TEPCO To Build Solar Plant, But Is It Really That Big?
TEPCO, the power utility for Tokyo's 20-30 million people, have announced that they will build a 10 megawatt solar plant in Yamanashi prefecture. Media loves this kind of news, and so do I, but when they tout it as a "big" solar plant, they have gotten it wrong. Compare to Spain, where they built over 3 gigawatt of solar power until Novemeber 2008. Spain became a booming market thanks to a generous government program that requires utilities to buy all the solar energy production at a premium price.
A coal power plant is approximately equivalent to 1 gigawatt of solarpower, so you can see how small TEPCO's investment in Yamanashi is: a fraction of the total energy required to keep Tokyo's neon lights blinking and the air conditioners humming.
Or put it this way: Sharp will install a 9 megawatt generating facility on the roof of a new factory it is building in Japan. The facility will be operated with Kansai Electric Power and will expand to eventually reach 18 megawatts - and here is the punch line of the joke - enough to provide about 5 percent of the power used by the factory. So, to build solar panels, they need a lot more energy than they can provide to themselves, using solar panels...
Also, note that you need a standard panel for about 3.7 kilowatt of solar power to produce enough energy for a family of four.
I'm not saying this is wrong. TEPCO and the other utilities should invest more in renewable energy. But it is wrong to mislead the public into thinking that this scale of investment is "big" or that we can continue wasting energy. As previously noted here at Kurashi, Tokyo is making plans to increase its reliance on renewable energy to 20% by 2020. In order to reach this goal, they want to promote "drastic energy efficiency measures first, then shift from the conventaional energy to renewable energy."
There are currently many much larger solar power plants being built around the world, including the 550 megawatt plant planned for San Luis Obispo County, California. (China has also announced a 1 gigawatt solar power plant and there is talk about a 5 gigawatt plant in India, but details are sketchy at best regarding these ambitious projects.)
And what do the prefixes "kilo" and "mega" and so on mean?
Kilo 1,000
Mega 1,000,000
Giga 1,000,000,000
Tera 1,000,000,000,000
Peta 1,000,000,000,000,000
Exa 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
Zetta 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Yotta 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Kilo comes from the Greek khiloi and means 1000. It is interesting enough, the only prefix with a direct numerical meaning.
The next three come from Greek and Latin and are either descriptive or mythological.
Mega comes from the Greek mega meaning "great", as in "Alexandros O Megas" or "Megas Alexandros" (Alexander the Great).
Giga comes from Latin gigas meaning "giant".
Tera comes from Greek teras meaning "monster".
(Source: James S. Huggins Refrigerator Door)
A coal power plant is approximately equivalent to 1 gigawatt of solarpower, so you can see how small TEPCO's investment in Yamanashi is: a fraction of the total energy required to keep Tokyo's neon lights blinking and the air conditioners humming.
Or put it this way: Sharp will install a 9 megawatt generating facility on the roof of a new factory it is building in Japan. The facility will be operated with Kansai Electric Power and will expand to eventually reach 18 megawatts - and here is the punch line of the joke - enough to provide about 5 percent of the power used by the factory. So, to build solar panels, they need a lot more energy than they can provide to themselves, using solar panels...
Also, note that you need a standard panel for about 3.7 kilowatt of solar power to produce enough energy for a family of four.
I'm not saying this is wrong. TEPCO and the other utilities should invest more in renewable energy. But it is wrong to mislead the public into thinking that this scale of investment is "big" or that we can continue wasting energy. As previously noted here at Kurashi, Tokyo is making plans to increase its reliance on renewable energy to 20% by 2020. In order to reach this goal, they want to promote "drastic energy efficiency measures first, then shift from the conventaional energy to renewable energy."
There are currently many much larger solar power plants being built around the world, including the 550 megawatt plant planned for San Luis Obispo County, California. (China has also announced a 1 gigawatt solar power plant and there is talk about a 5 gigawatt plant in India, but details are sketchy at best regarding these ambitious projects.)
And what do the prefixes "kilo" and "mega" and so on mean?
Kilo 1,000
Mega 1,000,000
Giga 1,000,000,000
Tera 1,000,000,000,000
Peta 1,000,000,000,000,000
Exa 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
Zetta 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Yotta 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Kilo comes from the Greek khiloi and means 1000. It is interesting enough, the only prefix with a direct numerical meaning.
The next three come from Greek and Latin and are either descriptive or mythological.
Mega comes from the Greek mega meaning "great", as in "Alexandros O Megas" or "Megas Alexandros" (Alexander the Great).
Giga comes from Latin gigas meaning "giant".
Tera comes from Greek teras meaning "monster".
(Source: James S. Huggins Refrigerator Door)
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