How much energy could be generated by adding solar panels to the Alaskan Pipeline?
Monday, September 6th, 2010 at
1:20 am
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Probably very little, it’s at such a high latitude. Anchorage gets way less than half the annual sunlight that LA does, for example:
http://www.solarpanelsplus.com/solar-insolation-levels/
The trans-Alaska pipeline is about 800 miles long. Let’s assume you could fit 1.5 metres wide of panels all along the pipeline, and the efficiency of these panels is 10% (First Solar CdTe are the cheapest, and 8-10% efficient modules. Silicon is more expensive but generally higher efficiency).
The surface area is 1.9 million square metres, which will receive an average of 4 million kWh/day at Anchorage levels of sunlight, or make 0.4 million kWh/day of electricity (ofc, lots more in summer than in winter!)
0.4 million kWh is the energy content of about 2,300 barrels of oil.
However, you must remember that here you’ve accounted for the efficiency of the solar panels but not the efficiency of the oil. If you burn the oil in a car engine, you’ll average 12-20% efficiency in general (and that’s not accounting for the energy needed to dig up, process & distribute the oil or make the solar panels). Assuming you’re using the oil to drive, it’s equivalent to about 10,000 barrels of oil per day, or 3.65m a year.
not enough to do anything useful. latitude is too high. better to put them in median strips on major interstate highways.