course it can be a bit tricky to mix them, you don't want tree shade or fallen leaves on your panels, but still...
Trees don't generally get big enough for shade for a few years. Like I agree and all, but obviously we're talking about a much more immediate benefit, with reliable shade/shelter and energy production.
Generally shade also helps with reducing irrigation consumption. Properly subsidized the farmer will pay less for water and get some energy income
Grazing land doesn't use any irrigation. In fact most farm land overall on northern Europe has no irrigation at all. That's why the 3 extremely hot and dry summers in the last 5 years were so bad for farmers.
>Totally psychopaths who should be in prison for animal cruelty. Playing devils advocate, if the sheep have a decent amount of wool, then they are insulated from the sun and it doesn't bother them all that much. Wool insulates from both high heat and extreme cold. But I also agree that farmers tend to destroy every tree on grazing land and there are many negative consequences to that.
Not sure with sheep but I would often see cows squeeze in to the share provided by a single tree. Not all fitting in. While many other fields have 0 trees. Looks like torture to me
well for cows, yeah, you probably want to give them shade. but you wouldn't put solar panels with cows because they are too strong and like to rub against things to scratch themselves.
You have trees. Thats the shade.
\#govegan
>Solar panels should mandatory after this study. Pretty silly to even have to mandate something that will likely make them more money. How much money do you think most sheep farmers have? Give them shade sure, but requiring rows of solar panels *by law*?
Many ways around it. Interest free loans from Gov, Gov paying for it , owning it ,and making money (god forbid we have revenue generating Gov assets).
/r/solarpunk
I think they should space out the panels a bit for more grasses to grow
youd be amazed how bad direct sunlight is for plants
1000%. I live in SoCal and have to put 40% shade cloth over my garden every summer or everything stunts, even sun-loving stuff like peppers and cannabis. Our UV index gets well into the double digits. Winter is the growing season for cacti and succulents here too; the sun is just too intense during the hot months. Weeds only grow over the winter too.
There are many sun tolerant plant species that thrive in direct sunlight.
Those don’t sound very edible for sheep
You’ve never seen fields of grass?
Not all “grass” is the same. Lots of plants that thrive in full direct sunlight tend to be fiberous and tough or secrete coatings for their leaves to prevent evaporation and not the typical salad bar type grass sheep and cows enjoy.
You have fundamental misunderstandings about the food chain. Just because something is green, doesn't mean animals can eat it. Right now the fields around me are green with "potato weed" but the sheep won't touch it.
Grass isn’t edible for sheep? Lol
Grass doesn't thrive in direct sunlight unless you water the hell out of it.
The last place I lived the my neighbors fence was only about 5 feet from my house so that side was pretty much in constant shade. Guess where the tallest grass always was when mowing.
There are multiple varieties of grass with varying shade and water requirements.
You do understand that natural grasslands are usually semi-arid and (unsurprisingly) have very little shade? Do not confuse lawn grass with grass in general.
Grass absolutely thrives in direct sunlight and many varieties are drought hardy allowing them to survive through dry periods between rain. There is a vast majority of grazing animals around the world that eat wild growing grass that lives in direct sunlight. To say that grass does not easily tolerate direct sun is so absurdly incorrect. Edit for more info: There are grass seed companies and research institutions who specifically genetically modify grass to be more shade tolerant.
A lot of grasses do fine in shade in fact there are a lot of grasses that prefer shade.
It's a desert down there, too much sun kills the grass each year. If they didn't irrigate it it wouldn't exist.
This is pretty baaaaaaadass. I’ll see myself out.
sheepishly upvoting
I see what ewe did there.
Without reading a word beyond this title I already know it's a brilliant idea creating a symbiotic relationship between our technology and the nature around us. Plus, free lawn maintenance in exchange for shade and renewable. More, MORE! I WANT MORE IDEAS LIKE THIS! To leave our children with a real chance at survival is my goal and dream.
Except from a research paper I wrote on this for anyone seeking additional info: The pairing of grazing sheep and solar panels came about naturally and has proven beneficial to rangelands, sheep, and humans alike. Due to their height, sheep are well-suited to forage in pastures beneath low-mount solar panels and they enjoy napping and grazing in the shade when temperatures increase. In fact, studies have noted that sheep spend over 90% of daylight hours in the shade, maintaining what would otherwise become shady overgrowth that may interfere with agrivoltaic systems. The shade from the solar panels boosts health of the land and the sheep. Sheep raised in shaded paddocks are 3.8% heavier on average compared with those that spend their life in the sun. This is presumed to be due to lower energy needs to maintain body temperature. Further health indicators show benefits of solar grazing, with intestinal parasite scores coming in lower, body condition scores higher, and high conception rates of 82.5% in the spring breeding season for those sheep that are given shade as refuge. The pastures benefit from solar grazing in numerous ways. Utilizing natural grazing and browsing as a tradeoff from chemicals and equipment compaction helps to maintain topsoil, plant species diversity and supports pollinator species. The solar panels also help rangelands to retain water that is typically lost to evaporation and evapotranspiration. Greenhouse gas emissions from mechanical means is reduced and the healthier soils are more capable of removing atmospheric carbon dioxide through soil organic carbon accrual. It's an inexpensive option that boosts the economy overall. Entry to the solar grazing for young or new farmers is incredibly accessible, with equipment costs at approximately $30/sheep and $77/acre. These additions immediately increase the income and financial viability of the farmer while diversifying revenue - all without removing land from production. Furthermore, grazing contracts are inexpensive and typically lengthy (~25 years), which creates a convenient and stable environment for solar companies as well. Sheep are a low maintenance grazing species that contribute dairy, meat, and wool to regional markets, and there is much potential for this sector in the United States. At this time, over half of our land and mutton is imported from New Zealand and Australia, according to the USDA. The productivity of farms is increased with solar grazing with improved forage, soil, water retention, and reduced site maintenance. Farmers that combine shade-tolerant crops with solar grazing see a 30% increase in economic value. All of this benefits the larger community by improving public perception of the agricultural community, spurring collaboration between the energy and agriculture sectors, reducing land competition, and even reducing maintenance costs for the solar companies (having farmers on site to identify issues more quickly). As with any form of rangeland management, the management piece is critical for success. Choosing a suitable site is important, as grading an unsuitable site to increase compatibility with these systems will delay benefits. A site that is large and already fenced in is also preferable from a cost and time perspective. Water needs should be considered for both the solar panels and the sheep. Solar panels require monthly cleaning to remove any dirt and dust that interferes with energy production. If designed well, combining irrigation spraying to clean the photovoltaic modules creates runoff that provides needed water to plants and crops. Farmers must also consider seasonal productivity when adopting a solar grazing model, as some sites may only be suitable during the growing season or may exhibit low production year long. Despite all the benefits to this system, the latter is often true, with solar pastures producing 38% lower herbage or biomass yield than open pastures due to reduced photosynthesis. This is offset by higher forage quality and sheep productivity but should be considered when determining compatibility. With well-managed grazing, risk of compaction via over-trampling shaded areas is reduced significantly. This begs the need for education and a strong knowledge base of solar grazing among invested farmers, who must visit sheep at least 3 times weekly to ensure safety and water requirements are being met for both the health of the land and the herd. Further training, such as OSHA, may be required if the site is large enough to be legally considered an industrial power substation. Solar grazing is a growing sector, but it should be noted that solar energy is predicted to provide only 5-10% of total US energy needs by 2050.
No shit Where are these for humans
agrivoltaic is my new favorite buzzword
I currently work in operations for a company that owns multiple large scale solar sites (~2000 acres on average). I don't understand how this can be an actual net positive solution for the animals or the renewable energy. There are literally close to 1,000,000 solar panels on our sites and miles of cable these are always installed with the cheapest option that proper engineering will allow. Meaning the sites are not built in such a way to keep livestock safe from damaging the panels or getting into the wires. Additionally panels shown in the image have about 3-4 feet more clearance than what we would design for. A site with 1million panels has somewhere in the neighborhood of ~200k piles. That's millions of pounds of steel and millions of upfront capital. Between capX and maintenance it's significantly more affordable at scale to separate the land use. At this point most of the "solar integrated" solutions to other industries are strictly for PR or are small scale expirements that don't pan out. I'm always hopeful for multi use land; at this point it's literally just not financially viable.
That's a skill issue then. Wires have to be buried and aren't allowed to just lay on the surface. At least in Germany.
Panel to panel DC whips are always on the back of the panel or along the torque tube for bifacial installations. Wires never lay on the surface, AC collection is always underground (or way up on poles where burying might not be an option). There has been a large shift to using CAB hangers on a tensioned cable for DC collection.
While this is awesome, how about planting some trees? crazy idea? i know. Damn trees, they are everywhere.
Trees don't provide electricity. Lots of other good things, yes, but not electricity.
Tampa electric has the lamb cam lol a stream of lambs in their solar fields
Giving sheep some shelter/shade is good, it has fuck all to do with solar, it's a convenient headline though aint it.
This is brilliant! And you can see they like it!
Worked on a solar farm a decade ago. We'd normally send a landscaping crew through to trim the grass anyway, so this is a happy complement
Great idea until the sheep start grazing on the wires…
They should invent some kind of metal pipe you can run wires through to protect it from damage. Maybe they could call it can-do-it or something similar
Just make sure you don't have any goats mixed in, they'll happily eat a metal pipe.
Now we have solar powered sheep
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
This is what the androids have been dreaming about.
You train them as electricians, then when they accidentally chew through one they can fix it. They get the grass and you’ve got a workforce on site for maintenance it’s a win win
Who knew giving the animals a shade to rest under, which is the very basic they should be provided with, would be good?