Disadvantages of Solar Power?

Question

What are some disadvantages of Solar Power?

Answer 1

The biggest disadvantage is the initial cost, not only of the panels, but also of the installation.

while it would seen that the lack of sunshine would seem to be a problem, it is only a problem when you are trying to live off from the grid,

then storage becomes a more expensive problem.

Solar is not the best in the northern hemisphere, because of the lack  of sunshine in the winter, but they also have excessive sunshine in the summer.

Another problem is that you are expected to put in a full array of panel to connect to the grid, where if hooking up one small 100 watt panel on every house was hooked into the grid, the possible shortage of electricity would be greatly reduced.

Answer 2

Solar plants (certain designs) require a lot of water.  And, unfortunately, many places where there is a lot of sunshine also don't have a lot of water.

Answer 3

Cost. Panels do not last overly long and neither do batteries which are also costly. Also have to be in sunny conditions, facing the correct angle or have electric adjusting panels to move with the sun.

Also means no shade protecting your house from heat because it adversely affects the panels.

Locating panels very far from the residence also causes power loss in getting into the batteries.

Answer 4

Night time

Answer 5

Extremely expensive first of all, second, there are cheaper methods that are much more efficient than trying to harness solar power. The sun does not provide enough power to power anything really, and the idea of using it was given up when they realized that a mouse on a wheel for 10 minutes provided as much power as the sun for 40.

Answer 6

The problem with solar power is that it is not totally reliable.  You need a backup power plant for when the sun doesn't shine.  These plants will be fairly expensive.  They only operate part time and that doesnot pay back the original investments.

Answer 7

Lack of sun, expensive, and multiple repairs.

Answer 8

Like wind trubines solar power is dependent on a force of nature that isnt reliable. You cant count on the sun being out everyday unless you live in a dessert and even then there is a rainy season.

Answer 9

The biggest problem faced with solar power energy is affordability. While sunlight may be free, the conversion of it is not. One can save money by converting some items in their household to solar technology. In order to convert the entire house to solar power it takes a significant investment. Another point is that solar cannot be used as the only source of energy. It must be combined with other energy sources. The sun is a free natural resource, but at night the sun does not shine. It is also a problem in geographical locations where there is less sunlight. At night in these areas, little energy is produced.

Answer 10

the cost. I find wind turbines more effective. they can even work at night.

Answer 11

-Obviously it's not constant so it needs to be stored.

There are some good systems to store great quantities of clean and renewable energy.

The best system is to produce directly ammonia:

Solar energy  ---->  electric energy  ----> hydrogen ----> ammonia (liquid)

- Now it's pricey

It can be less pricey if it's used to produce directly ammonia...

Answer 12

One of the answers above is ridiculous! "Solar is not the best in the northern hemisphere, because of the lack of sunshine in the winter"

And the sun does not vary in the southern hemisphere as well?

Solar power is not cost effective except in deserts near the equator and for heating or at least preheating hot water.

Answer 13

Good question indeed. I just want to supplement the answers provided before. Solar power has less energy efficiency. As you can see, not most of time there is sunshine. Besides, energy generated cannot be stored. Only countries in the equator region can make use of solar power.

There is one point that you should consider: solar energy is not 100% renewable, if you consider the panels manufacturing process. Solar panels are made of plastics as the backbones. Widely use of solar panels will only deplete crude oil and add to global warming. However, in the meantime, researchers are now figuring how to replace plastics as solar panels backbones.

Answer 14

You need the ability to store power for use when the resource, the sun, is not available.  Scottish Power use available energy at night (when industry is not using it) to pump water up a mountain.  In the day time it can be allowed to run turbines so it is a way of storing the power.

Answer 15

cost

poor performance

night time

cloudy days

shade

short winter days

snow covering it

a lot of energy is used in production compared to the energy output

Answer 16

We don't have the space infrastructure needed to put it in a place that isn't dark half the time.

Putting solar panels (or a solar thermal generator) in a place that's dark half the time (and cloudy a lot of the rest) just isn't a viable way of providing baseload power.

At best ground based solar could provide intermediate power with massive environmental effects (mostly the need for lots of land but also semiconductor manufacturing) but you'll need more reliable sources for baseload and peak.

Energy storage might be able to make ground based solar viable but we don't have anything good enough to do it on a large scale and even if we did the need to pay for the energy storage system and have enough overcapacity to charge it would really hurt the economics of solar power (and PV is about as expensive as they get).

Of course when it comes to solving a problem we have right now we need to rely on only technologies we have right now if we can, not what we might have in a decade or ten and since we can't rely on solar we shouldn't be building any more solar power plants (or wind farms) until the energy storage problem has been solved (pumped storage at hydro plants is the best we have and that isn't good enough).