0191-9067/83 $3.00 + .00 Copyright ' 1983 SUN SAT Energy Council POWER-ECONOMICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE INTEGRATION OF TERRESTRIAL AND EXTRATERRESTRIAL SOLAR GENERATORS INTO EXISTING POWER GENERATION SYSTEMS ING. B. STOY Rheinisch-Westfalisches Elektrizitatswerk RWE-Haupt verwaltung Postfach 27 4300 Essen 1, Federal Republic of Germany INTRODUCTION Up to now solar cells are in use in outer space for covering the energy requirement of satellites and on Earth for supplying distant houses or villages. Both applications thus represent purely an isolated operation. With further price reductions of solar cells and system components grid- connected operation of photovoltaic plants becomes more interesting. Two alternatives are conceivable: the terrestrial and the extraterrestrial application. While in case of the extraterrestrial sector only a central power generation is suitable, the terrestrial utilization offers two possibilities: • the central generation in solar power plants and • the decentralized power generation by using suitable roof areas of buildings. For the Federal Republic of Germany the central application presents great difficulties — simply due to the large area requirement of central photovoltaic power plants. Since the decentralized terrestrial power generation occurs directly at the place of consumption it is superior to the central terrestrial generation. Therefore, the last is not considered any further in the following comments. As possible alternatives there remain the decentral terrestrial and the central extraterrestrial power generation. 1 would like to quote one example for each alternative. Example I In the Federal Republic of Germany approximately 25 million households are supplied with electric power. Twenty-four percent of these are single-family houses and 22% two-family houses. In absolute figures this means that 10 million houses have a roof surface of at least 50 m2 each. If only 10% of these houses were equipped with a photovoltaic facility of 50 m2 at the south roof, a peak capacity of 5000 MW would be achieved, as each house could generate an output of 5 kW during the few very sunny summer days around noontime.
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