Yes, plus we've seen them on screen several times. . They are in the yard not too far from the main entrance.

 

Dr. Jenner said that. I don't think Deanna ever did.

 

I agree. Remember too that the Governor had a solar panel sitting on the median strip of a road, so I think we're just supposed to go along with "solar panel = magical energy source". I'm ok with that, considering they are also trying to show its supply is limited, and not having every house lit up like Christmas.

 

Which made no sense, btw. Jenner was in a building meant to house hundreds, at least, and he'd shut down most everything by the time they got there. He should have had electricty and hot water coming out his ears.

 

That would make sense, especially if you've ever inquired about getting solar panels for a house.

When I looked last Summer, my house's orientation was ideal, but the amount of room on the roof wasn't. The sitting room for my master bedroom sits over the garage and the "gable" there prevented another panel from being placed. As it was, I only had enough room to supplement my use of the grid, not supplant it.

Essentially, I'd never have been able to "sell" surplus energy because I wouldn't have any to sell and would still require the grid to supplement my usage, taking roughly ten years for the panels to pay for themselves. Granted, we're talking a 5,000 square-foot house with two AC units, but the furnace and water heater are propane. The houses in Alexandria are likely close to that size and likely use heat pumps and electric water heaters, requiring more of the electrical.

To have the kind of energy you need to be completely off-the-grid in houses those size... and I mean totally off the grid... you'd need a lot of panels. Those ground-based panels they have may be able to fully power a couple houses, but not an entire community.

Nick

 

Well, it had been running on generators for 2 months. He was on his last generator when they arrived, that's why the clock was counting down.

 

What I mean is with the size of the generator that's running in a big place like that, running lights and hot water for a few people isn't going to make a lick of difference, any more than running your air conditioning in your room on a cruise ship is going to make it get noticeably worse gas mileage.

 

Jenner explained in his monologue that he wished he could have figured out how to shut the rest of the facility down sooner.

 

Well you know how easily Deanna and Jenner get mixed up. VERY similar characters, might I say.

 

There are plenty of diesel pickup trucks and cars around in the real world. Diesel would last 5 years no problem. Heating oil can be subbed out for diesel if they couldnt find any. So even 5 years in most things would be running on diesel. With lots of the population as zombies - it wouldnt be hard to make some runs and diesel vehicles

 

It would be hard to find good diesel fuel too, at that late date. Without temperature control and mechanisms to keep it free of water, etc, most diesel fuel would be bad before 5 years. Its possible you could find some that would still work, but you'd be risking ruining the engine and getting stranded somewhere.

 

You can also make hot water directly with Solar and that is how the Solar thing it started really.

Solar Collectors actually are panels with water running through them they heat the Water which can stay warm for a pretty long time depending on the system and it is circulated through pipes to holding tanks from which it is used,sort of like a geothermal heat system which I will bet these houses are also supposed to have(in our minds").

There is a lot we just have to take on faith for the fun of this show obviously like the entire basic premise of the show so nitpicking about the realism of day to day life in the Apocalypse can be frustrating when the mistakes seem so glaring in so many ways.


Solar Panels are but a small part of any large scale Solar system and for this place to be powered this way at all requires large banks of huge batteries that need to be maintained as well in the real world and I have not seen any batteries anywhere?

Also the idea of the run where Noah was eaten was to find new tiny Inverters for the system,presumably to generate 120vac power directly from the Solar without storing the energy in battery banks? Not practical in the real world either.
Luckily this show does not exist there anyway!

I also have to wonder about the whole burning lake of walkers,I mean the Alexandria water supply and how exactly they have made that useful again in any way at all?
Nasty Water to me?

On the other hand I bet we are in a small minority of people who notice,ponder or give a crap about any of this.

 

Was that even Alexandria's water supply? I know they have running water, but where the hell is it coming from?

 

I guess we have to assume that they have wells that provide for the community, as unlikely as that sounds practically. It certainly can't be that pond at this point and clearly there was no concern about water if they're showering regularly.

 

True. I'd just wish they'd show or explain it sometimes, even though it might be boring to some, i'd at least like to know. But I guess writers just like to skip or overlook things alot, sort of how FTWD went.

 

they have electricity, and assuming they can drill down and find water, it doesn't take much to pump it up and in to houses. We used to live in a place where there were half a dozen houses on a common well, and our share of the monthly electricity bill was usually about $5. It would also be a lot cleaner than trying to get it from a surface source such as a zombie-filled pond.

 

They have cisterns. Deanna talked about them during her first meeting with Rick.

 

Oh yeah, I remember that now.

 

Yeah, I thought about this too. I think the reason we are not seeing batteries, or makeshift wires and cords, running on the walls, the way we did at Woodbury, is because this community was originally set up, pre-ZA, to be powered partially by solar panels. By design these things are hidden, for aesthetic reasons. There are a couple very small buildings in the large yard not far from the solar panels. One of these buildings was what Eugene was trapped up against when the horde first came in. Perhaps one of them is the battery house, and the lines run underground to the houses. After the power is stored in the battery, you also need a DC to AC inverter to turn it into usable power. We know they have these because that was the part Eugene found at the warehouse.