Free solar panel discussion

grahamc2003

PeterZ wrote: »

We are not discussing policy. You and the other doomers make it sound as though renewables do not work. When in fact they do and the national grid have plans in place to support an massive increase of renewables by 2020.

The fact remains that the national grid have it all under control.

Of course if national grid had their way we would have demand and supply at fixed levels.

For 'doomers' would you mind using 'ex-NGC senior engineers' or 'chartered engineers' which is the correct term for those you are now insulting?

Could you supply a reference to your assertion that

if national grid had their way we would have demand and supply at fixed levels,

or did you just make it up? I think you'll find ngc solve problems is a very pragmatic manner, and not by dwelling on the impossible.

It depends on what you mean when you say

...make it sound as though renewables do not work. When in fact they do

If you define 'working' as generating some power sometime, then of course they work, and no one would dispute that. But engineers tend to think of 'working' as meeting requirements, and with that definition, solar and wind work extremely poorly at an extremely high cost, and there are much better alternatives which work much better for a tenth of the cost.

In fact, something you haven't grasped by your inability to deduce the obvious from the fact that solar will contribute zero the period of maximum demand, the alternatives are not really 'alternatives', since they have to exist however many GW of solar capaity is installed.

As to not discussing policy, then where does the idea of solar spring from if not government policy? It is certainly NOT from any engineering solutions to any problems we face! Solar exists due to government renewables policy and nothing more.

---

Just as an addition to my previous post where installing many Pvs across the UK would more or less bakrupt us from the installation costs, I forgot to mention the on-going FIT costs which would run at an inflation linked £6bn pa approx

I think that would put up electricity bills by more than £6!

ronlizpatsimon

Whatever the overall costs to the community is, because some of us are using solar panels; the fact remains that whether you buy panels or rent a roof; you will personally make a profit. Yes, it sounds greedy, but haven't you heard of the term "The survival of the fittest"

zeupater

PeterZ wrote: »

Did every solar pv system across the country experience the same cloud at the same time? With thousands of systems across the country the output will still follow the bell curve regardless of what happens with your particular system.

Hi

I agree that not every system would have experienced cloud cover at the same time, however, if you checked with the Met-Office web site yesterday you would have seen that the cloud cover was not as a result of a front moving over, the clouds just welled up across a good proportion of the country as the air warmed up, just as they seem to be doing at the moment today (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/satpics/latest_uk_vis.html), this will be effecting a good proportion of the thousands of systems you mention, hence flattening the total pv generation for the day and destroying the national bell curve which you believe will be maintained.

Regarding your earlier post "So with 15,000MW of solar it could have provided somewhere around 40% of our daytime electricty needs for today." ..... this assumes that systems which were capable of continuously producing 15000MW during daylight hours did so, mine didn't generate at maximum capacity during all daylight hours yesterday, neither did any other system in the country ..... I hope yours worked perfectly ... do you have a system ?, if so perhaps you could enlighten us on how we can improve our system performance

I believe in solar, have used solar power in various forms for many years. I understand the technology and know what the benefits and weaknesses are, therefore I suggest that you do check your calculations and logic out a little more carefully if you want to be taken seriously.

HTH
Z

PeterZ_2

zeupater wrote: »

Hi


Regarding your earlier post "So with 15,000MW of solar it could have provided somewhere around 40% of our daytime electricty needs for today." .....

therefore I suggest that you do check your calculations and logic out a little more carefully if you want to be taken seriously.

HTH
Z

I suggest that you read people posts a little more carefully before jumping to conclusions if you want to be taken seriously.

Digital toast posted this "If FiTs take off in the way people want them to, and let's say one in every 4 houses has panels"

Jon Tiffany posted this "And anyway, there will never be as much as one house in four having solar. That would give a capacity of around 15,000,000kWp!!!!"

I posted this "So with 15,000MW of solar it could have provided somewhere around 40% of our daytime electricty needs for today."

My point is that digital toasts view that we could have 1 in 4 houses with solar pv is clearly wrong. There is no way in a million years that 40% of our energy is going to come from solar.

PeterZ_2

grahamc2003 wrote: »

As to not discussing policy, then where does the idea of solar spring from if not government policy? I

Some of you claim to be engineers, well in my book I'm afraid not very good ones. The best engineers are those can solve complex problems with innovative solutions, I'm not seeing much of that here.

I've come to the conclusion that is impossible to teach old dogs new tricks, lets hope that the Uk has enough young fresh talent to move the Uk forward. I for one dont want to go backwards, I feel that some of you would like us to go back to open coal fires and horse and cart.

This isn't a balanced discussion, its a lets gang up on anyone who dares to say anything positive about solar.

So my final word on this thread is that regardless of the views of a few vocal minorities on here, the push for renewables will go ahead. It has support from the EU, and all policital parties - even the BNP would you believe support renewable energy. We are committed to our 2020 targets and are well on track to meet those targets.

zeupater

PeterZ wrote: »

I suggest that you read people posts a little more carefully before jumping to conclusions if you want to be taken seriously.

Digital toast posted this "If FiTs take off in the way people want them to, and let's say one in every 4 houses has panels"

Jon Tiffany posted this "And anyway, there will never be as much as one house in four having solar. That would give a capacity of around 15,000,000kWp!!!!"

I posted this "So with 15,000MW of solar it could have provided somewhere around 40% of our daytime electricty needs for today."

My point is that digital toasts view that we could have 1 in 4 houses with solar pv is clearly wrong. There is no way in a million years that 40% of our energy is going to come from solar.

Hi

The error in logic lies within the highlighted text. 15000MW of solar pv capacity would definately not provide 40% of the daytime electricity needs for the day in reference for reasons raised by everyone you seem to be ignoring.

If it was a really good day & every installation reached peak capacity at the same time then whilst peak power is maintained 40% of demand could be satisfied. As soon as generation begins to fall away from peak 40% of demand cannot be satisfied. The day you referenced was not a day on which peak power could be maintained due to both a haze whilst sunny and a build up of clouds. Taking the day in question as an example, and assuming that my generation was typical, over the thirteen daylight hours available less than 1.5 hours were at above 50% of kWp and the maximum was never reached, or putting it another way, only nine hours were above 10%kWp.

As you quite rightly stated ..... "I posted this "So with 15,000MW of solar it could have provided somewhere around 40% of our daytime electricty needs for today."[sic] ... so, as you repeated your own post, you will understand that I do read what was written, it is just your logic which is completely flawed and this is the very point which everyone seems to be attempting to help you understand.

HTH
Z

grahamc2003

PeterZ wrote: »

Some of you claim to be engineers, well in my book I'm afraid not very good ones. The best engineers are those can solve complex problems with innovative solutions, I'm not seeing much of that here.

I've come to the conclusion that is impossible to teach old dogs new tricks, lets hope that the Uk has enough young fresh talent to move the Uk forward. I for one dont want to go backwards, I feel that some of you would like us to go back to open coal fires and horse and cart.

This isn't a balanced discussion, its a lets gang up on anyone who dares to say anything positive about solar.

So my final word on this thread is that regardless of the views of a few vocal minorities on here, the push for renewables will go ahead. It has support from the EU, and all policital parties - even the BNP would you believe support renewable energy. We are committed to our 2020 targets and are well on track to meet those targets.

Of course, you could be wrong (couldn't you? Is that a possibility in your mind?) and we could in fact be quite decent engineers. Maybe you may not be equipped to teach us old dogs much about the physics of solar or how the grid works, but since you think you can, where have you learnt this superior knowledge you think you have? Could it also be that the imbalance is between those who seem to know about solar power and the grid, and those (or one) who doesn't?

Yes, renewables seem to have politial support. You continue to assume that, because of the political support, these things are engineering solutions. Well, several professional engineers on here seem to disagree (independently). I'd say solar is purely a political gesture and is of no consequence whatsoever to solving our electricity generation needs - but you have to have sense of scale to realise that. If that isn't rediculous enough, the subsidies behind it reward the better off at a cost to the poorer off, which I find that reward system socially objectionable.

If you go back and read through your posts, you'll find your arguments for solar are rather generic, and would apply for example, to hamsters running around a wheel generating a few mW, (part of the mix, we need all the generation we can get, oil going up in price etc etc).

digitaltoast

PeterZ wrote: »

So my final word on this thread is that regardless of the views of a few vocal minorities on here, the push for renewables will go ahead. It has support from the EU, and all policital parties - even the BNP would you believe support renewable energy. We are committed to our 2020 targets and are well on track to meet those targets.

Peter, before you go, would you mind helping me persuade the local council to fund my jobs generation scheme?

I've based it on the Feed In Tarrif scheme. All the multipliers are the same so it should make sense.

Everyone lucky(?) enough to live within a 1 mile radius of a McDonalds restaurant will get a voucher for a free lunch of a Big Mac.
While the retail price of a Big Mac is £2.89, in order to incentivize you to make the journey, when collecting your Big Mac you'll actually be paid (3.58x£2.89) = £10.35.
Whether or not the Big Mac is collected, McDonalds will be required to make them. This will generate approximately 250 new jobs as the site will have to greatly expand.
Fantastic news for the economy.

Also, new jobs will be generated throughout the supply chain. Although most new cows will be farmed on newly cleared virgin rainforest in Guatamala and provide nothing extra for the UK economy, 3 new cows have been purchased in Berkshire. Most great jobs news as another farm hand is hired.

As a result of this, we expect to see great improvements in the gastric band and cholesterol pill industry.
In fact, we can see early results already - one of the largest providers of cholesterol pills is funding the building of some new "Super-McDonalds", complete with car park, in return for the £10.35 that the customer would normally get, AND the customer gets to eat the free burger (saving as much as 85p on making it themselves).

All of these marvellous benefits to the economy with the 1 mile radius of these restaurants are made possible simply by a levy of just 25% on all vegetables and healthy eating options on all other people in the town unable to take advantage of the 1 mile radius. We expect this venture to add just £6bn index-linked to the food bills nationwide of those outside the 1 mile radius.

Brilliant, eh? I mean, how can anyone fault such a sensible idea?
So, can I count on your support?

John_Pierpoint

digitaltoast wrote: »

While people are prattling about generating false economies/ponzi schemes based on the most inefficient and unreliable method of generating energy in the UK known to man, they could be spending the £8BILLION or so on research into Thorium reactors, a nuclear technology based on a fuel hundreds of times more abundant and 200x as potent by mass than uranium, yet with a "decayed to safe" life of 200 years, not thousands, and inherently safe being activated by an active beam of protons, all reactions stopping upon removal of beam.

More info on that here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00fvlq9/One_Planet_The_metal_that_may_save_the_world/

Which do YOU think the £8 billion would be better spent on?

That bloke from CERN should be put in the stocks immediately - what ever next?
He more or less said uranium/plutonium reactors were cold war bomb factories that used the cooling water to make electricity.
Thus helping to make the arms race respectable (and allow the democracies to be blackmailed by N.Korea & Libya etc.).

Now is the time to go for Thorium - it won't pollute the world for tens of thousands of years.

I am waiting for the next development in this miracle technology - mind you I have been waiting since I was a 10 year old for the miracle of fusion power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZETA_%28fusion_reactor%29

The_Governor

I got knocked back by Isis for having a South East facing roof, surely the solar panel tech can cope with that...?