Solar Panel Guide Discussion

gramm7168

Back in November I had Solar Pv panels fitted 3.5Kw.

The question I would like to ask is I have noticed my energy meter actually goes backwards when I am not using the energy produced, by this I mean the numbers go back. Is this normal and how do the energy providers view this? What happens if the meter reading goes back further than a previous meter reading?

Martyn1981

gramm7168 wrote: »

Back in November I had Solar Pv panels fitted 3.5Kw.

The question I would like to ask is I have noticed my energy meter actually goes backwards when I am not using the energy produced, by this I mean the numbers go back. Is this normal and how do the energy providers view this? What happens if the meter reading goes back further than a previous meter reading?

Hello gramm, sadly the fun can't go on for ever, you will have to get this issue sorted.

Check out this thread, post #1 section 4

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3872445

best of luck.

Mart.

LittleVermin

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hiya LV, all terms mean different things to different people.....

Hi Mart,

.... that route leads to Babel! Though unfortunately it's often true (I've written chunks of 2 scientific dictionaries).

Martyn1981 wrote: »

.... I'd think carbon investment makes sense if the PV generation replaces carbon producing generation. So the 5 years expenditure of CO2 is an investment (I've heard similar figures, around 2 years for the panels, and another 2 years for all of the other bits and bobs) if the earnings exceed 5 years...

So there is still a carbon cost to the planet. But thanks for the extra info.

I think 'carbon investment' is best left to the financiers! Which is roughly what a Google search shows.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Gonna need to do some checking, but I'm not sure about the rare earths reference. These materials are used for high quality magnets in wind turbine production, and also for top quality batteries, but I'm not clear if any are used in PV production.

Apologies, you're right, so a little vermin is tucking into a large humble pie!

Martyn1981 wrote: »

As to the silicon and aluminium, both are extremely abundant, however I appreciate that smelting aluminium is a horrifically energy intensive process. Can I be a little cheeky and point out that the Icelanders produce a lot using geo-thermally sourced electricity.

Abundant indeed, but both silica (silicon dioxide) and alumina (I won't attempt the formula but it's a mixtures of oxides and hydroxides) take a lot of energy to process. Not cheeky at all to point out the use of geothermally generated electricity for aluminium smelting - or hydropower (or even nuclear ... e.g. in Anglesey. I presume they got a good deal as it provided a continuous requirement)

Martyn1981 wrote: »

In fact it's fair to say that the more renewable energy we produce, the less CO2 that will be consumed in the production of the renewable technology, that is used to produce more ..... well, you can see where that's going.

Indeed.

And the sooner significant tidal and (to a lesser extent) wave devices come on stream the better!

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Lastly, I'm not clear what you mean by 'on-going cost'?

Most things we do have a cost in carbon - even filling in forms on-line.

Graham's wood-burning is a one-time event.

And using trees felled for other reasons, dead wood, wood from skips, etc is great. Chopping down living oaks for firewood is ecological vandalism (rather more than just removing a 'nice green asset to the landscape'). Maybe people shouldn't be allowed to buy a wood-burner unless they have already planted a crop of fast-growing timber (e.g. willow)?

Cheers,
LV
..

Martyn1981

Thanks LV, very interesting. In fact for the last few years I've found all things renewable extremely fascinating.

Can't really explain why, I think maybe I just find it exciting to hear about new technology and advances/changes. The world is changing fast and we are lucky to have a ringside seat to watch as new idea after new idea, plus tweaks, and changes etc come along. Nothing wrong with good old tech, but it's getting a little boring, as well as a little 'dirty'.

Tidal power, oh yes please. Living in Cardiff, and having spent many weekends at the beach at Lavernock, I'd love to see the Severn Barrage commissioned during my lifetime.

So much to see, more fun to jump on board and enjoy the ride, than to stand aside and be scared of change. 2020 here we come!

Mart.

LittleVermin

Martyn1981 wrote: »

<snip>

Tidal power, oh yes please. Living in Cardiff, and having spent many weekends at the beach at Lavernock, I'd love to see the Severn Barrage commissioned during my lifetime.

<snip>
Mart.

Severn Barrage - oh, NO thank you! The construction industry was just salivating a couple of years back when the Severn Barrage came back up the agenda. All that lovely concrete!

But also all those mucked up habitats, etc, etc. There were some smarter suggestions for split tidal 'ponds'. But why not just use tidal currents? Lunar power. Predictable. By having several generators in different places the output is evened out, though birds' feet will still get warmed during transmission.

There are several pilots in operation. And a large socket offshore near St Ives: this "Wave Hub" has nothing plugged into it yet.

(Apologies for the title of this post - couldn't resist it!).

..

Steell

Think Green Earth are no longer advertising Solar Panels on their website and I've had a refund via my credit card company at last

grahamc2003

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Grid electricity is pretty high carbon at the moment; it is partly the CO2 needed to produce the electricity but more to the point the horrendous inefficiencies in the system - only about 1/3rd of the input energy emerges at your plug.

The rest goes up the cooling tower or down the river and to heat the toes of the birds on the wire.

No one pretends that our grid is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that our grid is the worst form of electricity distribution except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time (with apologies to Winston).

Having said that, I often wonder why green organisations seem to simply ignore the massive energy waste in cooling towers while at the same time urging us to turn off our TV standby - but I'm afraid it's quite typical for such organisations to miss the substantive and concentrate on the insignificant.

LittleVermin

grahamc2003 wrote: »

No one pretends that our grid is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that our grid is the worst form of electricity distribution except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time <snip>

Our grid is optimised for relatively few large generators, I believe? How would you retrofit for many small diverse generators? Or what would a brand-new system optimised for these look like, please? [I believe I am asking the right person!]

grahamc2003 wrote: »

<snip>

Having said that, I often wonder why green organisations seem to simply ignore the massive energy waste in cooling towers while at the same time urging us to turn off our TV standby - but I'm afraid it's quite typical for such organisations to miss the substantive and concentrate on the insignificant.

A little unfair to (for example) Friends of the Earth which has been arguing for Combined Heat & Power for over 30 years, I believe!

grahamc2003

LittleVermin wrote: »

Our grid is optimised for relatively few large generators, I believe? How would you retrofit for many small diverse generators? Or what would a brand-new system optimised for these look like, please? [I believe I am asking the right person!]




A little unfair to (for example) Friends of the Earth which has been arguing for Combined Heat & Power for over 30 years, I believe!

I'd say the grid is optimised to provide the cheapest electricity to the quality standards set by the government (i.e. as to availability, frequency and voltage deviation etc etc). It just so happens that the optimum design results in a few large stations distributed around a grid (a design copied by most developed countries these days), inspite of the distribution losses incurred.

As to retrofitting small generating plant - well that's been happening for a few years now (with the resulting increase in costs!). Small gas turbine statioins are springing up, mainly incentivised by the government belatedly concerned with the 'energy gap' as some large Nuclear and coal stations bite the dust, some at the end of their design lives, and some due to green pressures - small gas seems affordable (and profitable) for companies, whereas these days, the cost and financial and political risk associated with Nuclear stations makes them uninvestable by private companies in the UK, imo (and two planned by private industry have recently been canned). There's also grid expansion to cater for offshore windfarms - massively expensive of course for the electricity supplied (partly by being outside the footprint of the existing grid).

I'm not clear at all about how lots of small generating plant replacing the few large plant would affect the grid design. I expect the aim is to minimise transmission losses by shifting the power over smaller distances on average(?). Implicit in that is that the smaller generation is schedulable (i.e. it can be instructed) - if not, then power has in any case to be shifted from the nearest spare schedulable capacity when the unreliable capacity isn't generating yet demand is high. It all looks to me that you are more or less back to square one, with electricity potentially been transmitted over a long distance if the smaller generation is wind or solar or any other unschedualble generation. To cut transmission losses, there needs to be more reliable capacity in the South East, to cut down the major North to South electricity flows. It doesn't matter, as far as I can see, whether that capacity comes from a few large plant, or many smaller plant.

Martyn1981

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Having said that, I often wonder why green organisations seem to simply ignore the massive energy waste in cooling towers while at the same time urging us to turn off our TV standby - but I'm afraid it's quite typical for such organisations to miss the substantive and concentrate on the insignificant.

You do realise that your statement is the complete opposite of actual energy awareness campaigning, demanded changes to energy plants, research and technical advancements and government programmes?

'such organisations' have been pointing out the big issues (as well as the little issues (though millions of standby's, or low energy bulbs etc are hardly insignificant!)) for decades.

Just because most people are deaf to reason, doesn't mean that voices haven't been raised!

Mart.