Home » CleanTech Bites » Not so cool: First Solar’s moonshine story was … moonshine

Not so cool: First Solar’s moonshine story was … moonshine

Giles Parkinson
19

On Thursday (US time) RenewEconomy published a story quoting operators at the AVSR1 project, under construction in the Antelope Valley in California, as saying that the 136MW currently connected actually managed to produce a small amount of electricity during the “super moon” last Sunday/Monday.

We were amazed by this news and asked several questions about it at the time, as in “are you sure”, and on several occasions afterwards during the remainder of the site visit on that day. We were assured on each occasion, including by senior executives, that it was correct. When scepticism about the story was raised by readers we went back to First Solar. Again, we were initially assured the story was right, but then we were told on Friday afternoon that is was in fact wrong.

Naturally, we feel like complete idiots and are very embarrassed, and apologise to all those who read the story. We feel we have been let down, and we have let down our readers. The original story has been trashed.

This is the statement from First Solar in full:

“First Solar’s information that AVSR was producing 1MW of power from the “super moon” earlier this week is actually incorrect.  We take full responsibility for the misunderstanding; an O&M operator (new on the job) simply misread the nominal load measurement present when the system is off-line, and wrongly assumed it had registered power during the full moon event. We in no way intended to misrepresent the capabilities of First Solar’s technology.

We want to set the record straight. This was an honest mistake, and again, we apologize for the error.

We appreciate your personal commitment to solid, clear-thinking reportage in the renewable energy sector, and regret that this unfortunate miscommunication occurred.”

And it isn’t even April 1. A lesson learned.

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19 responses to “Not so cool: First Solar’s moonshine story was … moonshine”

  1. nigelf Avatar
    nigelf

    Kudos for following this up.
    How about a story soon explaining how solar is and most likely never will be viable without government subsidies? This is a collossal waste of taxpayers money.

    1. Zachary Shahan Avatar
      Zachary Shahan

      ah,… just like the cell phone will never replace the landline and digital cameras will never replace film and CDs will never replaces tapes and…

      1. nigelf Avatar
        nigelf

        Those things AFAIK were never subsidized by the taxpayer, private enterprise used their own money to develope those progressive steps to a better product. The government at the time also wasn’t demonizing and artificially inflating the prices of of landline service and film cameras. All subsidies must stop. And before you spread the lie that oil companies are subsidized, they’re not. They just get the same tax breaks that other companies get.

        1. Zachary Shahan Avatar
          Zachary Shahan

          you’ve got to be kidding me. oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power have been subsidized out the wahoo! and they continue to be.

          as far as your suggestion that we *not* count the trillions of dollars in health costs that fossil fuels generate, that’s about as dishonest a math solution as there is.

          $1000 paid at the hospital due to externalities coal isn’t including in its balance sheet is the same (or, actually, worse) than $1000 paid in the form of a tax break for developing a solar or wind power plant (which actually also creates jobs, stimulates the economy, and benefits me financially).

          http://cleantechnica.com/2013/02/07/energy-subsidies-clean-energy-subsidies-fossil-fuel-subsidies/

          http://cleantechnica.com/2013/02/07/oil-subsidies-natural-gas-subsidies/

          1. nigelf Avatar
            nigelf

            They’re not subsidized, period. I don’t know about nuclear, that might be.
            As far as “trillions” in costs, I’d be more inclined to believe maybe millions, and you seem to forget all about the benefits of fossil fuels which is precisely why we use them in such quantities today…they work wonderfully. Imagine waking up tomorrow and all fossil fuels disappeared overnight. Within three weeks there would be total anarchy across the country and the deaths would be in the millions. No fuel for transport, which means no food on grocery shelves. In the longer term, no fuel for farmers tractors to grow the food itself. No electricity for A/C and more important, no heat in the winter. Your world would be deadly to the extreme.
            No, we’ve decided that the benefits far outweigh any minor costs as a society and that’s why we’re more educated, healthier, better fed and longer lived than poor nations. We do this because it works. Solar and wind were around at the turn of the 19th century and it quickly became apparent that the shortcomings were many, namely the density. You need such a vast amount of land for solar or wind compared to anything else and it’s intermittent. That might work for the third world but not here.
            Solar and wind are playtoys that aren’t worth the money.

          2. Ivor O'Connor Avatar
            Ivor O’Connor

            Do you get paid for making crazy posts? I’d like to supplement my income. Who do I contact to spread misinformation Nigelf?

          3. nigelf Avatar
            nigelf

            Any of the climate cabal will do and they pay quite well with all the government grants and all. They’ll keep saying whatever it takes to keep the money rolling in. Things that are patently untrue like hurricanes getting stronger when in fact the US hasn’t been hit by at CAT 3 in over 2,000 days. Things like tornadoes getting stronger while the longer term data says completely the opposite. Things like the Arctic will be ice-free this Sept. when in fact there’s more ice up there now than there has been for several years at this time of year. Things like trying to pin every weather event on global warming like Sandy or the Ariz. fire that tragically took 19 lives, even though forest fires are down considerably this year. Things like Obama saying in South Africa that if Africans have the gall to have air conditioning and cars like we do here that the earth will “boil over”.
            Yeah the misinformation is flowing fast and furious, but it’s all coming from the warmist side. Realists like myself have facts, your side has propaganda that is so easy to quash with facts that it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

          4. Ivor O'Connor Avatar
            Ivor O’Connor

            nigelf writes “Yeah the misinformation is flowing fast and furious, but it’s all coming from the warmist side. Realists like myself have facts, your side has propaganda that is so easy to quash with facts that it’s like shooting fish in a barrel”

            And ironically you never give any references as you spew unbelievable details.

          5. nigelf Avatar
            nigelf

            Tornadoes, worse in the past:
            http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/tornado/clim/EF3-EF5.png
            Hurricane drought:
            http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bJhUmJyxrQs/ULy7NL1QbAI/AAAAAAAACQw/RlSJLqrsz5Y/s1600/hurrdrou0613.jpg
            Arctic ice extent:
            http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
            Obama in Africa:
            http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/01/obama-in-africa-the-planet-will-boil-over-if-everybody-has-a-car-air-conditioning-and-a-big-house/
            Wildfire stat’s:
            http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm

          6. Ivor O'Connor Avatar
            Ivor O’Connor

            Wow. Was not expecting you to provide references. Nicely done. Five references. The tornadoes and hurricane references look like they validate you point. Maybe somebody could chime in on that.

            The arctic ice extent appears to be contrary to what you said. Obama says a lot of things I do no agree with but I did not see anything wrong with these you referenced. And the Wildfire stats are not easily interpreted unless you know more. So two out of the five references, the two most important, appear to corroborate your statements.

            Nicely done and I take back my snide remark about you spewing unbelievable details now that you have referenced them.

          7. nigelf Avatar
            nigelf

            Thank you Ivor. The Arctic ice extent right now shows more ice -for this date- except for 2009, so it supports what I said.

          8. Zachary Shahan Avatar
            Zachary Shahan

            For your own ‘luck,’ I just hope you aren’t an investor. Nobody serious in the energy biz consider solar & wind to be playtoys. They are dominating new power investments around the world, and that is only projected to increase.

          9. nigelf Avatar
            nigelf

            Wrong. Take away the government subsidies and these compnies disappear overnight. Look at how many are going bankrupt right now in Germany because their gov. finally wised up and stopped the subsidies.
            Uneconomical and job-killing.

          10. Zachary Shahan Avatar
            Zachary Shahan

            German companies are going bankrupt because Chinese companies have underpriced them for too long. And while Germany is installing less solar power than it was when the FiTs were higher, it is still installing a lot of solar power, fueling many jobs in the installation business.

          11. nigelf Avatar
            nigelf

            Chinese companies have considerably lower costs so they can ship them to Germany and still make a profit. I don’t like that China has this advantage either but that’s what free trade gets you. And since they’re subsidised by the Germans that’s probably a good thing, to pay less for the panels than you would otherwise.
            But I still maintain that when the subsidy disappears then all these companies will vanish but not before getting their pockets filled with taxpayer money. This will happen in all counties and just underscores how wasteful it is to throw taxpayers money at such proven useless sources of energy while ignoring that which has benefitted us greatly over the decades and remains cheap and plentiful.
            I don’t care how many people buy into the hypothesis that man can control the weather, to make proven and plentiful cheap energy more expensive by artificially inflating the price is treason that hurts millions of people.

          12. Zachary Shahan Avatar
            Zachary Shahan

            Even Shell has projected solar becoming the #1 source of energy in the world. http://solarlove.org/shell-bullish-on-solar-despite-dropping-solar-but-much-more-in-its-new-scenarios-than-that/

            Solar power is not going away. And neither wind power for that matter. Across the world, wind power is probably the cheapest option for new electricity, on average. Even not counting externalities.

            Plus, not how subsidies for solar & wind have resulted in massive price drops (what investment should do), while nuclear, coal, natural gas, and oil continue to get subsidies while their prices have been rising for years.

            http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/24/solar-powers-massive-price-drop-graph/

            http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/06/solar-a-disruptive-technology-graph/

            http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/06/solar-pv-module-prices-have-fallen-80-since-2008-wind-turbines-29/

            http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/21/uk-solar-costs-pounded-largest-solar-farm-one-pound-or-1-59-per-watt/

            http://cleantechnica.com/2013/06/19/forecast-cost-of-pv-panels-to-drop-to-0-36watt-by-2017/

          13. nigelf Avatar
            nigelf

            You’re right in that solar is sometimes the only option, it makes sense in remote areas and for minimum applications.
            If Shell is so gung-ho on solar then why did they abandon it in 2006? Something isn’t adding up here. And in that graph of projected solar use I have to agree with the one by Exxon.
            And to repeat my self once again, coal, oil and natgas don’t get subsidies, they just get the same write-offs that any other company gets. There’s no preferential treatment.
            But I have respect for what you’re doing after looking at the cleantechnica website, good job.

  2. Zachary Shahan Avatar
    Zachary Shahan

    Ha, thanks for the follow-up. 😀

  3. Ivor O'Connor Avatar
    Ivor O’Connor

    Even if solar cells were super sensitive and did not have a drop out point there is only so much energy. See references below. 136MW/100,000 = .00136MW. So if it wasn’t a simple mistake and they were trying to spin a story the number would have had to be about a thousand times less than they reported.

    When the moon is viewed at high altitude at tropical latitudes, the illuminance can reach 1 lux.[2] The full moon is about 500,000 times fainter than the Sun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight

    Bright sunlight provides illuminance of approximately 100,000 lux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight

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