Solar ... In the news
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Martyn1981 wrote: »Personally I'd install it demand side on rooves, no problem getting 60-80GWp on rooves and carparks, so 20% of UK leccy demand. But just to place your 'dramatic' statement in context, and as a thought exercise - to build enough PV farms to generate the equivalent of a UK years leccy demand, you'd have to cover approx 2% of England in 15% efficient panels. Currently about 2% of England is covered in golf courses, driving ranges etc.
You would need 340GWp of solar to provide 330TWh
That would fry the UK grid it simply can not be done
at 6 watts per sqm of land average for a solar farm you would need 6,300 km^2 which is 4 x the area of London with non stop solar power panels that is too much to be acceptableSounds good to me, though 50% off-shore wind may be the technical limit, depends how much the cost of floating WT's falls.
We could push past 50% offshore wind it might mean having to curtail it some of the time.
Get a move on with the 15GW of planned inter-connectors, should have been built 20 years ago.
That way the UK can use/export upto 35GW at night
That means 55GW of offshore wind can be deployed without needing to curtail much of it (say 5%)
If this 55GW operate at 40% CF and we curtail 5% of it it would be 192TWh which would be about 55% of the UK current needs.
Assumptions are rouglhly that the 55GW of offshore wind will have a peak correlation of 70% that is to say with the offshore spread around the uk waters at any one time its unlikely to excess 70% of nameplate at any one time. Also that the UK nukes bar the 1.2GW LWR are decommissionedBut if you are willing to go that far, why not push more CCGT off the grid with on-shore wind, tidal (stream and lagoon) and hopefully wave power too. Perhaps 40% off-shore wind, 30% on-shore wind, 20% PV, 10% tidal, 10% bio-energy, 2% hydro plus storage and interconnectors and CCGT with bio-gas. [Yes I know it's more than 100% but some spill and storage losses will occur.]
Onshore wind is too ugly and imo offshore wind can in time become cheaper than onshore both becuase of the better CF out at sea and becuase moving large turbines on the sea will be easier than doing the same on land
Tidal is unproven and why when we have offshore wind
PV is not needed in the UK and is ugly on PV farms in the countryside although anyone putting it on their roofs on their own dime is fine with me
I dont like biofuels seems a waste
If EVs happen and they are mostly charged at night then offshore wind can be pushed further
If the French dont abandon their nukes then most of our non-offshore-wind energy needs would be met by french nuclear imports
OH and I forgot the dual EPRs we are meant to be building. If that actually happens (which maybe it wont) then would need to lower the offshore wind by some 5GW
Overall a 55GW offshore wind + 15-20GW of interconnectors would be a very green grid. Nat Gas would probably be less than 20% of the power supply at that point and no coal.
No need to industrilise the countryside with onshore wind and pv or burn canadian trees imported half way around the world in old coal plants.0 -
Martyn1981 wrote: »The public don't have a problem with on-shore wind, take a look at the 22 quarterly public attitude surveys. Support for on-shore wind is 73% with opposition of 9%.
Probably the supporters live in the cities where there are no turbinesBTW nuclear has 35% support and 21% opposition, hardly a ringing endorsement, unlike on-shore wind.
You keep trying to frame it as nuclear vs wind/pv
It is Nuclear/Wind/PV vs the same money spent on other needs the country has like additional heathcare0 -
Rooves are the obvious answer to solar placement. Retrofit to all reasonable sites and legislate for all new builds to be oriented for best results, and, have battery storage installed at the same time.
No thanks we dont live in communist russia
Let people install it on their homes if they want it
Dedicating batteries to stationary storage makes no sense at this time charging and discharging solar power through a home battery just means overall the country uses more fossil fuels just dump it into the grid and let your neighbors use it rather than cycle it through a battery with all the losses each way. Use the money you would have spent on the battery instead on a bigger PV system0 -
You would need 340GWp of solar to provide 330TWh
That would fry the UK grid it simply can not be done
at 6 watts per sqm of land average for a solar farm you would need 6,300 km^2 which is 4 x the area of London with non stop solar power panels that is too much to be acceptable
It was only an example. And modern PV panels are around 18% efficient so approx 20W sgm. Though 6 watts takes me back ....A typical solar farm in the UK or Germany only achieves 6 watts average per sqm.
Are you using two posting addresses?Onshore wind is too ugly and imo offshore wind can in time become cheaper than onshore both becuase of the better CF out at sea and becuase moving large turbines on the sea will be easier than doing the same on land
Be nice if off-shore wind goes cheaper, but on-shore wind has a different generation profile, and the more varied our mix the better.
A single solution doesn't work, it would require far greater storage, so better to have a good mix, especially since on-shore wind is also very popular, and many folk like to see them.Tidal is unproven and why when we have offshore wind
PV is not needed in the UK and is ugly on PV farms in the countryside although anyone putting it on their roofs on their own dime is fine with me
I dont like biofuels seems a waste
Off-shore wind was unproven (on an economic cost basis) till a few years ago. PV is needed as it has such a different generating profile to wind, and it's still getting cheaper, and it's ideally suited to the demand side, unlike off-shore wind, though on-shore wind works at a mid size for industrial support. Bio-fuels are excellent, AD is a great source of energy, and Ecotricity's green gas mills could provide 97% of the UK's future domestic needs.If EVs happen and they are mostly charged at night then offshore wind can be pushed further
If the French dont abandon their nukes then most of our non-offshore-wind energy needs would be met by french nuclear imports
EV's can also be charged during the day from PV.
France is to reduce it's nuclear generation from ~75% to ~50%, as it can no longer compete with wind and PV.OH and I forgot the dual EPRs we are meant to be building. If that actually happens (which maybe it wont) then would need to lower the offshore wind by some 5GW
Overall a 55GW offshore wind + 15-20GW of interconnectors would be a very green grid. Nat Gas would probably be less than 20% of the power supply at that point and no coal.
No need to industrilise the countryside with onshore wind and pv or burn canadian trees imported half way around the world in old coal plants.
Plans are for 16GW of nuclear, but said plans are collapsing as nuclear becomes simply un-economic against RE + storage.
On-shore wind and PV only scenarios, with 500GWh of leccy storage, suggest a 13% gas supply, if that helps with your calculations.Mart. Cardiff. 5.58 kWp PV systems (3.58 ESE & 2.0 WNW)
For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.0 -
Probably the supporters live in the cities where there are no turbines
City dwellers don't see WT's? Haven't heard that one before. But perhaps you are right and everyone else is wrong.You keep trying to frame it as nuclear vs wind/pv
It is Nuclear/Wind/PV vs the same money spent on other needs the country has like additional heathcare
Nope, not true. I'm simply pointing out that the planned mix of renewables + storage + nuclear is now questionable as we can remove and analyse the nuclear element, and replace it with more RE + storage, for less cost .... perhaps put the savings towards the NHS, though that really doesn't have anything to do with the conversation.Mart. Cardiff. 5.58 kWp PV systems (3.58 ESE & 2.0 WNW)
For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.0 -
No thanks we dont live in communist russia
Let people install it on their homes if they want it
Dedicating batteries to stationary storage makes no sense at this time charging and discharging solar power through a home battery just means overall the country uses more fossil fuels just dump it into the grid and let your neighbors use it rather than cycle it through a battery with all the losses each way. Use the money you would have spent on the battery instead on a bigger PV system
Wrong, storage stabilises the grid, and allows the deployment of more renewables which in turn displace more FF's.
Peak CO2/MWh coincides with peak demand, shifting some RE generation to the peak, such as home batts storing PV for the evening, help to reduce peak prices and peak CO2 emissions.Mart. Cardiff. 5.58 kWp PV systems (3.58 ESE & 2.0 WNW)
For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.0 -
Martyn1981 wrote: »Wrong, storage stabilises the grid, and allows the deployment of more renewables which in turn displace more FF's.
Peak CO2/MWh coincides with peak demand, shifting some RE generation to the peak, such as home batts storing PV for the evening, help to reduce peak prices and peak CO2 emissions.
What would save more fuel
£5k on a battery or £5k to expand a roof system by 4-5KWp ?0 -
Martyn1981 wrote: »City dwellers don't see WT's? Haven't heard that one before. But perhaps you are right and everyone else is wrong.
Nope, not true. I'm simply pointing out that the planned mix of renewables + storage + nuclear is now questionable as we can remove and analyse the nuclear element, and replace it with more RE + storage, for less cost .... perhaps put the savings towards the NHS, though that really doesn't have anything to do with the conversation.
I am in agreement. The UK should not build any more nuclear it is going to be too costly for us as we wont get to scale to learn how to build them on time and on budget. I wish the dual EPR deal was not done but we are too far down that road now.
Hopefully that will fee up some money we can put into the NHS to save some lives and make sick peoples lives a little more comfortable.0 -
Hiat 6 watts per sqm of land average for a solar farm you would need 6,300 km^2 which is 4 x the area of London with non stop solar power panels that is too much to be acceptable
Odd really, someone I know has 5MWp of panels on one of his fields and I'm pretty sure that it's not 250 acres ... there's a 20MWp solar farm not too many miles away and that's on a couple of fields, not a 1000 acre country estate ...
A simple calculation would suggest that you've slipped a decimal point ... ie a 250W panel would be ~1.7mx1m so a power density of around 150Wp/sqm (250/1.7), so even allowing for 2/3 of a solar farm land area being taken up by access & margins, that's 50Wp/sqm of land area if the panels were flat-mounted, suggesting that you're assertion is seriously flawed ...
Maybe your starting point should be closer to 1/4 the size of London, but then again, the larger the solar installation, the better the overall panel:ground area ratio, so maybe closer to 1/8 the size of London .. throw in some ~300W higher efficiency panels & you're pretty close to 1/10th ... that suggests that your asserted land area could be in error by a factor of up to 40x and there's still be around 40% of the land area unused (simple Trigonometry) ...
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle
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so even allowing for 2/3 of a solar farm land area being taken up by access & margins,
Hiya Z, aAnticipating the counter argument as used by cells before, is why I said PV panels not PV farms*.
I have no problem accepting that buildings, roads, hedges, margins, and gaps between panels will exist, but I'm not sure that uncovered land should really be classed as 'PV' nor industrializing the countryside, since it's there before, during and after the PV goes in. Plus I ramped my response up to 280Wp panels per 1.6m2 as they are now common - but all just a bit of fun anyway.
*This point is very important when we talk about on-shore wind, folk like to talk about miles and miles of land being lost to wind turbines, when in reality, their footprint is absolutely tiny and has negligible impact (though cycling to visit one can result in a sizeable impact!)
Of course, I suppose I should add that whilst PV farm PV is great, I'd still prefer demand side PV overall given the benefits of (at least some) demand side generation.Mart. Cardiff. 5.58 kWp PV systems (3.58 ESE & 2.0 WNW)
For general PV advice please see the PV FAQ thread on the Green & Ethical Board.0
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