Comments on: World’s Largest Solar Bridge Is Halfway Complete

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:46:00 +0000

We updated the post

By: drjohnm

drjohnm — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 12:35:00 +0000

Correct, there are two Blackfriars bridges and they are about 100m apart. One is for cars, the other for trains. The article indicates that car drivers will be shaded. That is wrong – its the rail bridge that is being updated. I am just commenting about the poor reporting.

Go to

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=blackfriars+bridge&ie=UTF-8&ei=RsH-T4PINojTtAbSoITfBQ&ved=0CDoQ_AUoAg
and drop a google street view on the road bridge looking east. You will see the railway bridge.

BTW, I have worked very close to the south side of the bridges for many years and later commuted into Blackfriars from Kent.

By: Nicholas

Nicholas — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 12:04:00 +0000

“Blackfriars Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Railway Bridge, carrying the A201 road.”

By: drjohnm

drjohnm — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 15:54:00 +0000

“but they also shade the bridge, and they thus enable people to be far more comfortable, and even turn their air conditioning off, when waiting in slow traffic, which can save a lot of fuel” – this is a rail bridge. There are no cars.

By: Bill_Woods

Bill_Woods — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 01:10:00 +0000

900 MW-h per year = 100 kW-years per year, or an average power of 100 kW. In Britain, that’ll take a nameplate capacity of about 1000 kW.

… yep: “a 1.103MW solar array”
http://www.energystation.co.uk/articles/article.aspx?article=1001

By: Ross

Ross — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 23:14:00 +0000

I don’t think that’s correct.

900 MW per annum = 900 MW/year is not the same as 900 MW.years, they’re dimensionally different.

900MW.years = 900MJ/s * (3600*24*365s) = 2.84 * 10^16 Joules is rather a lot of energy. It won’t collect that much energy from the Sun.
The system is predicted to output 900MW.hour of energy per year.

900MW.hour per year = 900 MJ/s * (3600 s) per year = 3.24 * 10^12 Joules per year

The solar panel area is 6000 meters squared which is kilowatt scale. Over a year that will collect energy in the MW.hour scale.

By: Ronald Brak

Ronald Brak — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 22:53:00 +0000

I think 900 MWh per year is fine for a popular article and less confusing for the average reader who probably has never encountered a megawatt year.

By: Bun_yip

Bun_yip — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 18:39:00 +0000

Absolutely brilliant, well done to whoever let this go through. Britain needs to move forward in this way. Proud to be british again.

By: Reza

Reza — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 17:43:00 +0000

900 megawatts per annum. There is no hour in it. In a year, it produces 900 MW, and you can also say 900 megawatt years, which is the same thing.
This is fantastic.

By: Greg90814

Greg90814 — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 16:11:00 +0000

Spellcheck…