Paphos Life

I was reading this morning the article in CMail concerning photo-voltaic installations, however i cannot agree with a lot of that post.

There is so much arid land which is not useful for anything, but could be used for PV installations.

There is very little export of agricultural products in Cyprus (only cheese and a bit of potatoes and citrus) that farmers could afford expensive Agro PV installations. Most agricultural products are for the local market and at a low value.

Many farmers sold their "precious land" where they produced tomatoes etc for 3 Euro per 20kg box to developers to built houses on it.
Immediately they had the money they could not earn in 50 years or so from their crops.

https://cyprus-mail.com/2023/07/26/sola ... potential/

Max

Interesting article, but, like you, I have to disagree with the point of a lack of land for pv farms. Why can't the land used for wind farms also be utilised for pv panels.
Here in Wales there are quite a few solar farms. One enterprising Anglesey farmer has even developed a breed of sheep which needs very little looking after specifically to keep the vegetation manageable under the panels. Surely in Cyprus goats could be used as long as any cables were goat proof.
Just as an aside, our new, pv system in the UK, has cut our reliance on the grid by 40%, and this is without a battery(battery fitted next week) When it was raining earlier this morning, we were producing 600watts,and now, 11am, it is still cloudy and we are producing 1.3kw.
Once our battery is installed, I predict that during the summer, we will consume no electricity from the grid. Our system is 12 panels, with solar edge optimisers and a solar edge inverter, similar to the one fitted by Greenair in Cyprus. Plus, our system in Cyprus is allowing our daughter, who is there for the summer, to run the air con without any worry about the cost.

Below a wind farm would not be the best choice as the huge windmills creating a lot of shade which is changing all the time and reduce electricity production a lot specially in Autumn and Spring.

Here an example from our wind farm Orites in Paphos destrict



However there would be plenty of space for example at the Paphos landfill or the former landfill near the Konia highway exit....

Max

Surely any land would need to be clear of any growth , in case of wild fires ? Maybe that's the reason there isn't any land

There must be plenty of arid uncultivated land which could be used for photo voltaic parks. But decent agricultural land of which Cyprus has less should be cultivated. At present a lot of veggies and fruit are imported from Greece as well as further afield. But Cyprus should try to produce as much fresh produce as it can. This might help to keep supermarket prices more affordable.
Until the EAC modernises its power stations and its transmission structure, it can't use the existing amount of renewable energy which is being produced.
Dee

This is in Anarita, in the area known by birdwatchers as Anarita Park

Ams wrote: ↑Wed Aug 02, 2023 3:47 pm This is in Anarita, in the area known by birdwatchers as Anarita Park

20230801_195743.jpg

Not very flat, that might be a problem

I think that there probably is enough land, without having gone into the subject. However, some of the newer ideas may change the goalposts. The big one is more than doubling the installation to provide power during the night or in bad weather or accumulators, remembering that anything else is likely to reduce the daytime capacity.

Sounds a bit unlikely! As firstly until and unless new batteries for storage of P-V produced electricity are available, no PV system produces power in the hours of darkness and little if there is heavy cloud cover in daylight, Also EAC needs to upgrade its transmission to handle properly the existing PV power produced...

Sounds like more hot air is being produced and sold-as fact to gullible people.

Dee

Kili01 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 02, 2023 11:30 pm Sounds a bit unlikely! As firstly until and unless new batteries for storage of P-V produced electricity are available, no PV system produces power in the hours of darkness and little if there is heavy cloud cover in daylight, Also EAC needs to upgrade its transmission to handle properly the existing PV power produced...

Sounds like more hot air is being produced and sold-as fact to gullible people.

Dee

I dont know who these gullible people are, that you mention, maybe its my friend who i was talking to yesterday who has had panels fitted and instead of paying hundreds of euros for their electricity only paid 22euros for their last bill.

WHL, I wasn't thinking about individual PV installations on private houses. I used to have a 3 kw PV system on my previous house which produced enough electricity to satisfy needs. Any surplus electricity went into the national grid. My electricity bills were very low which reflected this.

Dee