Recently my utility has been expanding our solar portfolio which has given me some experience in how these things are built out. Also we are doing more battery work too!
For realistic purposes, batteries are always centralized on these sites to provide easy access by fire crews if one were to catch fire. Spreading them out like that makes it very difficult and would never be allowed by the fire marshal.
All these facilities connect via underground cables, so they don’t need to be close either. All those access roads running through the panels are actually where the underground cables run to connect to the batteries and the substation.
You didn’t need to worry about the shadows toward the end. Your panels face the other way and as it goes into evening it really doesn’t matter. Any trees from the South should be removed.
All said though, good job with bringing a substation close to the facility. Large arrays like this require that sort of infrastructure to handle the incoming load.
I’d recommend that you diversify your energy portfolio with wind turbines in addition to the solar. Wind is better than solar at night and during the winter. It would also help prevent the need for backup coal in the future 😉.
#Solar Installations
errant kestrel
Great job with including solar in CWC! Few things of note from a person who does permitting for these facilities. Centralized your batteries so that fire personnel could have easy access if one were to catch in fire. The fire marshal would require this to be the case.
Remember no pings 🙂
haughty lintel
I agree with this assessment. I have had to dive i to solar and battery energy storage system development as part of work recently, and the battery component of solar facilities are almost always clustered together and adjacent to the road.