Page - 35 - in Clean Water Using Solar and Wind - Outside the Power Grid

The renewable energy revolution 35 A solar home system will start to fulfil basic needs such as lighting and low-load appliances. Adding more electric production capacity will allow power for water pumping, irrigation and treatment for water supply and water reuse. Power delivery can be considered from three perspectives: • Complexity, • Hazardous and risky operation, and • Customer power. Solar PV systems can be from 1 to 100 to 1,000 solar panels. If the power capacity is too low, then new panels can be added; and conversely, if capacity is unnecessarily high, panels can be moved to another consumer. An interesting feature of solar PV is that the panels are replicated, which means that the complexity of the system does not increase with the size, and its efficiency is not sacrificed with the power rating. This is not true for thermal power plants, which have an optimal operating size. In general, solar-powered systems do not present any hazards due to materials or operations. However, some chemicals are reason for concern, such as cadmium in Cd-Te solar cells and the components of most types of batteries. The operational risk is yet another important factor. As renewables are scaled up they do not present increasingly greater hazards. Conventional methods of thermal power generation, nuclear or coal, have a typical optimum size for best efficiency. Usually this is quite a large power station, which also means greater system complexity. It is not profitable to build a 50 MW nuclear reactor. Renewables, on the other hand, are relatively benign technologies, without serious risks. Scalability increases consumers’ power. With local access to energy the individual citizen is empowered and is no longer dependent on a central authority. The promise of energy and water decentralisation is a democratic force that should not be underestimated. It is possible to start The scalability of renewable systems is remarkable, in particular that of solar PV. The systems can be highly modular. Downloaded from https://iwaponline.com/ebooks/book-pdf/520710/wio9781780409443.pdf by IWA Publishing user