Friday 31 March 2023

"With mainland help, Hong Kong can popularise solar energy use” | Yeah, but no

Our place in Discovery Bay, Hong Kong, with Rooftop Solar PV
My comment at the site:

I put solar panels on our place in DB. I know the economics of Rooftop Solar PV, for Hong Kong.  It's simply not a feasible solution for green power in this dense, vertical city of ours. It's too *dilute*.  What we need *concentrated" green power and the easiest, quickest, safest, most realisable, most *concentrated* way for us is more NUCLEAR. We can either build our own, or buy more from Guangdong.

The article is here. I’ve also written about solar and nuclear in Hong Kong, here and here

I’m not at all against solar power. We’ve done our rooftop, FGS! Just that it’s better in some places than others. Better in lower latitudes than higher latitudes. Not so good for Hong Kong, which is a very concentrated, vertical city. Which means land is at a premium. And the land needed for solar is about 400 times the amount needed for the same amount of Nuclear power. 
Same true for wind. We don’t have the land, nor do we have the steady, prevailing (gradient) winds to make it efficient. While we do have place for Nuclear -- either make it ourselves by replacing the natural gas facility on Lamma Island, or buying more from the other four Nuclear power stations in Guangdong apart from the Daya Bay station where we already get our nuclear f