Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Technical Note
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(cont.)
spectrum. The highest ef
ciency reported for one of these is
% but they are very expensive now. Their proposed use is
with concentrator systems so that focusing mirrors can get
the sunlight from a large area onto a small cell. Some say that
nanotechnology has the potential to lower the cost of multi-
band-gap systems, but no such devices have yet been made.
In the United States the largest wind resource seems to
be in the Great Plains, while the best solar is in the
Southwest. The same sort of situation exists in many
places. The UK as mentioned will have its largest wind
farms in the north while the load is in the south. If these
wind resources are to have more than a regional impact
on decarbonizing the electricity system, the power has to
be moved a long way and the present grid cannot handle
the projected loads. Therefore, there is a lot of talk about
a new grid, but very little discussion of what it is to do.
Here are a few options:
Move large amounts of power from the wind farms of
the Great Plains and the solar installations of the
Southwest to the country
'
s major load centers;
Incorporate more power plants of medium size like
those being discussed for region development (
to
megawatts);
Make the system more robust so that the failure of one
major line does not seriously affect a large area;
Have the system capable of using power from distrib-
uted small systems like the million solar roofs program
in California.
