Fact Check: Do Solar Panels Really Fight the Heat?

The UK has fired up a coal-fired power station for the first time in weeks, but it’s not because solar panels can’t handle the heat, as some have claimed.

As soaring temperatures caused more people to turn on air conditioning, National Grid gave the green light yesterday to Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire.

It marked the end of a 46-day streak without coal-electricity generated, the longest break since the summer of 2020, in a move criticized by green activists.

“It is a sign of failure that National Grid is turning to one of the most polluting forms of power generation to cope with a hot summer. heat wave What we know has gotten worse because of climate change,” said Ami McCarthy, a political activist for Greenpeace UK.

But some commentators also pointed the finger at renewable technology. “The heat wave made solar panels it is too hot to work efficiently,” reported the right-wing British newspaper The Telegraph.

However, industry groups say that’s not the whole story. More solar energy is produced in the summer than at any other time, regardless of how hot it is, says Solar Energy UK.

“The idea that solar panels wilting in the heat is a serious and fundamental misunderstanding,” the member-led organization responded today.

Can solar panels cope with hotter weather?

It is true that panels are less efficient at higher temperatures. Photovoltaic (PV) cells convert a slightly smaller proportion of sunlight into electricity in warmer conditions, the solar groups explain.

They are built to work from -40C to +85C. Performance drops when temperatures rise above 25°C, but only by 0.34% for each additional degree.

That’s pretty marginal stuff, according to Solar Energy UK. Even near boiling point, power output would be only about 20 percent lower, he says, other things being equal.

“It’s not really a big deal. High temperatures only marginally affect the total production of solar energy – it’s a side effect,” says the UK’s leading technical expert on technology, Alastair Buckley, professor of organic electronics at the University of Sheffield.

“If it’s sunny and hot, you’ll get good power output. You don’t fall off a cliff.”

The university provides live photovoltaic generation data that supports this; Solar power has been covering around 27 per cent of the UK’s power needs every lunch hour for the last week.

And if you’re wondering, the UK isn’t being outfitted with different solar panels that can’t handle its growing hotter summers

“Solar power works perfectly well in the desert of Saudi Arabia, and the same panels are being installed there as on rooftops in Birmingham or in a field in Oxfordshire,” says Solar Energy UK chief executive Chris Hewett.

Coal and gas stations are also less efficient in heat waves

The solar group has also been quick to point out that thermal power plants – including coal, gas and nuclear – The heat also affects them.

Output from these plants is reduced when the cooling water temperature rises, a function of the laws of thermodynamics, says Solar Energy UK. This effect will worsen as climate change continues to affect.

“It is true that panels are less efficient at higher temperatures, however, solar power is still cost effective compared to fossil fuels. It is certainly more effective for the climate,” a spokesman for SolarPower Europe tells Euronews Green.

“Extreme temperatures, driven by climate change, are just another reason to go solar.

Solar deployment must go hand in hand with the grid and storage investment, we can’t afford to waste a ray of sunshine, and we need to get the system ready for the electrified economy.”

a new report from the European industry group finds that the main challenge for UK solar deployment comes not from the sun, but from a “chronic underinvestment” in the country’s transmission and distribution networks.

“In the summer, we should switch to solar power, but currently we have renewable energy being wasted because our grid can’t deliver the power and hundreds of renewable energy projects that are on hold because they can’t connect,” McCarthy added.

However, coal is leaving the UK energy system. Fossil fuel now generates only 2 percent of the country’s electricity, and is scheduled to be phased out by October 2024.