The largest solar farm in Alaska has been built just two hundred miles from the Arctic circle. This farm has an energy output of 1.35-megawatt hours per year that can roughly power up to around 120 average homes year long.
The purpose of this solar farm is to reduce the prices of electricity, as it is almost double the prices in the U.S. and Alaska also wants to reduce their fossil energy usage.
However there are some challenges regarding this project like only “6 hours of Sunlight” daily in winter days and “Snow Removal” from the panels.
While they are trying to fix the snow removal by making the panel slippier and through angles there are more issues at hand such as what Sam Dennis, a project execute officer, mentions, “We make more in one day in June than we make for the entire month of December.”
Another problem according to Tom DeLong is “So in the summer months when production is at its highest, actual kilowatt hours sales are at their lowest. And in December, when people are using more energy for heat, more electricity, we get next to nothing from our panels.”
There were some issues with the carbon footprint in installing the solar panels, but they have said that “Our solar farm pays back the carbon footprint associated with manufacturing and construction, to include tree clearing, in three to five years. And a solar farm has an expected life span of 30 years.”
With all things considered this project shows just how much solar energy has come to be used in an unexpected place like Alaska.
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Source:@bbc & @Solar_Edition
Photo:@ Fischer Knapp @Solar_Edition
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