Solar Panels

paul_h

Cardew wrote:

If the output is in excess of requirements it will be fed back into the National Grid(if possible) I wonder what they will pay you for a kWh?

It is possible to feed any excess capacity back into the National Grid, but to do this you need you need additional equipment including a total generation meter and grid-tie inverter - in total it can add around £3000 to the cost of a 6kW turbine installation, and much more to a larger installation. Any installation smaller than this is very unlikely to have any worthwhile excess. A 'sell and buy-back' agreement with an electricity supplier is also required.

One advantage of being 'Grid connected' is that you are issued with ROCs (Renewable Obligations Certificates) annually according to the amount of renewable energy generated. These certificates don’t physically exist on paper and are of no use to you whatsoever – but you can sell them to an electricity company, they use them to offset their own non-renewable generation. This is on top of any exported units of electricity and it doesn’t matter if you consume the electricity or export it – you still get paid.

At present, these ROCs are the most important return for micro-generation and are trading for the equivalent of around 4.5p per unit generated. However, that is not to say that they will always generate this sort of return.

However, wind is certainly not suitable for many areas, and the huge initial investment has to be considered carefully. The claims made by manufacturers are often quite attractive, but the reality is that in many areas of the UK the results will be disappointing - in areas such as Shetland, Orkney, and the Outer Hebridean Islands where average wind speeds are much higher, the chances of wind being a viable alternative to other electricity sources are obviously much better.

When considering other electricity sources, it is worth bearing in mind that there are still households using diesel generators. I know of one property about a mile away from here that has no electricity supply - being isolated, but ironically half a mile away from a coal-fired 2000MW power station, the cost to provide a connection is too prohibitive. They still use a diesel generator.

penrhyn

Slightly off topic but the recently opened (by David) Attenborough Nature Centre near Nottingham uses Photovoltaics to generate electricity combined with a heat pump system to warm the building obtaining its heat from the lake that surrounds the building.
Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

http://www.attenboroughnaturecentre.co.uk/

Lots of info on the building on the website (best viewed in IE)

paul_h

This reminded me of something else nearby - Boughton Pumping Station, an Edwardian grade 2 listed pumping station. This magnificent building had been derelict for 20 years, but was restored to provide self-sustainable offices, and training & conference facilities, among others.

The interesting thing about the project is that they generate their own heating and electricity from wood waste taken from the nearby forest. The woodchip has hot air forced through it which removes the fuel resins from the wood, this is then fed into a diesel engine which drives a generator, providing electricity and heating for the complex, and the hot air to drive the system. Surplus electricity is sold back to the National Grid, mainly during the summer when electricity is not required for heating. When the wood waste is totally spent, it becomes medical grade charcoal which is sold on.

I was fortunate enough to be able to have a good look round this system when it was in it's infancy, it was really my first sight of renewable energy generation, it was very fascinating.

thor

I watched Question Time from Russia last Thursday and on it someone stated that in a few years time they would be providing 3/4 of the gas used by Europe.
All the panel members agreed that energy security is a big issue now and will only become more important as time goes by. Fossil fuels are running out and what remains will be harder to extract and I'm quite confident that soon there will be no choice but to turn to alternatives. Apparently the government will not reach it's target of 10 or 20% of energy generated from non-fossil sources by 2020 or sometime close to that but I really think that by then the public wake up and realise that oil is not going to last forever and if something radical is not done about it we will end up living in a world of blackouts and severly restricted travel. All these pathetic nimby protests about windfarms will be rightly ignored, wave power generation accelerated and implementation of solar water heaters/PV panels made much cheaper through mass production. Combined with better education about energy conservation I would hope that we could eventually do without fossil fuels altogether. I only wish I could involved in the industry somehow as this is where all the money is going to be in the not too distant future.

paul_h

thor wrote:

All these pathetic nimby protests about windfarms will be rightly ignored, wave power generation accelerated and implementation of solar water heaters/PV panels made much cheaper through mass production. Combined with better education about energy conservation I would hope that we could eventually do without fossil fuels altogether.

I live near to a 2000MW coal fired power station, I know which I would rather live next to. People are quite happy using more and more energy, but it has to be had from somewhere - perhaps if they gave people the choice of a wind farm, or a coal or nuclear power station on their doorstep, maybe they'll be a bit more forgiving of wind power. All of the power stations, whose electricity consumers are happy to use, were imposed upon locals when they were built - they had no choice.

PV cells have a problem as they are quite environmentally damaging to manufacture - it requires a lot of energy and there are some quite dangerous chemicals involved - hence the high prices.

'Clean coal technology' is all very well, but the flue gas desulpherisation plants create more pulverised fuel ash than they know what to do with - so they are dumping it in the land around the power stations with a view to covering it over one day...

Each power station produces around a million tonnes of this stuff a year. This ash contains heavy metals, such as Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Arsenic, Chromium and Vanadium. It also contain radioactive elements such as isotopes of Uranium, Polonium and Radon. It is estimated that a milliion tonnes of PFA (about one year's output) contains 2 tonnes of Uranium. It is also said that all coal fired stations produce more environmental radioactivity than an equivalent nuclear installation. There is now far more PFA than the building industry needs, and in any case there are concerns being raised about it's use in building materials.

This PFA used to go up and out of the chimney, the risk from it was negligible due to the dilution of the natural environment. However, the wisdom of dumping such are large amount in one place is being questioned. It is still going ahead, though...

thor wrote:

I only wish I could involved in the industry somehow as this is where all the money is going to be in the not too distant future.

There are quite a few of these companies listed on the stock exchange...

Cardew

thor wrote:

I only wish I could involved in the industry somehow as this is where all the money is going to be in the not too distant future.

That perhaps sums up the dilemma; there is a lot of money to be made in the alternative energy industry but no savings for consumers.

Solar heating of domestic hot water works! wind turbine generated electricity works! the trouble is that it costs far too much to install. Therefore any domestic customer installing either of those systems will never see a return on their investment.

If the Government were serious about alternative energy for domestic users;

Firstly they should offer some realistic subsidies. Not necessarily to make electricity cheaper, but at least on a par with current prices.

Secondly they should step in quickly and regulate the alternative industry by stopping them making outrageous claims and charging a gullible public crazy installation prices

FirstClassMale

I am seriously considering having a wind turbine installed. I admit that the technical side of things does confuse me slighly but it does look like a better deal than some of those offered.

https://www.windsave.com

The cost is £1500 installed plus 5%VAT. It then qualifies for a 30% Grant.

We are in the North East of Scotland and I believe that the sustained wind, moderate, rarely high, experienced here would make it a good option.

The crucial cost I feel would push it over the expenditure to return ratio is planning permission. I am not prepared to pay around £240 extra when it is little more visible than a high gain TV aeriel and people who put up satellite dishes dont bother to apply for planning.

paul_h

The Windsave looks like a very neat setup, as you say it will in many cases not require PP, but I would be careful. The £1500 quoted is not really a firm price - they are quite vague about the actual cost and whether this includes any grants available. The reason that there are no firm prices is that the units are not actually available yet - they are hoping to start shipping the units mid-2006. :rolleyes:

The Windsave WS-1000 has a nominal output of 1 kW. Windsave suggest that this will make a useful contribution of between 500 and 1500 kWh of electricity per annum according to their FAQ - you can calculate the value of this by multiplying this with your electricity supplier's per kWh price.

It boils down to Cardew's issue of financial viability. Windsave themselves state that the expected life of their system is 10 years, so at e.g. 8p per kWh you can see that during 10 years of running, it may be possible to achieve payback with grants, but it could be very tight. In the worst case, the electricity produced over the 10 year lifespan could be worth as little as £400. I would suggest that Windsave's claim that electricity bills could be reduced by 30% are rather optimistic.

The problem with smaller turbines is that the installation cost per Kw is higher. In addition, the larger models will allow a more useful opprtunity to earn ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates) which can be traded, currently for around 3-4p per unit of electricity generated, even if you use this electricity yourself. ROCs are currently a very valuable part of the equation, but this situation may change. In order to earn ROCs, you have to maintain a grid connection and with a small installation like the Windsave, the inherent costs of maintaining this will wipe out the little money earned from ROCs.

Note also that the larger systems are also now using direct drive, permanent magnet generators, which increases useful lifespan to around 20 years, and maintenance costs are lower.

There is no doubt that you are in one of the better places in the UK to take advantage of wind power. You are also able to take advantage of the excellent SCHRI scheme in Scotland, the rest of the UK only had access to the now defunct Clear-Skies grants. Curiously, the SCHRI favours smaller installations, whilst the Clear-Skies grant favoured larger ones.

My personal opinion is that wind power is one of the more viable forms of renewable energy available to the micro-generator, in the right environment. If you can get the SCHRI grant, payback could be possible, and it's certainly windy enough up there!

There are lots of other suppliers of this technology, all tried and tested, and with more realistic costings. Here's some useful links you may find interesting...

http://www.provenenergy.co.uk
http://www.renewabledevices.com/swift/index.html
http://www.cetsolar.com/windgen.htm
http://www.d400.co.uk/index.html
http://www.energyenv.co.uk/D400WindTurbine.asp

EDIT: The Proven Energy site is an excellent source of info, but when I just checked it was not available - hopefully just undergoing maintenance.

FirstClassMale

Thanks for that Paul_H. What annoys me is that they will not do site surveys until the proposed day of installation. That means that the "approximate" cost of 1500 could easily rise dependant on whether the installer believes there to be extra brackets etc needed and the resultant increase in labour time.

Cardew

Windsave have recently rewritten their brochure and made it far more vague and with several inaccuracies to boot. Like the “UK average 'domestic' electricity bill e.g. 3.2 MWh per annum.”

I am more interested in the financial viability of the system.

Let us take every claim they make at face value and assume that it can be installed for £1,500 + VAT @5% and you get a 30% grant(and they don’t charge for the survey) that brings the capital cost down to £1,100.

Let us also assume that it does last for their estimated 10 years and there are no servicing or repair charges during that period.

If you can borrow £1,100 at the low rate of 6% you will pay back £146 per year for 10 years. Even with an interest free loan you would pay back £110 a year.

The previous brochure claimed an average output of up to 1,000 kWh per year, now it is between 500 & 1,500 kWh in one part and a 'potential' 1,000 kWh in another part. However let us also assume that you achieve the maximum output of 1,500 kWh and you can always use the electricity at night and when you are away from the house.

Paul suggests an average of 8p kWh. 1,500 kWh @ 8p will save £120 per year in electricity costs.

Initially therefore it will be costing you £26 a year to subsidise the system. Presumably electricity costs will increase so at some point in the future you will break even on annual costs.

The above is taking a best case scenario in all respects.

Let me be cynical.
I don’t think you have a hope in hell of getting a system installed for £1,100.

If they give it a life of 10 years why only a 2 year guarantee? You will be extremely lucky not to have servicing/repair costs in the 10 years.

I think most people will be lucky to get a useable 50% of the claimed maximum output.

I summary I think there is zero chance of it being financially viable.