Solar Panel Guide Discussion

Blossom2528

digitaltoast wrote: »

He's either got a point or he hasn't.
And if he hasn't, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to easily rebut it, won't you?

Can I have a go? He compares PV costs to wind and hydro at 4.5p. Isn't taht the price it's bought at not the actual subsidised cost.
CO2 savings are based only on the scheme itself so he totally ignores the future benefits from getting a new energy source that no longer needs subsidising hopefully. It's an investment in the future.
He says Germany is abandoning their PV but hasn't installs gone up massively since his article.
He says the money should have gone into insulation, but the leccy and gas companies can't get anyone to take it. So who's fault is that.
He suggests loads of fraud from wiring TGM up to the mains. Did he really think it wouldn't be possible to compare generation. How long has PVGIS been around.
What about the other gains, education, awareness etc, why no mention.
Not a very good article - how am I doing so far?

Graham, you've never seen anyone say poor to wealthy? Don't you read any of C's posts? Monbiot said, Monbiot said, Monbiot said .....

Blossom2528

digitaltoast wrote: »

Because in 50 years time, after £billions spent, at 5pm solar PV will STILL be contributing a big fat zero at the evening peak. Given that wind is unreliable, we'll never have enough tidal and pumped storage is unviable in the quantities required, then we'll either be getting our reliable base load from fossils or nuclear.

You really just don't seem to understand the basics of the national grid system.

Ouch!
What is this obsession with judging PV against winter peaks. Move on. So we have loads of nuclear for the day, then loads of nuclear at night that we have to get rid off so we almost give it away as E7 subsidised by those that buy it during the day. It's all subsidies, but if PV can reduce daytime demand and help to reduce gas consumption then great.
Will thorium work? Is it ok to gamble money on that, but not on PV which is getting there fast. Forget 50 years, what if someone installs PV without subsidies in 5 or 10 years, and helps reduce demand, will you still be arguing that it doesn't work? Won't the price of your diesel drop if people buy less of it. Win win.

Cardew

Martyn1981 wrote: »

It's contained in the article that Cardew has posted in support of your arguments on dozens of occassions. And a point he made great play off until a few months ago, when it was soundly ridiculed.

"Those who hate environmentalism have spent years looking for the definitive example of a great green rip-off. Finally it arrives and no one notices. The government is about to shift £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes. It expects a loss on this scheme of £8.2bn, or 95%(1). Yet the media is silent. The opposition urges only that the scam should be expanded."


http://www.monbiot.com/2010/03/01/a-great-green-rip-off/

I'm glad to see that you are also surprised that anyone could ever think it to be true.

Mart.

Semantics rule!

You reallly are clutching at straws to imply Monbiot has retracted anything on the stupidity of FIT scheme. It was perfectly clear what he meant by 'poor to rich' but of course he should have said '99% of electricity consumers - including the poor - are subsidising the rich'

Martyn 1981

As I said before, there are no real alternatives to renewables.

Of relevance to the above opinion??

One of his latest articles - bear in mind his reputation as an enviromentalist - is interesting:

http://www.monbiot.com/2012/07/02/false-summit/

July
2, 2012


We
were wrong about peak oil: there’s enough in the ground to deep-fry the
planet.


By
George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 3rd July 2012





The
facts have changed, now we must change too. For the past ten years an unlikely
coalition of geologists, oil drillers, bankers, military strategists and
environmentalists has been warning that peak oil – the decline of global
supplies – is just around the corner. We had some strong reasons for doing so:
production had slowed, the price had risen sharply, depletion was widespread and
appeared to be escalating. The first of the great resource crunches seemed about
to strike.





Some
of us made vague predictions, others were more specific. In all cases we were
wrong.





Peak
oil hasn’t happened, and it’s unlikely to happen for a very long time. A report
by the oil executive Leonardo Maugeri, published by Harvard University, provides
compelling evidence that a new oil boom has begun(9). The constraints on oil
supply over the past ten years appear to have had more to do with money than
geology. The low prices before 2003 had discouraged investors from developing
difficult fields. The high prices of the past few years have changed
that.


Maugeri’s
analysis of projects in 23 countries suggests that global oil supplies are
likely to rise by a net 17m barrels per day (to 110m) by 2020. This, he says, is
“the largest potential addition to the world’s oil supply capacity since the
1980s.” The investments required to make this boom happen depend on a long-term
price of $70 a barrel. The current cost of Brent crude is $95(10). Money is now
flooding into new oil: a trillion dollars was spent over the past two years, a
record $600bn is lined up for 2012(11).

Or this by Dominic Lawson

ttp://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-good-riddance-to-the-great-solar-scam-6262348.html

Dominic
Lawson: Good riddance to the great solar scam





Britain's
plunge into this grotesque subsidy has come at a time when other countries have
pulled back









For
pointing out that nuclear power would be more than 50 times more efficient than
domestic solar panels in reducing CO2 emissions, Monbiot was subjected to what
he described as "a level of viciousness displayed on comment threads... [that]
has to be seen to be believed." I believe you without seeing them, George: I've
read some of the stuff that gets appended to this column from on-line readers
confronted with an unwelcome fact.





The
oddest aspect of the British plunge into grotesque subsidy for solar panels was
that both Germany and Spain had only recently pulled back after they discovered
just how much such schemes misdirected public funds. The Germans had sunk more
than €35bn into solar PV at a similar rate of subsidy to ours, which, after 10
years, managed to supply little more than half of one per cent of the country's
electricity: the International Energy Agency estimated it had cost German
taxpayers €1,000 to "save" each tonne of CO2.


Germans
who owned their own house – and therefore the roof on top – were the grateful
recipients of much of this subsidy (along with the companies supplying the
panels), notably at the expense of taxpayers without such property assets;
exactly the same perverse outcome is taking place here. Even in Spain, where the
weather is much more propitious than in northern Europe, the government had
retreated, after a solar gold-rush ended with thousands of poorly designed solar
plants stretching across empty plateaus, and in the words of a New York Times
report: "Spanish officials came to realise that they would have to subsidise
many of them indefinitely, and that the industry they had created might never
produce efficient green
energy."

I don't think anyone has criticised people for taking advantage of the 'grotesque subsidy' that is FIT.
However it is downright disingenuous - or misguided - for people to attempt to justify their panels as their contribution to saving the world.

grahamc2003

Blossom2528 wrote: »

Ouch!
What is this obsession with judging PV against winter peaks. Move on. So we have loads of nuclear for the day, then loads of nuclear at night that we have to get rid off so we almost give it away as E7 subsidised by those that buy it during the day. It's all subsidies, but if PV can reduce daytime demand and help to reduce gas consumption then great.
Will thorium work? Is it ok to gamble money on that, but not on PV which is getting there fast. Forget 50 years, what if someone installs PV without subsidies in 5 or 10 years, and helps reduce demand, will you still be arguing that it doesn't work? Won't the price of your diesel drop if people buy less of it. Win win.

There is no obsession with peak demand. It's a rational concern on which all the uk grid sytem is based. It determines how much capacity is installed, and that determines how much we value the reliability of the grid as a whole. DT and myself come from the industry, so know how the grid works and how we have a secure and inexpensive grid.

In engineering terms, any un schedulable generation is worth nothing. Grid engineers have to balance supply and demand to the instant (not second or minute). The system is designed to do that itself in the instantaneous timescale (the momentum of the gensets absorbs and releases power for instantaneous mismatches (that's the mains frequency changes you see). Within a second or two timeframe, there are automatic responses to those frequency changes. To enable this frequency response, stations have to store more steam in their boilers, and that really costs a lot of money. (Whenever ANY uncontrollable generation is connected to the grid, the amount of this primary reserve for frequency response has to rise for the same system security. Just connecting windmills and solar makes the grid less efficient (whether or not that variable generation ever generates or not). So intermittent generation has an immediate cost (in terms of cash, fossil fuel and emissions - and the more connected, the more of those costs).

In the minute timescales, grid engineers can instruct stations on secondary standby to generate - having these stations ready to supply secondary reserve when instructed ovbiously costs money, fossil fuel and emissions, whether or not they are actually instructed to supply power during their secondary reserve duty periods. The more intermittent generation connected, the more secondary reserve you need for the same system security.

In the half hour timescale, quick starting gensets (gas turbines) can be scheduled.

The point aboutthe annual peak is that any intermittent generation can't be taken into account when deciding on the capacity required to reliably meet the peak. If the peak is forecast over the next few years is say 60GW, and statistics indicate for the system security required, an 8% contingency is required, then we have to ensure we have 65GW of reliable capacity. If we have 1GW of wind/solar and any other intermittant capacity, then we still need 65GW, and likelwise if we have 2GW or 20GW of wind/solar. If the wind blows at the peak, then simply some conventional capacity isn't used - hence the redundancy. What this means is that no matter how many billions is spent on wind/solar, you still have to spend further billions on reliable generation, and this renders the billions spent on wind/solar as wasted really. Remember, this is a capital intensive industry, where building capacity in the major cost rather than the marginal cost of operation - and under those circumstances, duplication/redundancy of this type is very expensive indeed.

It is never a question of wind/solar or (eg) Nuclear. If you have wind/solar you still need Nuclear, and if you have Nuclear, there's no requirement for wind/solar.

We are currently on a very expensive path, even just paying for the tiny amount of new intermittent generation. When the time comes to build Nuclear stations to replace those being decommissioned (of which there is no choice but to do that), then we'll really see our bills rocket, and then the wasted billions spent on wind and solar which don't satisfy any of the engineering requirements of our grid will be more generally appreciated even by those outside the industry.

Blossom2528

grahamc2003 wrote: »

There is no obsession with peak demand. It's a rational concern on which all the uk grid sytem is based. It determines how much capacity is installed, and that determines how much we value the reliability of the grid as a whole. DT and myself come from the industry, so know how the grid works and how we have a secure and inexpensive grid.

Thanks G. But the Grid don't seem half as obsessed with anti renewable subsidy propaganda as you do. They seem happier with a mix of everything, rather than loads of massively expensive subsidised nuclear, that would lead to the sort of bills that you keep trying to scare people over with renewables. Why is it so clear to you, but not to all the other nations of the world! Maybe you could send them an e-mail and let em know they got it all wrong. Silly Germans shutting down their nuclear. Still, what do they know about energy and engineering, amateurs.

http://blip.tv/fullycharged/national-grid-6123133

See above post from C. Usual rant about stealing from the poor and paying to the rich. Ring any bells this time. The good thing is he's now told us what George actually meant to say. Aint that good of him. Apparently you are now in the top 1% richest. Well done.
Also if 2 million houses didn't switch on a really large electrical device, like a tumble dryer, would that help the grid during the day? Kinda like having lots of PV I suppose. Especially with all the gas generation being built that you complained about. I wonder if burning less gas when the suns out would help with CO2.

zeupater

digitaltoast wrote: »

Because in 50 years time, after £billions spent, at 5pm solar PV will STILL be contributing a big fat zero at the evening peak. Given that wind is unreliable, we'll never have enough tidal and pumped storage is unviable in the quantities required, then we'll either be getting our reliable base load from fossils or nuclear.

You really just don't seem to understand the basics of the national grid system.

Believe me, there is nothing I'd rather see more than a magic bullet to free us from carbon reliability. I drive a 90mpg eco-car, but it runs on plain ol' diesel, and gets nearly a third more mpg than an equivalent hybrid.

Sometimes the solution isn't always the glitzy shiny expensive one; it's the carefully engineered economically viable one.

Yes, we have to do something. But we need to do the right thing.

Hi

<Deconstructing mode on>

Consider .... "in 50 years time, after £billions spent" solar PV will no longer need subsidy of any kind. Subsidy for pv is so obviously a temporary measure designed to kick-start the market and finally allow the technology to be consumerised. We are already seeing dramatic falls in pv system costs with current generation panels which are based on expensive framed glass units which, if the trend continues for a little longer, will likely result in the removal of subsidy for new system installations within a few years. Looking not-too-far ahead we can expect to see much cheaper pv based on rolls of flexible pv material which will really make things interesting .... There must be a realistic comparison made to all other forms of generation ... will nuclear (possibly including Thorium), CCS, windpower or even the farming of biofuels be possible without subsidy in the same 50 year timescale, so what's the relative subsidy expenditure over the same timescale for each of the technologies as that's the only way that there can be a fair comparison ...

Regarding the "90mpg eco-car" running on diesel achieving "nearly a third more mpg than an equivalent hybrid" .... I've seen lots of reports regarding hybrids (mainly Prius) achieving averaged returns in the mid 50's mpg (I also know someone with a pretty new Prius who matches this average) instead of the claimed government figures and these figures always seem to be compared to the government figures for other vehicles (mainly diesel) ... I'm pretty familiar with how the vehicles are selected and prepared for the official test and would seriously doubt that a standard production vehicle selected at random would achieve the test results and that any diesel vehicle range available in the UK today would actually average anything much beyond the mid/high 60's in terms of mpg and even that would be if it's mainly subjected to slow & steady distance cruising .... it's also likely to be a much smaller vehicle than a hybrid (let's say Prius as it's the main vehicle in that sector) ....

Looking at the viewpoint that solar pv is regressive in terms of transfer of wealth (GM's stance) .... well, I for one cannot really recall any form of ideology experimented with over the last ~2500 years which has successfully been progressive in the long term, if it had been it would have provided the utopian solution and we simply wouldn't be having this discussion - added to this I find it hard to identify any form of product or service currently available which isn't far more regressive than progressive .....

<Normality mode (whatever that is) resumed>

HTH
Z

grahamc2003

Blossom2528 wrote: »

Thanks G. But the Grid don't seem half as obsessed with anti renewable subsidy propaganda as you do. They seem happier with a mix of everything, rather than loads of massively expensive subsidised nuclear, that would lead to the sort of bills that you keep trying to scare people over with renewables. Why is it so clear to you, but not to all the other nations of the world! Maybe you could send them an e-mail and let em know they got it all wrong. Silly Germans shutting down their nuclear. Still, what do they know about energy and engineering, amateurs.
.

You seem to be mixing up politics and engineering.

The grid does what it's told to do by politicians. They implement government energy policy. Many years ago, grid engineers were consulted by the government on energy policy, but latterly the influence on energy policy comes from others, and by and large, the grid experts no longer have much, if any, input into strategy, and merely implement policy. Don't you see it is purely a political decision to have 1GW of wind, or 2 or 3? Or to spend £0.5bn, or £1bn or £10bn on solar? There is little or no engineering input into those decisions. Likewise even in Germany.

Of course you don't get open criticism of policy at senior levels. If an offshore winfarm is given the go-ahead, do you think any decision maker at the grid can say something like 'That's a crap decision, we're no going to spend 2 billion upgrading the grid to cope'?

digitaltoast

grahamc2003 wrote: »

You seem to be mixing up politics and engineering.

The grid does what it's told to do by politicians. They implement government energy policy. There is little or no engineering input into those decisions.

Indeed. And no wonder, when we only have ONE scientist in the house of commons...

The only scientist in the House of Commons has called for all MPs to be required to take a crash course in basic scientific techniques.

Julian Huppert, a research biochemist who became the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge at the last election, said he was alarmed at the lack of scientific knowledge among colleagues.

Although there are other backbenchers with scientific backgrounds, Dr Huppert is the sole MP to have practised past PhD level, specialising most recently on DNA structures.

He said it was a real concern that the Commons – which is full of career politicians, lawyers and economists – lacked scientific expertise. Dr Huppert, a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, argued that all MPs should be obliged to take a short science training course, covering areas such as how research is conducted, numeracy and the use of statistics.

"It would be really important for all MPs to have some exposure, because some of them will not have studied any science since they were 15 and it's important to understand how to engage with it," he said. "You would then have a lot of MPs who were able to understand the information they were being presented with."

Accusing some MPs of being "anti-science", he said: "They have a set of beliefs and they will argue that regardless of the science."

Martyn1981

orrery wrote: »

I wasn't aware that that the subsidy is charged in any different way to any consumer, whether rich or poor, solar owner or not. Surely we all pay it, if we use energy?

Also worth noting (or maybe not!) that domestic consumption only accounts for about 35% of total demand. So the rest of the cost, which ultimately has to be accounted for by us, is distributed via our goods and services.

Whether or not this is distributed evenly, I can't say. The poor will spend a higher proportion of their income, but the rich a larger amount of money. I suspect it all balances out again and we all contribute to the Green Tariff fairly evenly (in pound note terms, not percentage terms).

Been a very interesting discussion today. I'm chuffed to find out that I'm one of the richest 1%. Never been rich before, move over Branson, I think you're in my seat!

Mart.

Cardew

Blossom2528 wrote: »

Thanks G. But the Grid don't seem half as obsessed with anti renewable subsidy propaganda as you do. They seem happier with a mix of everything, rather than loads of massively expensive subsidised nuclear, that would lead to the sort of bills that you keep trying to scare people over with renewables. Why is it so clear to you, but not to all the other nations of the world! Maybe you could send them an e-mail and let em know they got it all wrong. Silly Germans shutting down their nuclear. Still, what do they know about energy and engineering, amateurs.

http://blip.tv/fullycharged/national-grid-6123133

See above post from C. Usual rant about stealing from the poor and paying to the rich. Ring any bells this time. The good thing is he's now told us what George actually meant to say. Aint that good of him. Apparently you are now in the top 1% richest. Well done.
Also if 2 million houses didn't switch on a really large electrical device, like a tumble dryer, would that help the grid during the day? Kinda like having lots of PV I suppose. Especially with all the gas generation being built that you complained about. I wonder if burning less gas when the suns out would help with CO2.

The guy from the National Grid(in your clip) explained carefully that peak demand is on a winter's evening, which as pointed out above, is when solar contributes zilch.

Why is it a 'rant' from Monbiot when he points out that 99% contribute to the 'rich? It seems your argument is so weak that you have to try and misinterpret statements - e.g. where has it even been implied that solar panel owners are 'now in the top 1% richest'?

In Germany the Green movement has been highly influential in politics for many years, and have always been anti-nuclear. Recent events in Japan have been the catalyst for their decision to phase out Nulclear generation. It certainly was not based on economic or engineering grounds.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/30/germany-to-shut-nuclear-reactors

The French poured scorn on Germany's decision. "Germany will be even more
dependent on fossil fuels and imports and its electricity will be more expensive
and polluting," said the French industry minister, Éric Besson. German
households pay twice as much for power than homes in France, where 80% of
electricity comes from atomic plants, he said.