July 12 - trip to the solar plant

Given that I have little to no prior knowledge or background in engineering, I may not have gotten as much out of the excursion to the CPFL solar power planet as some other members of the group, especially some of the technical aspects of the plant and the cells that were discussed with us.  That being said, it was still tremendously interesting to have had some exposure to how these places operate.  I felt very lucky to have gotten an inside look.

The detail that stood out the most to me, one which was also covered in chapter 6 of our textbook, was the low efficiency of the photovoltaic cells at the solar farm.  The vast of rows of cells were definitely something to behold, but since most of the cells produced energy at an efficiency of only 9.1 percent, the produce a small amount of electricity (1.1 megawatts).  Part of the reason for the low output of the plant is that much of it is used for researching the effectiveness of the cells, not for producing power, but it is still indicative of the relatively low output of solar power plants.  In order to power large areas, the plants themselves would also need to cover very large areas.



While it is somewhat worrisome that the solar farm doesn't produce much power at this time, the potential for innovation at the plant is definitely encouraging.  The new SmartMeter technology was a very impressive solution used to make the energy produced go farther.  Also, the engineers at the plant are obviously working diligently to come up with other ways to make the photovoltaic cells produce more energy by experimenting with the angles and positioning of the cells, along with cleaning schedules and other potential strategies to get more out of the power plant.  There is certainly room for research to yield further improvements.



Overall, this field trip was in line with the overarching theme of this Dialogue for me personally: it provided a chance for me to take a step outside my comfort zone and expertise to learn something about a topic that I previously didn't know very much about.  That alone made today a positive experience.