About Solar Energy : Solar Energy vs. Wind Energy

A closer examination of them can reveal some similarities and differences between the two, ultimately allowing for users to choose what is right for them.

Aspects to consider

• Cost benefits analysis

• Life cycle assessment

• Durability

• Noise

• Location

• Innovation

Cost benefits analysis

Alternative energy lets you reduce your carbon footprint, take control of your energy production, and save on taxes.

It can also save you a great deal of money on electricity.

To make the most of your alternative energy investment, you want to weigh the installation cost with the money the system saves you.

When it comes to the cost of installing solar energy or wind power, there are truly too many variables to give an accurate, one-size-fits-all answer.

It will all depend on the size of the system, the environmental factors (such as exposure to sunlight or wind), and local ordinances and incentives.

Installations

Solar Energy, as a general rule of thumb, costs about $2.19 per watt to install solar energy, the average for both residential and commercial installations.

The larger your system is, the less you'll pay per watt.

The small your system is, the more you'll pay per watt.

With each kilowatt-hour of free electricity your system generates, it starts to pay for itself.

Businesses and farms with substantial monthly electric bills have solar systems reach payback in just a few years.

With a lifespan of 25 to 30 years, this leaves decades of financial savings from free electricity.

All in all, a 10 kW solar system may cost around $21,900 after incentives.

A 10 kW wind turbine could cost about $14,700 after incentives.

Wind turbines that are for large, utility-scale purposes can cost millions of dollars.

For smaller residential and commercial properties, the price will vary based on how high the tower is and the type of equipment you install.

According to the American Wind Energy Association, you can expect to pay $1.50 per watt of generating capacity.

While wind turbines are the cheaper option in many parts of the country, they have a much higher maintenance expense than solar energy, and their dependence on wind doesn't make them feasible everywhere.

Solar, however, can still be profitable in very cloudy, rainy, or snowy areas of the country.

Maintenance

Both solar energy and wind power technology have significantly advanced since their early adoption.

These advancements have helped lower their cost, but they've also led to very reliable products that can stand harsh elements and last several decades.

However, both systems aren't 100% maintenance-free.

One of the benefits of a solar energy system is that there are no moving parts, meaning there's less that can go wrong, and less that needs to be maintained, compared to wind power.

If something does go wrong, solar components are well guaranteed by their manufacturer.

Many solar panels come with 25, even 30-year warranties from the manufacturer, meaning faulty panels can be replaced for free up to three decades after they've been installed.

Inverters, the part of the system most likely to fail first, are guaranteed for 12 to 25 years.

But manufacturer warranties don't cover replacement labour costs.

There is very little that you'll need to do to maintain your solar system.

In most areas of the country, it won't help to regularly clean the system, and you shouldn't remove accumulated snow.

Because wind turbines have large, moving parts, there are quite a few things that can go wrong, and they often need ongoing maintenance.

These maintenance costs can quickly eat away at the cost savings of wind energy.

From lubricating moving parts to checking connections within the system to discovering and correcting any unforeseen issues, wind turbines could require preventative maintenance two to three times annually.

As your system ages, the frequency of these maintenance check-ups may need to increase.

These regular visits can cost thousands each year, quickly eating into your wind turbine payback.

While wind turbines may be less expensive to install, they are quite often much more expensive to maintain than solar energy.

This differentiation may level the playing field, making solar the less expensive option, depending on maintenance costs.

Life Cycle Assessment

The typical and arguably most comprehensive way to measure the environmental impact of solar panels on the earth is the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology.

Defined as the whole lifespan of a product, the life cycle includes everything from raw material acquisition and manufacturing to the disposal or recycling of the solar panel.

Using that information, decision-makers can select the manufacturing, construction, and recycling processes that result in the least impact on the environment.

Life Cycle Analysis allows a decision-maker to assess the whole product system and environmental impact because it includes the entire lifespan of a solar panel.

The analysis includes the inputs (including raw materials and energy) and outputs (including atmospheric emissions, waterborne wastes, solid wastes, co-products, other releases).

Most Solar PV panels fall into two basic types and require two distinct recycling life cycles: silicon-based PV and thin film-based PV panels.

Silicon-based PV panels are generally 76% glass, 10% plastic, 8% aluminium, 5% silicon, and 1% metals.

Thin film-based PV panels consist of 89% glass, 6% aluminium, 4% plastic, and 1% metals.

The silicon-based PV panels (most common of the two panels) are first disassembled, and the glass and aluminium are separated.

95% of the glass and 100% of the metal are reused.

The remaining materials are heated to 500 degrees Celsius which causes the plastic to evaporate from the remaining cell modules, 85% of the silicon.

Thin film-based PV panels are shredded into roughly 5mm pieces and separated to remove the film using peroxide and acid.

Through the processes of removing interlayer materials and rinsing glass, nearly 90% of the glass is reused.

95% of the semiconductor material is reused via a precipitation and dewatering process.

The remaining metals are then separated and processed.

Wind Turbine LCA study compared the environmental impacts of two 2.0 MW wind turbines using two methods (ReCiPe 2008 and energy payback).

The tower, rotor, and nacelle are found to have the greatest contribution to the environmental impact in each case.

For the tower, the large amount of steel required is the major contributor to cradle-to-grave environmental impact.

One of the outcomes from this LCA study is the confirmation that the main life cycle environmental impacts of a wind turbine originate from the manufacturing stage.

When compared to prior work, the results lead to a similar conclusion that environmental impacts are driven by material consumption, especially steel.

Durability

Solar panels lose their ability to absorb sunlight and convert it into solar energy due to factors such as hotter weather and the natural reduction in chemical potency within the panel over the particular time frame.

This is what is referred to as the "degradation rate".

The lower the degradation rate, the better the panel.

When a solar panel has a lower degradation rate, it will produce more energy over its lifetime.

Degradation rates vary from one brand to another; higher-quality panels have a lower degradation rate versus lower-quality panels.

This is important to keep in mind when doing a solar panel comparison since it might make more sense, in the long run, to spend more money on higher-quality panels.

According to a National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study, premium modern solar panel manufacturers such as Panasonic and LG offer panels with degradation rates as low as 0.30% per year.

The worst degradation rate is .80% a year, but as a benchmark, you can expect an average degradation rate of .50% a year for any panel.

For most Tier 1 solar panels, the degradation rate is .30% meaning that each year; the panel's performance is reduced by .30%.

Over 25 years, that adds up to a total of 6.96% meaning your panels will operate at 93.04% of their original capacity in 2045.

The design life of a good quality modern wind turbine is 20 years.

Depending on how windy and turbulent the site is the turbine could last for 25 years or even longer, though as with anything mechanical, the maintenance costs will increase as it gets older.

It is unlikely that a wind turbine would last longer than this because they are subjected to quite extreme loads throughout their lives.

This is partly due to the shape of a wind turbine, where the key elements (the blades and the tower) are only fixed at one end and subjected to the full force of the wind.

Also because the power in the wind increases with the cube of the speed, the extreme survival loads can be almost 100 times the ‘design loads' at rated wind speed - which is why wind turbines must shut down to protect themselves in winds above 25 m/s.

At the end of its life, it can simply be removed and replaced with a new one.

Noise

One aspect that rarely gets discussed is the noise levels of operation on renewable energy solutions.

There is a huge discrepancy here between solar and wind and that can play a factor, depending on where you want to install them.

As you would guess, solar panels do not give off any noise pollution.

They are stationary panels, and they are silent during operation.

If noise is at all a concern for you, go with solar panels.

Wind turbines can be much different.

If you are dealing with higher wind speeds, turbines can get quite loud.

Smaller turbines in particular, at high speeds, can be as loud as a lawnmower.

If you aren't interested in listening to the sound of a lawnmower running in the location in which you are going to install these turbines, then Wind Energy might not be a great choice.

Location

Solar power is a term used to define the process of solar panels' internal solar cells converting sunlight into usable electricity.

Solar panels are a great option for your home because the number of panels that you will need to provide all of the power generations for your electricity can easily fit on your roof.

The sun is one of the most abundant sources of energy, although some places are naturally exposed to more hours of sunlight than others.

Sunnier states like Texas and California allow solar panels to generate more electricity than states like Washington, where it is cloudy more often.

The directions in which the solar panels are installed can also increase or decrease efficiency.

In the northern hemisphere, it is best to place your solar panels facing south with no shade cover over the panels.

While solar systems installed in any state can provide the amount of power your home needs, if you live in a cloudier state, remaining connected to the grid or installing a backup battery can help you run on clean electricity all day.

Wind turbines capture the wind's energy, which powers a generator within the turbine, and turns that energy into electricity.

The wind isn't always available, but it does have a slight advantage over solar because it can generate electricity at night when the wind blows.

The efficiency of wind power is measured by the actual amount of kinetic energy that's converted - which means when the wind hits the turbine, the turbine moves to make energy.

Most wind turbines can convert about half of the wind hitting them into electrical power, with a higher conversion rate for offshore wind turbines because of higher wind speeds.

When considering using wind turbines, geography is the most important factor.

Wind systems require environments that are almost barren of large windbreaks and buildings, so positioning them out in the ocean, in the US great lakes, or the Midwest, make the most sense.

Solar panels might be your best option if you live in the city centre that's full of many residential and commercial buildings as they can be installed wherever you want and won't take much space.

Wind turbines must be situated high above any obstacles that might block the wind to be effective.

So if you live in a rural area that has plenty of open space, then wind turbines will work well for you.

Innovation

The surge in solar rooftop installation and rapid adoption in the architectural field are the prime drivers of the increasing demand for solar cells.

Moreover, recent technological marvels have boosted the adoption of solar panels to generate electricity.

For instance, researchers have developed a novel design that could squeeze more energy from solar panels.

Additionally, the prices of solar panels have decreased significantly over the past couple of years.

Moreover, researchers at the University of Houston recently published a paper unveiling a hybrid device that can both capture and store solar energy.

In a wind turbine, Owing to decades of refinement, a modern blade is "far more sophisticated in aerodynamic design, use of materials, manufacturing process, and structure than ever before, and has fundamentally different features than other aerodynamic applications such as aeroplane wings," the experts wrote.

"Some key innovations include higher tip speeds to reduce torque and minimize drive train weight; higher speed and high-lift airfoils for a more slender, lighter blade; and innovative tip shapes to mitigate noise.

Innovations over time have led to modern blades that are 90% lighter than the 1980s blade would be if simply scaled to current lengths," they noted.

Among examples of notable recent breakthroughs are aeroelastic tailoring, "which passively reduces the loads through coupling blade bending and twist"; thicker flat-back airfoils, which enable improved aerodynamic performance from the load-bearing section near the hub; and add-ons such as vortex generators and flow fences; as well as a variety of manufacturing improvements.

Solar Energy vs. Wind Energy Conclusion

A solar system won't produce electricity when the sun isn't shining.

A wind turbine won't produce electricity when the wind isn't blowing.

The answer to which type of alternative energy source is right for you will depend on the type of weather in your area.

That said, it's important to note that you don't need to live in Arizona, California, or Florida to make solar profitable.

Even solar systems installed in areas of the country known for being cloudy, like Upstate New York or Ohio, can have very profitable systems.

While wind turbines are likely to be less expensive to install initially, they will cost much more over the lifetime of the system to maintain and operate.

A solar system, on the other hand, will require little maintenance.

To sum it all up, we're partial to solar (though we may be a little biased...).

But in the end, either a solar system or a wind turbine can help you save a significant amount of money on your electricity bills each month.

Either will also empower you to make a difference by reducing your dependence on non-renewable energy sources and creating a cleaner world for future generations.