Exactly how much is 6 square kilometers?
Nanosolar have stated that approximately 6 square kilometers of land will be required to produce 1GW of nameplate solar capacity. How much land is this really? Well it is a square of 2.44km on a side. I have superimposed such a square over the site of the Leigh Creek coal mine in the Gammon Ranges in the Australian outback.
Where is this in the scheme of things? Let’s zoom out.
So in Summary the footprint of a solar farm is less than the footprint of a typical coal mine supplying a similar amount of coal-fired generation. In addition, the land between the collectors can still be utilised for grazing. The coal mining operations also require precious water, which is not required for PV.
The PV solar farm may make a lot of sense for some communities. The concentrating PV operations like Solar Systems, might take note.