Free solar panel discussion

Poosmate

magyar wrote: »

Capacity, no - but that's fairly meaningless. They will reduce the requirement to use that capacity though, overall.

It's like owning two cars: your overall mileage might be the same but you'll use one of the cars less.

I think the same. As I said in another post, habits will change where "free" electric can be used during the day. I often come home from work and shove my clothes into the washing machine. If I had solar panels I'd get into the habit of doing the washing at the weekend or on sunny days off during the day to reduce the electric bill. This in turn means I'm not drawing off the grid at peak times. I've already read on these forums (I think it was the other thread on Green & Ethical Moneysaving) that people will be cooking their evening meals and washing during the day to make the most use of their "free" electricity.

I know it's only a drop in the ocean but as the guy at Tesco says, "every little helps". The more people with alternative energy the more habits will change.

Otherwise, ok we won't do anything and melt the grid in a few years time and have blackouts.

Something has got to be done and solar energy is a start.

LOL! I just read that back and I don't mean people will be cooking their washing! But people have stated that they'd cook during the day and freeze their meals for later in the week or reheat them in the microwave later.

Nang

Cardew wrote: »

Andy..

If you click 'quote' when replying you can comment on any points as I have done above in Red.

In Sheffield I doubt if you will ever reach the maximum output. I wondered if you had actually recorded the kW figures.

Sorry not sure what you mean by Max output. Max output is 3.81 KW, this is because the inverter cannot convert all the energy from the cells to electricity as it is only 96% efficient.

But it does easily produce this 3.81kw if its sunny between 11:30 and 2:30 at this time of the year.

We are all supposed to get 'smart meters' over the next few years - certainly by 2020 - and they will have the ability to give a more accurate figure of what you export and what you use.

Yes I spoke to my power company about this and they said that it would not be happening very soon as they havent even tested anything.

The probability with a large system like yours is that you will be exporting more than 50% of generated electricity. Even with small 1kWp to 1.5kWp systems people with export meters fitted reports only using 40% to 50% in the house.[/QUOTE]

On a sunny day we use washing machine, dishwasher, hoovering even do some ironing. You be amazed at how little 3.81 KW actually is when you start switching stuff on. The House seems to use 400W even when you dont switch anything else on I assume fridges etc.

But you are right we will export quite alot on those sunny days when we are at work, but its nice to contribute some green energy to help run all those thirsty office A/C units.

Cardew

magyar wrote: »

Capacity, no - but that's fairly meaningless. They will reduce the requirement to use that capacity though, overall.

It's like owning two cars: your overall mileage might be the same but you'll use one of the cars less.

OK! so you appear now to be in agreement with me!!!


This is what was posted and I disputed:

(solar will mean)they will not have to provide new capacity at vast expense,

Your analogy about two cars demonstrates exactly the point I was making. i.e. if you still need to have two cars(the capacity) for some occasions, you have the capital expense of providing two cars.

So why is generating capacity 'fairly meaningless' - power stations ain't cheap to build, even if they are under-utilized during the day

So solar will not reduce the requirement for providing generating capacity(at great expense!!!) to cope with peak load - cos when it is needed for those times of peak load, it ain't available!!! QED

Jon_Tiffany

Couple of points to hopefuly help further explain the issue of generation capacity.

Firstly, Cardew is correct in that solar PV will not allow us to reduce our existing generation capacity. Howver, capacity is very different from useage. The demand for electricity varies greatly throughout the day and over the year. We need enough capacity to meet the demand for a cold winters day. That doesn't mean that at 2am in the summer we are making use of that capacity. The National Grid has the difficult task of matching generation to demand - an ever moving target. They do this adjusting the output from the power stations, my understanding is that quite often they use gas fired stations to help meet the peak demand.

Overall, solar PV will reduce the CO2 emmissions of the UK. Dont forget that solar is only part of the mix, wind turbines will contribute a fair bit on those cold winter days, just like solar PV will help the demand from air conditioned offices on the hot summer days.

albo1960

Fantastic posts on this forum explaining what is clearly a complicated new system and process - as a newbie I really appreciate the time everyone has taken

I am considering installing my own system (ie not taking advantage of the "free" offer) but I have seen precious few mentions/recommendations of reliable companies to use. (I recall British Eco getting a good mention by someone.) Furthermore, this is clearly a massive growth area (evidence = Tescos getting involved!) so there must be an element of market competition going on - some of those posting have mentioned the high profit margins for the installers - is there any evidence of companies offering competitive pricing for systems?

Can anyone recommend any good, reliable, value for money companies operationg in North London that it would be worth me approaching for an initial discussion?

Thanks in advance

Albo

magyar

Cardew wrote: »

OK! so you appear now to be in agreement with me!!!


This is what was posted and I disputed:



Your analogy about two cars demonstrates exactly the point I was making. i.e. if you still need to have two cars(the capacity) for some occasions, you have the capital expense of providing two cars.

So why is generating capacity 'fairly meaningless' - power stations ain't cheap to build, even if they are under-utilized during the day

So solar will not reduce the requirement for providing generating capacity(at great expense!!!) to cope with peak load - cos when it is needed for those times of peak load, it ain't available!!! QED

I know what you're saying. I didn't make my point very well.

What I meant was that because all power stations operate at a lower than 100% capacity they already have the potential to ramp up when it's not sunny (or windy or wavy, depending on what technology you're talking about).

Off the top of my head the UK peak load is about 80% of the total generating capacity already. I can't imagine anyone thinks that solar will make up more than 1-2% of this, so there's no real problem with the existing plant coping with additional load.

Nang

albo1960 wrote: »

Fantastic posts on this forum explaining what is clearly a complicated new system and process - as a newbie I really appreciate the time everyone has taken

I am considering installing my own system (ie not taking advantage of the "free" offer) but I have seen precious few mentions/recommendations of reliable companies to use. (I recall British Eco getting a good mention by someone.) Furthermore, this is clearly a massive growth area (evidence = Tescos getting involved!) so there must be an element of market competition going on - some of those posting have mentioned the high profit margins for the installers - is there any evidence of companies offering competitive pricing for systems?

Can anyone recommend any good, reliable, value for money companies operationg in North London that it would be worth me approaching for an initial discussion?

Thanks in advance

Albo

Hi Albo

We used a company called Ploughcroft Solar find the link on my website above. They were a very professional no nonsense roofing company. I would definitely recommend. They did good quality work with long independant guarentees. One thing to note is that Inverters are like rocking horse poo at the moment with waits of up to 3 months. Ploughcroft managed to get one within a couple of weeks of the specific type I requested.

Good luck with your installation. But would recommend to anyone who can afford a venture like this that they wait till I have road tested mine for a year, so they can review the income data.

Andy..

Cardew

magyar wrote: »

I know what you're saying. I didn't make my point very well.

What I meant was that because all power stations operate at a lower than 100% capacity they already have the potential to ramp up when it's not sunny (or windy or wavy, depending on what technology you're talking about).

Off the top of my head the UK peak load is about 80% of the total generating capacity already. I can't imagine anyone thinks that solar will make up more than 1-2% of this, so there's no real problem with the existing plant coping with additional load.

The 80% is agreed, however as stated(at length!!!;)) above solar makes zero contribution at 'peak load'.

The current(sorry!!) debate about building Nuclear power stations in UK is based on a Government forecast that there will a shortfall of around 15GW by 2015. - mainly due to present Nuclear stations reaching the end of their shelf life. Peak load in UK is around 60GW.

It is also not appreciated that the National Grid has transmission 'bottlenecks' and it is simply not possible transfer electricity freely about the Grid. For instance if it is blowing a gale in Scotland and their generating capacity (from all sources - wind, hydro, gas/coal etc) is in excess of Scotland's requirement, they still cannot export more than about 2GW(about 3% of UK peak load) to the rest of UK as the transmission network cannot cope.

Similarly the interconnector to France has limitations.

This is 'required reading'

http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/Statistics/publications/dukes/311-dukes-2010-ch5.pdf

Don't like the new format - it was far better in years gone by.

Perry525

Cardew wrote: »

Perhaps I haven't made myself clear.

The generating capacity from all UK sources(and interconnector) has to cope with periods of maximum load in UK.

There is a National Grid website that displays the total load in UK at 30 minute intervals:

http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Data/Demand+Data/

The peak demand for UK is on winter evenings when we are not producing any electricity from solar panels.(i.e. to use your terminology the generating capacity of the panels is zero(0.0%)

So it doesn't matter how much electricity the UK's solar panels produce during the day - even in winter they will produce a little - as they contribute nothing at periods of peak demand.

Therefore to cope with that peak demand, we must have sufficient generating capacity without considering solar electricity. So our xxx million solar panels do not help in any way to reduce our generating capacity.

================================
The EU have directed that over 4 million smart meters be installed.
The idea is that by pricing electricity higher at times of maximum demand, maximum demand will drop.
Lower demand means, fewer new power stations. and
That means less pollution and less installation cost, less demand on the National Grid.
We will then follow the example of America where in return for people agreeing to let their power supplier turn off the freezer and other equipment they will received lower bills.
Most industry and offices are closed down before peak evening demand and more will be encouraged to do so by power companies charging them more for consumption at peak times.

M4ximillion

Sorry to interrupt all this technical stuff, most of which I don't understand, but has anyone reading this thread actually had an install from Homesun or isis - just wanted to find out what the experience was like with either of those cause there are people whove posted on this thread and the other free solar panel thread who've already got ASG systems, but up to now I can't find anyone who's had dealings with the others. Also, has anyone seen their contract? I know isis is for free so is probalby like ASG but I just wanted to konw if with the Homesun one you just pay the £500 or does it depend on your roof? I also want to know how much it costs if I want to buy homesun out, say a few years down the line. I have emailed both companies but not got any response yet so thought I'd ask here because i want to apply and only got a response from ASG up to now.