If 77% of power can come from rooftop solar when far less than 70% of people have rooftop solar, then you'd expect prices to rapidly decrease for consumers. Unfortunately retailers are now able to sell power that get access to almost for free (solar feed-in payments have been heavily decreased it looks like). This will only further incentivise people to get their own panels, increasing the grid instability. It is actually in the networks best interests to put downward pressure on prices in this case, otherwise they'll need to front the costs of managing an unstable grid.
Well 77% is domestic roof-top solar, so it doesn't take up any land.
As for the other 23%, according to Wikipedia [1], South Australia has 2 operating solar farms (338 MW installed capacity), which take up 1000 hectares, so 10 km² (which is about 0.001% of the State's land area). SA also has about 2 GW of wind power.
Thorentis|5 years ago
Andys|5 years ago
newyankee|5 years ago
In that case we really need good applications to take advantage of surplus energy beyond energy storage.
perilunar|5 years ago
- synthesising hydrocarbon fuels for use where batteries are not practical e.g. long-haul shipping and aviation
- desalinating water (plenty of need for more fresh water around the world)
- scrubbing excess CO2 from the atmosphere
perilunar|5 years ago
Still impressive though.
lenkite|5 years ago
perilunar|5 years ago
As for the other 23%, according to Wikipedia [1], South Australia has 2 operating solar farms (338 MW installed capacity), which take up 1000 hectares, so 10 km² (which is about 0.001% of the State's land area). SA also has about 2 GW of wind power.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_farms_in_South_A... — Data is for 2019. May be higher now.