Your Questions About Solar Energy Colorado

admin answers:

In addition to what has been previously mentioned, keep in mind that solar panel production in kilowatt hours (kWh) depends upon the geographical location and the time of year. A solar array in Boulder, Colorado will produce more in a given day and in a given year than an array of the same size in Portland, Maine. That being said you can ballpark the kWh output of an array based on its size in kW. A more refined estimate can be made if you know the location.

For example, in New England, in ideal conditions – no shading – every 1 kilowatt (kW) of solar PV will produce about 1000-1200 kWh in a year. And every 1 kW takes up about 100 square feet of space. You can extrapolate from those numbers to your acre of panels. Identify about how many kW will fit in an acre and then multiply that times the annual production.

A great source is PV Watts from the National Renewable Energy Lab:
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/codes_algs/PVWATTS/version1/

Select the array location. Enter the array size in kW, and the program will output the annual kWh generation.
I hope that helps!
Kristen
http://newenglandbreeze.com/

admin answers:

Kansas? Wyoming? Nevada? Green? Really? Here is one set of rankings of “greenness” done by Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/2007/10/16/environment-energy-vermont-biz-beltway-cx_bw_mm_1017greenstates_2.html

Your list of green states doesn’t even come close to an objective reality. Colorado and Idaho aren’t in the top ten, Wyoming is 37th, Kansas is 31st. Oregon is tied for first, and Washington is third (behind Oregon and Vermont), but seven out of the top ten are from the east coast.

Edit: Before you start hurling insults, you need to learn how to do research. Here is a ranking of per capita carbon output by state:

http://www.eredux.com/states/?sortBy=carbon_percap_invert&sortOrder=ASC&rows=53

If you sort, you will find that of the list you provide (e.g., Nevada, Wyoming, Kansas), many are all way way down on the list, meaning their energy use per person is far above other states. So while you may think Nevada is a “green” state, it is not by any conceivable objective metric. The same goes for Kansas, and Wyoming is the *worst* in the nation. Furthermore, as in the original link I provided, many of the top ten states with the lower carbon footprints per capita are from the northeast, not the west. Now you can keep on acting like a brat, or you can go collect some facts for yourself and understand I am not the one who is ignorant, you are. I apologize for being the first person in your life who has told you that not everything you think is precious and special, but there is an objective reality and you would be well advised to understand that cold hard facts will get in the way of what you want to be true. Insulting people who tell you that you’re wrong is often the second course of action. The first would be to learn something. Or you can remain clueless. Tough choice. Sucks to be you. Have a nice day.

One last thing, here is a map of the top ten renewable energy producing states:

http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/state_profiles/r_profiles_sum.html

and there is a table giving the rankings. These do show a clustering in the west, but that’s because of hydropower. All of the states with high renewable fraction have lots of hydroelectric dams (NY has the Mohawk/Hudson generating, probably some at Niagara too, I’m less familiar with that area). But keep in mind hydro power has some significant ecological impacts of its own, and generating electricity that way has little carbon footprint, but there is a huge loss of habitat and natural resources. Maybe what you meant to ask is why is hydropower located in the west. But even so, Nevada, Kansas, and Wyoming are not on the list in the top ten for renewable power.