Can you expunge more on that? Why would panels on 500,000 Sq ft warehouses be less effective?
Sure - ill have some more time later and will add to this response.
A few things:
1. Adding on a rooftop includes derating the cables significantly due to higher than ambient air temperatures present on a roof. Typically these cables are either buried or shaded on a stand-alone system. As a consequence - the cables on the roof top that are the same size can carry much less current.
2. Typically - the system is the following layout - dc panels to inverter (turns dc into ac) then lower voltage ac to "medium" voltage ac. The higher this medium voltage - the less losses and the better efficiency. The MV the industry has settled on exceeds all typical distribution circuits - so the system again loses efficiency.
3. Maintaining these requires peridoic shutdowns and testing - the complexity of doing this on an elevated level on someone elses property cant be overstated.
4. Structually - these might require modification to the existing building support - especially at scale.
5. Modern grid scale solar panels "track" the sun in the east and west direction and are arranged north-south. In so far as what ive seen - none of roof mounts have this system. You can understand how the north slope of a building would limit you - or even an east or west slope from taking full advantage of the solar module.
6. The enitity financing this will have long drawn out legal agreements with landowners (both govt and private). It can take a lot of negotiating to close with a few large landowners. The time (or money since lawyers sell their time) itd take the lawyers and land people to sort through with millions of land owners simply wont work.
7. Typically - these projects deliver power at a point of interconnection (just like a coal plant). For loss reasons (utility owns the loss on t line and distribution, generator on generation t line, sub, and pv system) - its defined at a specific "node" or point in the grid. The generating company gets paid for the power they deliver at that point - how does it work when there are millions of points?
8. How can one entity develop/insure this?
Those are just a few reasons - there are certainly a lot more. The simpliest way i can explain it - its for the same reasons households dont have nat gas generators that sell to the grid everywhere vs a large single gas generator... economies of scale.
@p_ham
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www.gem.wiki
