NATS 1840 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Capacity Factor, Solar Irradiance
20 Mar 2017
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Document Summary
Wind: gaining a lot of traction, involves a wind turbines/wind mills, harnessing kinetic energy of moving air, this is fairly harmless in terms of environmental impacts, ef ciency of capturing air is limited to about 59% (betz limit). The terrains increases its speed: most opposite to turbines and wind farms have been largely social or political, worrying about noice and property value, rarely environmental, wind is estimated to create 72 terawatts per year worldwide. Solar: photovoltaic cells convert sunlight directly to electricity, as long as the cells are converted to light, they will convert solar to electricity, conversation ef ciency: 5-40%. The higher the ef ciency, the better the technology that is currently being developed in the labs today: power depends on solar insolation. The power we get out of it depends on the surface area of the cell: at the equator, you get 1000w/ms.
