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Sheffield Solar Farm – Study Shows Good Performance

The University of Sheffield have been conducting a solar energy project for the last two years involving 2,000 solar panel systems throughout the UK. The project is intended to improve knowledge about renewable energy.

Their findings show that there has been a better performance than expected.

The University of Sheffield conducts research using solar panels.

The Sheffield Solar Farm project has been run by researchers since August 2010 who stated that 98 per cent of the solar panel systems have outperformed their initial expectations.

The project is made up of hundreds of residential property owners and also commercial organizations throughout the UK who have regularly been uploading energy generation data onto a special website enabling researchers to study the information about the performance of each of the solar panel systems. A number of different types of system are being monitored.

Dr Alastair Buckley, who is a lecturer at the University of Sheffield’s Department of Physics and Astronomy expressed his surprise at the number of photovoltaic systems that had proved to be successful.

He stated: “There are basically three main technology types that have been deployed in the UK, and they are all working well – that is ’to spec’. They do what they say on the tin most of the time.”

He did add that he would have thought more of the solar panel systems would have performed below the anticipated standard but he felt that because there is less direct sunlight here in the UK that this may have contributed to the systems not being as sensitive to orientation.

The project has attracted funding exceeding £425,000 from both research councils and the energy industry and the research is expected to run until at least into 2015.

Dr Buckley feels that solar panels installed both on rooftops and on land are the way forward. Panels located on roof tops are of course harder to install and maintain than panels at ground level but solar panel farms enable a better choice of location to be made. The downside with the latter is that the land could, potentially, have been used for some other purpose such as farming.

He added: “Costs are continuing to fall and most people now agree that solar energy is important for the future. As system costs continue to fall more and more people will be able to get a system. I think there will be a number of break points in the future, when typical systems can be installed at prices that more and more people can afford. It’s not just the return on investment that’s important for solar, but the actual price of the system.”

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