Solar ... In the news

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hiya Jimmyboy, nice article, but did you read the comments ....... for a laugh!

Check this one out:

Wow, that's a classic, even for the foil-hat brigade!

Martyn1981 wrote: »

First UK grid connected PV system 95% efficient 20 years later



but .....



Article also suggests that the first inverter lasted 14 years. :T

That'll do pig, that'll do.

Mart.

Modern day SMA inverters have a service life of over 20 years.

http://www.sma-uk.com/en_UK/services/services.html

lstar337 wrote: »

A bit of news on some interesting battery technology that ties in with grid storage of renewables:



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29284934

Fascinating - this is a rather simple battery indeed!
You take some lead-antimony alloy. Add 21:31:47 mol% of LiF/LiCl/LiBr, and some lithium, heat to 450C, and you've got a >85% efficient battery.

Of course, it scales terribly.
A 40cm cube (64l) can hold about 30kg of this sort of battery, which has a capacity of about 1kWh.

With 10cm thick vermiculite panel insulation, it's going to leak about that much energy in two hours.

If you scale this up to a 4m cube, holding 1MWh, with 1m thick insulation, it loses the stored energy in 10 days.

Scale it up again, to a 40m cube, and you've got a really serious grid-scale battery that can approach 'seasonal' storage, with 1GWh.

Perhaps 20 of these scattered over the country could _dramatically_ improve the potential utilisation of solar and renewables, to shave peaks and provide a more predictable grid.

The cost for the components of the batteries alone in these units would be around 45 million pounds, or around perhaps 200 million each for the completed storage facility.
At 3p profit per kWh stored and released, this would need to last 20 years.

These are chemically simple batteries - and if they do fail - reprocessing them back into working ones is not complex.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Roger, just curious, does this type of battery need heating, or does the in/out process provide that as a byproduct?

Mart.

Depends on the size.
Charge/discharge losses are 10% or so, so if you're charging it at 1kW, you've got 100W of heat 'free'. (at 6 hour rate).

The 4m scale battery (4m cube) can probably in many cases be entirely self-heated, at least if charged/discharged 30 percent or so daily.

Larger ones may actually need cooled, depending on circumstances.

Green energy developer says new floating technology is even more lucrative than solar farms on fields

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/solarpower/11110547/Britains-first-floating-solar-panel-project-installed.html

They have become a familiar sight on rooftops and fields across Britain. Now, solar panels are set to start appearing in a new and surprising location: floating on reservoirs.

Britain’s first ever floating solar panel project has just been built in Berkshire, in a scheme its developer claims will act as a blueprint for the technology to be installed at hundreds of sites across the country.

The 800-panel green energy project was installed earlier this month on a reservoir at Sheeplands Farm, a 300-acre soft fruit farm near Wargrave.