Does anyone here have an ideological objection to Solar?

Cardew wrote: »

So glad you asked!

Well my position – see all my other posts – is that to subsidise tiny sub 4kWp PV arrays on roofs of houses dotted all over UK is a nonsense.

It is even more of a nonsense to pay this subsidy(FIT) to householders to generate electricity, and then allow them to use, in theory,all this electricity in their houses and export nothing.

You keep saying this, but you’ve never been able to support your arguments. Since the subsidy is paid on generation, location and suitability is fully taken into account. Consuming generating units instead of importing units has exactly the same effect on the grid as exporting units, then re-importing, as Myself (and Zeupater) have explained numerous times.

Cardew wrote: »

This FIT subsidy is not paid by the Treasury from money raised by general taxation, but as a direct levy on electricity bills. This means that even the poorest in the land have to pay this levy, and of course most people cannot have a PV system because they live in flats, don’t own a house, or have unsuitable roofs(structure, orientation, shading etc). Given that you have to be a house owner and can afford £x thousands –(or let the RAR mob profit from your house) it is not surprising that George Monboit(the GreenGuru) called it a scheme to transfer money from the poor to the well-off!

Your obsession over whether or not this is a tax is pointless. It’s paid via money collected from all households. The subsidy supports energy generation and evolving energy sources, so it seems entirely appropriate that it is funded from energy bills, rather than place it somewhere else. The premise of ‘polluter pays’ applies here. Also, by ‘hiding’ energy costs elsewhere (such as with nuclear) artificially reduces energy prices, making it harder for alternatives to compete. What are the benefits of hiding this subsidy?

All subsidies will benefit a minority, but don’t forget FITs also includes other schemes (wind, hydro, CHP etc). Costs have fallen and more can now take part in these schemes, also LA’s and Social Housing organisations have taken part. As you are aware George Monbiot revised his comments on FITs money being moved from the poor to the rich, over 2 years ago.

Cardew wrote: »

However if the Government have a treaty commitments to produce xxxMW from PV, then it would make sense to produce that electricity as cheaply as possible and ensure that as much of that electricity as possible is exported to the Grid.

This would entail ‘solar farms’ – preferably in the SouthWest – where the economies of scale with thousands of panels are obvious – and all electricity exported.

Why the cheap shot on treaty commitments? I thought you said you liked PV yesterday. The government has to work with low and zero CO2 technology because we are facing a massive (and massively expensive) problem, so why exclude any partial solutions?

As I’ve asked many, many times - Support your claims? There are little to no efficiencies of scale. Economies of scale will enable install costs perhaps 30% less, but connection fees and annual running costs (particularly land, insurance and security) will swallow most / all of this up. Regarding export, once again, PV farm to grid to house, or house consumption at source, they are the same. Same panels, generation, grid, end users and consumption. Net effect on the grid is the same.

Have you also considered that as FITs rates fall, we will still have to pay for all PV farm generation, but we’ll gain the full benefits of domestic generation whilst only paying for the exported element?

Cardew wrote: »

Indeed there were lots of plans for these solar farms; which would have been financially viable even with a much lower subsidy(FIT)for large scale production. However the Government saw fit to savagely cut this lower FIT for these systems and yet kept the FIT high on the inefficient roof mounted panels dotted all over UK. Yet allowed firms like A Shade Greener with a huge MW output to get the very highest FIT rate.

Pointless hindsight and hypothetical assumptions. Totally ignoring the fact that domestic PV has greater long-term subsidy free viability, than farm PV – total costs are similar, but the revenue stream of domestic is a combination of wholesale and retail, whilst PV farms have to make a profit on wholesale prices only (and after tax).

Cardew wrote: »

The farms could have been situated on scrubland, brownfield sites or panels mounted on frames where cattle etc could graze underneath(as is happening with some solar farms)

In every way solar farms would have been preferable to the present scheme:

More PV panels deployed for a lower subsidy(cost) to electricity consumers.

All electricity exported to grid.

Lower maintenance costs etc

Why on earth would you place a PV farm on a brownfield site? In doing that you have completely removed the potential use of that brownfield site? Better to use it for commercial or domestic use, then slap some panels on the roof.

Lower subsidy cost is short-term thinking, long-term viability is crucial, and directing funds into households and thereby involving the public in renewables is crucial. We are facing a massive problem, the IPCC are currently reviewing their 2007 climate change predictions. Their claims were scary, but have already been found to understate the problem. So we need public acceptance of both the technology, and the need to deploy it.

Read some reports on PV deployment, hopefully then you’ll be better informed on the positive and negatives of each type of deployment. For instance, have you considered the effect that rolling clouds (the UK has a lot!) have on PV farms with concentrated panels. Generation and supply will vary dramatically, whereas with distributed domestic PV it is much flatter as panels are spread over a larger area, balancing out variations.

Cardew wrote: »

You will also see in my posts, that there has never been any criticism of people taking advantage of the lucrative FIT scheme(or indeed the RAR firms for doing the same). However I do find the disingenuous arguments of some seeking to defend their rooftop installations rather amusing.

The arguments are not disingenuous, they simply try to bring balance to your claims. Alternatively, you could carry out more research and supply reference to your claims.

Mart.