Live Q&A with Energy Saving Trust - how to save money & energy! 2pm-3pm today 25 Oct!

zeupater

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative wrote: »

You are at the edge of my knowledge since world trends in PV installation is not part of my daily role. However, 23kW is a huge domestic array! That would be 130 200Watt panels covering 153 m2! (An average UK south facing pitch of a roof would be about 40m2) Most domestic arrays are up to 4kW and average electrical usage can be accounted against the annual harvest from around a 3kW array. I suspect this German average has been dragged up by some large solar farm and industrial installation.

I did used to read Renewable Energy Focus and Renewable Energy world, but prefer Homepower, Renewable Energy Installer and Green Building these days.

My point though is that standard panels are cheaper than roof tiles systems! Maybe I should have just left it at that and not speculated a reason for this.

Steven (Head of LCT)

Hi Steven

Thanks for the reply.

You are correct, some of the largest pv farms are in Germany, but if you travel around the country you will see numerous very large arrays mounted on large buildings and these would also have a large combined effect on the average installation size. As you rightly mention, information should be based more on data and fact than speculation and I am sure that, having realised this, future posts will take this into consideration.

Leaving solar pv aside, a member recently requested advice on the energy efficiency of televisions (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2793012), however, the EST website only seems to categorise the power consumed whilst in standby mode as being applicable. Is there anything which can be done to improve/address this in order to provide better information to consumers to help with the selection process ?

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative

A live Q&A about renewables with an Energy Saving Trust expert is taking placing now on our Facebook page. Why not take part by asking a question?

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Ene...st/25919404073

Equaliser123

Equaliser123 wrote: »

Generally, how portable are solar PV systems? My concern is that if, for whatever reason, we moved house and the new owner was not particularly bothered about the system, could we take them with us (physically) and transfer the FIT to a new property?

Appreciate that there will be uninstall and reinstall costs but, theoretically, is it possible?

Can anyone help?

K4blades

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative wrote: »

You are correct about the difficulty in getting advice, but this is because there is not much experience out there yet from any profession. As an Architect in 2005 I fitted a wind turbine to a building because an Engineer said it would generate the project 4000kWhrs a year. It didn't generate a single kWhr in 18months. We took it down! It's all down to experience whatever profession or trade you are from. What I learnt from this experience was, if you need to generate electricty and you have access to sunlight, PV always just gets on and works.
(Wind can work very well too, but only in the correct location - see our 2009 report named, location location location.)

Steven Harris (Head of LCT)

I couldn't agree more.

grahamc2003

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative wrote: »

Hi Grahamc2003

For the record, I (Head of LCT) didn't answer the 13A question. I would normally speak in terms of annual harvest rather than instantaneous power. (845 kWhrs per kWpeak etc.). I will have a look back at this one.

The point is with PV is that it is perfectly possible to generate all your annual electrical demands from your roof as long as your needs are no more than average and you have a roof with normal access to sunlight.

Hi Steve, thanks for replying.

I'm not sure that's correct is it? If we plug in some numbers (sourced from DECC reports), the average household consumption is 4.8MWh pa. Using your conversion above the capacity of solar panels necessary for that energy is 5.68kw. With today's technology, many (I'd say the vast majority) don't have a suitable sized or orientated roof for even the currently popular 3.something kw systems.

If we take it a step further and, just for a bit of fun, see how much it would cost to generate all households energy requirements via PV (if it were indeed possible), we'd need systems capable of producing 1.22TWh pa ( = 1220000000kwh pa). At a current cost of about £5000/kw capacity installed, which using your assumption again, is about £6/kwh generated pa, the panel and installation cost would be around £7,000,000,000.

Of course, even if we generated all the household electricity from pvs on everyone's roof, then that is still a very long way from meeting the homes' requirements, since the above isn't considering power matching (i.e. matching the generated power to the homes demanded power - in fact, the two are pretty well perfectly mismatched.

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative wrote: »

At the moment PV needs support. Some would argue this is because the price of fossil energy is artificially low because it is subsidised from other indirect sources, let alone the unrealised cost it will have according to the Stern report.)

The Stern report was written taking the assumptions and scenarios from various IPCC documents. In the intervening period, the methods and accuracy of those source documents, together with the reseach from which they were produced, have come under pretty damning criticism due to various factors, so relying on the Stern report these days is misplaced in my view.

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative wrote: »

With the coming of SMART appliances, power storage and dynamic tarrif, which is on its way, PV might become even more attractive.)

I'm not aware of any significant power storage technologies, on a grid scale, in the pipeline. Could you expand on this? Certainly demand management and dynamic tariffs are on their way - but they are several years away yet, and even then it will take a few years to build up sufficient capacity under demand management to make any meaningful difference to anything.

The attraction of PV to those currently installing is the fit - a subsidy - and not anything inherently attractive or even desirable at the current costs. Anything at all can be made superficially and artificially attractive in the same way. The more attractive to those with the fit, the less attractive to those who pay it.

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative wrote: »

You are correct about the difficulty in getting advice, but this is because there is not much experience out there yet from any profession. As an Architect in 2005 I fitted a wind turbine to a building because an Engineer said it would generate the project 4000kWhrs a year. It didn't generate a single kWhr in 18months. We took it down! It's all down to experience whatever profession or trade you are from.

I'd like to see the engineer's advice. He probably just number crunched from data he was obliged to work to, and surely must have qualified his opinion in some way (i.e. 'these figures rely on the source data, and if the source data is substantially incorrect, then the results will be unreliable' or suchlike). The government approved database for windspeeds at certain locations was, after a few years, realised to be totally inappropriate. Nevertheless, the engineer should have satisfied himself that the turbine would not be situated in turbulent airflow (in which case, a zero output is to be expected, with conventional turbines). (btw, if you think I am saying this in retrospect, I can assure you I have been posting similar statements on various websites for several years).

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative wrote: »

(Wind can work very well too, but only in the correct location - see our 2009 report named, location location location.)

Steven Harris (Head of LCT)

I'm not sure I've read your report yet, but in anycase, I would challenge your view that wind works 'very well'. Off grid, yes it can, but when connected to the grid, as a standard windfarm is, I'd say it suffers major problems in terms of measures necessary to maintain grid stability (or it will do when the amount of grid connected wind becomes non-trivial, or above noise level). More wind requires higher reserve capacity (to correct for real-time frequency deviations) from conventional power stations, and in effect, this means those stations have to work away from their most efficient, and that in itelf means increased costs and increased emissions from those conventional stations. I have yet to see these costs and emissions netted off the wind generation in any report.

John_Pierpoint

Mixed_Spice wrote: »

Have the details of the Feed in Tariffs been anounced yet? and do you have a list of companies offering debt based and non-debt based renewable energy schemes?

Do you mean Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI)?

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/uk_supply/energy_mix/renewable/policy/renewable_heat/incentive/incentive.aspx

FiT is 41.3 pence per unit generated, plus 3 pence for exported units (1000 watts for a hour); for a typical domestic installation. Think of the national grid as a giant battery where you get 44.5 pence for putting a unit in and pay something like 10 - 15 pence for taking it out again (except in the early hours of the morning?).

John.

PS There is some muddled thinking mixing "carbon" & "sustainability". Our government is signed up to both concepts.
They are two different concepts though "carbon" (ie global climate change) is a subset of "sustainability".

To make the UK "sustainable" would involve culling half the population IMHO.

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative

Our live Q&A about energy saving products is happening now on our Facebook page. So, if you've ever been confused about how to know whether an appliance or electrical product you want to buy is energy efficient or not, then this is your chance. It finishes at 3pm, so hurry if you want to ask a question.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Energy-Saving-Trust/25919404073

We will try and provide answers to some of the addition questions raised by you on this thread in due course.

Thanks,

Matt

zeupater

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative wrote: »

Our live Q&A about energy saving products is happening now on our Facebook page. So, if you've ever been confused about how to know whether an appliance or electrical product you want to buy is energy efficient or not, then this is your chance. It finishes at 3pm, so hurry if you want to ask a question.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Energy-Saving-Trust/25919404073

We will try and provide answers to some of the addition questions raised by you on this thread in due course.

Thanks,

Matt

Hi Matt

Have you never heard the phrase "Failing to plan is planning to fail" ? ..... I take it that the 'live Q&A' was either a last minute (spur-of-the-moment) idea, or someone forgot to include sending out the invitations in the plan.

Do you have a timetable for future Q&A sessions ? .... can we have it published on this thread please ??

Regards

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative

zeupater wrote: »

Hi Matt

Have you never heard the phrase "Failing to plan is planning to fail" ? ..... I take it that the 'live Q&A' was either a last minute (spur-of-the-moment) idea, or someone forgot to include sending out the invitations in the plan.

Do you have a timetable for future Q&A sessions ? .... can we have it published on this thread please ??

Regards

Hi,

we've been running Q&A's everyday this week - and these have been advertised on this thread and our website. However, we were late in sending out a reminder yesterday.

The Q&A today (2pm to 3pm) is on transport - and ways of cutting your fuel costs. Would be good if you and others were able to join in - and perhaps even post a question.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Energy-Saving-Trust/25919404073

Thanks,

Matt

zeupater

Energy_Saving_Trust_company_representative wrote: »

Hi,

we've been running Q&A's everyday this week - and these have been advertised on this thread and our website. However, we were late in sending out a reminder yesterday.

The Q&A today (2pm to 3pm) is on transport - and ways of cutting your fuel costs. Would be good if you and others were able to join in - and perhaps even post a question.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Energy-Saving-Trust/25919404073

Thanks,

Matt

Hi Matt

Please ........ the first mentioned a single Q&A session on renewables later on the 27th, the second was a reminder for that session when it was half way through and the third (yesterday) was a 'reminder' for an event which hadn't even been mentioned on the thread which was again sent half way through the session, with today's also being 'out-of-the-blue', therefore missed again .......

For events such as these remember ... pppppp !!!

Regards