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by detourdog1 days ago |
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upvoteby littlestymaar1 days ago|
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New England is Spain in terms of latitude.

Americans tend to forget how far north Europe is compared to the US.

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upvoteby 2000UltraDeluxe1 days ago|
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We have solar in Finland as well, like everyone else. Yes, it's useless in winter. Yes, the expansion has slowed down, because there is no storage and limited export options.

The Nordic power market is a mess, and it's not because solar doesn't work in winter but because the grid needs massive investments on all levels and nobody wants to be left holding the bill for it.

Electrification? Sure, I'll buy an EV when the _local_ grid operator makes sure my lights don't flicker when the neighbor uses an angle grinder. The last update was that they plan to replace the old transformer station from the 60's "when it breaks".

Local generation? Can't get rid of the excess generation if I wanted to.

Is Denmark's power grid expansion still geared at selling Swedish electricity to the Germans?

Sweden? No internal transfer capacity so their consumers have constant high prices while power is exported cheaply.

Norway? Geo-blocked by Sweden.

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upvoteby leonidasrup1 days ago|
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Solar power in Finland is really not important.

Data from 2025.

Nuclear 32 TWh, Wind 22 TWh, Hydro 12 TWh, Solar 1 TWh.

https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/finland

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upvoteby 2000UltraDeluxe1 days ago|
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Indeed, and large parts of the reason has nothing to do with geography. The same applies to Denmark and the rest of the Nordics.

Obviously solar will be decreasingly useful as you get further to the pole, but the Nordics aren't worse off than Alaska or Canada in that regard, and both do solar to some extent AFAIK.

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upvoteby leonidasrup1 days ago|
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It has lot to do with geographic latitude and weather patterns. The amount of electric output per amount solar installed strongly affects the profitability of solar installation (if you don't count of government subsidies).

You get the following output on average each year

Denmark 1000 kWh/kWp

South Germany 1200 kWh/kWp

South Spain 1700 kWh/kWp

Egypt up to 2000 kWh/kWp

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upvoteby Jensson1 days ago|
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And summer isn't when you need the power anyway, so its very inefficient since northern winters has barely any sunlight at all, its close to 0 from solar power then. In warmer countries you want power in the summer for AC during the day, so there it matches usage, but in northern countries solar isn't very useful at all.
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upvoteby Jensson23 hours ago|
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> but the Nordics aren't worse off than Alaska or Canada in that regard

Nordics are much further north than Canada, most Canadians live further south than Paris and Paris is a lot further south than even Denmark that is much further south than Finland.

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upvoteby t-writescode1 days ago|
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Great Britain, even more North, has viable solar on its Southern edge.
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upvoteby littlestymaar1 days ago|
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As a complementary source of energy, yes, especially in summer (because the flip side of being north is that your summer days last longer).

But in winter, you'll have something like 2-5% load factor on your solar panels…

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