2G wrote on 8/10/2017 8:17 PM:
On Monday, August 7, 2017 at 4:53:28 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Monday, June 26, 2017 at 4:23:32 AM UTC-4, wrote:
The Treasure Coast Soaring Club will soon have a new house thermal. Florida Power And Light is in the process of building a 400 acre solar power plant within 3/4 mile from our airport. Heat from this type of farm should make for a great house thermal. Anyone out there with experience flying over solar farms? Thanks, Bob

Solar panels are being installed in a rapid pace. i would expect this and the sister project only two miles apart to be completed within late fall. this should be interesting to see what thermal activity is created.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding about solar power: they don't generate heat, they consume solar radiation (which reduces heat, much like a body of water).

The panels do get bloody hot in the summer sun! They should have good airflow past
the top and bottom surfaces, given their mounting angle and clearance from whats
below them. That might be more effective at transferring the heat to air, compared
whatever surface they are built over.

I'm going to guess panels over vegetation will improve the thermal activity, but
panels over desert sand might decrease it.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Dec 2014a" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm

http://soaringsafety.org/prevention/...anes-2014A.pdf