Solar Panel Guide Discussion

grahamc2003

celerity wrote: »

Well it's good for the UK Solar industry .
As noted previously, this has knock-on benefits for scaffolders and electricians. Also, many solar PV companies will also offer solar thermal and potentiall heat pump technology as well, which in turn boosts the trade for plumbers across the country.

Finally, all the houseowners receiving FiT cheques in the next few years are going to find that they are burning a hole in their pockets - so will likely spend some of it - good news for the UK economy.

So, no I don't think it's bad for business at all.

Also, nobody has yet demonstrated on this thread the direct increase in electricity prices due to the FiT, so it's a moot point as far as I'm concerned. One person claimed 15% - another claimed 20p.
Until we have a decent estimate it's very difficult to have an opinion on it one way or the other.


May I ask a general question for people against the FiT, not aimed at darkpool? Has *anything* you've read on this forum made you think that maybe, just maybe, the FiT isn't quite as terrible as you first thought?


/\dam

The jobs situation is moot. It's easy having as many jobs created as you want. If you want a million jobs created, just pay half a million people to dig a holes and the other half to fill them in. Usually, people assume jobs are productive and beneficial, but ultimately I don't think putting solar panes on peoples' roofs in the UK does any good whatsever - you certainly won't close any conventional powerstations due to them (or any non-schedulable generation) and, since power is capital intrensive, it is very expensive having 2 sets of capacity, which solar (and wind) forces.

Your second point is odd - more money is taken out of consumers pockets than is put back into panel owners pockets, so I don't understand that point. It is obviuously bad for business because it raises their costs = google around the jobs analysis in Spain to see that the extra costs (of all green initiatives, not simply solar relarted) cause 2.5 people to be sacked for each job created.

The different figures you quote are for different things. I always quotye figures for total green initiatives, of which solar is just one. B gas published figures showing in their electricity bills, they have to add on 13% as a green tax to support all such subsidies and other 'initiatives'. (Looking at the wholesale or generation cost of that electricity, the green tax is 37% of that - which I think puts the amount into more perspecdtive).

I've read nothing on here which makes me think the UK trying to generate electricity via solar panels is a good idea. It costs you and me about 15 times the cost of conventional generation (which we still have to pay for aswell whether operating or not beacuse of its capital intensive nature). If such generation is so expensive (and rediculous in engineering terms), then subsidising it is equally rediculous imv.

It can't be any sort of rational argument to say if it only costs us 15p/week (or whatever), then it's a good idea.

hcb42

I am quite intrigued at some of the views on this thread, especially as I have just studied the growth of the renewables market in UK/europe and beyond, and some of the failings of the prev UK governments by leaving renewables to the markets instead of looking at FIT tariffs.

What's probably a shame in the UK is we dont have the bottom up community groups clubbing together to install PV e.g. like the austrians did, and our gov also ignored the potential of PV. (We have a community group in our village, of which I am a committee member, to install a wind turbine which would generate 25% of our village's electricity consumption..but that is a subject for another thread.)

Energy Policy has to be strategic, so it has to have some mechanisms such as FITs, ROCs etc to alter the pattern of the market - and we have to generate more via renewables - unless we want to sign up to yet more CO2 emissions via coal, or nuclear, which most of us do not want in our back yards as it were. The investment is long term strategy whereas of course companies tend to focus on shorter term strategies and stakeholder/shareholders even those that do R&D well.

Investing in the technologies will mean that prices will fall even further and fall in line with the costs for generating via fossil fuel technologies. Of course we need a number of technologies, and there is no single solution, and while local generation is the way to go then those at home can benefit from these rent a roof schemes. For those that invest, then that energy is used by businesses who do peak in the day, so it seems a bit of a no brainer - it saves buring fossil fuels somewhere else in the chain.

We are of course using more electricity than ever, as the number of individual homes has increased, e.g. more people living in smaller family units. we also have masses more appliances than we had even 20 years ago, so reductions in energy use from earlier initiatives such as loft insulation etc have been eroded by this rebound effect.

As to the comments that we are robbing from the poor to give to the rich - I would suggest that by not acting we are actually robbing from our kids and grandkids and future generations - who no doubt will look back in 100 years or so and wonder why we all did nothing.

(and I only came on as a friend was talking about Homesun today...)

darkpool

K4blades wrote: »

Absolutely.
And this also ignores the fact that the population is getting older...more retired people means more peope at home during the day,

so what happens during the winter? do we all just go to our bed at 5pm? out of all the renewables solar has to be the worst suited to the UK. at least tidal is dependable and hydro has some control of when you get the power.

darkpool

celerity wrote: »

May I ask a general question for people against the FiT, not aimed at darkpool? Has *anything* you've read on this forum made you think that maybe, just maybe, the FiT isn't quite as terrible as you first thought?

/\dam

tbh, i'm for renewable energy and FiT. i just disagree with the way it has been implemented. it's not efficient to have thousands and thousands of tiny solar power stations dotted about the UK. If solar was the way to go it would be better to have a couple of large solar stations on the South coast. That way the panels would track the sun and always be at optimum efficiency.

Why should large hydro only get 4.7pence a kWh? A properly sited hydro station would produce power 24/7 365 days a year. Solar gets 43pence a kWh and works during daylight hours and produces little power during cloudy weather a power source that isn't dependable isn't really worth public subsidy.

K4blades

hcb42 wrote: »

I am quite intrigued at some of the views on this thread, especially as I have just studied the growth of the renewables market in UK/europe and beyond, and some of the failings of the prev UK governments by leaving renewables to the markets instead of looking at FIT tariffs.

What's probably a shame in the UK is we dont have the bottom up community groups clubbing together to install PV e.g. like the austrians did, and our gov also ignored the potential of PV. (We have a community group in our village, of which I am a committee member, to install a wind turbine which would generate 25% of our village's electricity consumption..but that is a subject for another thread.)

Energy Policy has to be strategic, so it has to have some mechanisms such as FITs, ROCs etc to alter the pattern of the market - and we have to generate more via renewables - unless we want to sign up to yet more CO2 emissions via coal, or nuclear, which most of us do not want in our back yards as it were. The investment is long term strategy whereas of course companies tend to focus on shorter term strategies and stakeholder/shareholders even those that do R&D well.

Investing in the technologies will mean that prices will fall even further and fall in line with the costs for generating via fossil fuel technologies. Of course we need a number of technologies, and there is no single solution, and while local generation is the way to go then those at home can benefit from these rent a roof schemes. For those that invest, then that energy is used by businesses who do peak in the day, so it seems a bit of a no brainer - it saves buring fossil fuels somewhere else in the chain.

We are of course using more electricity than ever, as the number of individual homes has increased, e.g. more people living in smaller family units. we also have masses more appliances than we had even 20 years ago, so reductions in energy use from earlier initiatives such as loft insulation etc have been eroded by this rebound effect.

As to the comments that we are robbing from the poor to give to the rich - I would suggest that by not acting we are actually robbing from our kids and grandkids and future generations - who no doubt will look back in 100 years or so and wonder why we all did nothing.

(and I only came on as a friend was talking about Homesun today...)

What an excellent post, welcome to the forum.

K4blades

darkpool wrote: »

so what happens during the winter? do we all just go to our bed at 5pm?

What a silly question, just because generation from PV is less during the winter, doesn't mean we can't benefit from it.
I've seen comments about cooking in winter, well yes, you may have to pay towards cooking your tea in winter, but that doesn't mean you can't ever cook yourself a meal in summer for free.
I have a pair of flip flops for the summer, but it doesn't mean I want to wear them in winter, nor do I want to wear my wellies for 12 months of the year.
No one is claiming that PV will replace all other forms of generation so whats your point...........

darkpool

K4blades wrote: »

What a silly question, just because generation from PV is less during the winter, doesn't mean we can't benefit from it.
I've seen comments about cooking in winter, well yes, you may have to pay towards cooking your tea in winter, but that doesn't mean you can't ever cook yourself a meal in summer for free.
I have a pair of flip flops for the summer, but it doesn't mean I want to wear them in winter, nor do I want to wear my wellies for 12 months of the year.
No one is claiming that PV will replace all other forms of generation so whats your point...........

my point is that solar power isn't really suited to the UK.

i think a better simile for solar power is that it's more like a television that works some of the time then suddenly goes off.

zeupater

hcb42 wrote: »

......... The investment is long term strategy whereas of course companies tend to focus on shorter term strategies and stakeholder/shareholders even those that do R&D well. .........

Hi

One of the main issues here is the failure to deliver strategy by successive governments.

The UK has an excellent track record of R&D, but, just like delivering central strategies, the record of conversion of good ideas into product is woeful. Both the UK government & UK manufacturing haven't got a clue what to do with new ideas when someone hands them gold plated ones on a plate, therefore we just continue to stumble along whilst others actually do something, usually using our own ideas to sell product back to us.

Z

digitaltoast

Edited to add: Guess what? From MSE itself: Solar panel energy bill savings estimate cut.
Being discussed in this thread.

grahamc2003 wrote: »

The jobs situation is moot. It's easy having as many jobs created as you want. If you want a million jobs created, just pay half a million people to dig a holes and the other half to fill them in. Usually, people assume jobs are productive and beneficial, but ultimately I don't think putting solar panes on peoples' roofs in the UK does any good whatsever

I hope Cardew doesn't mind, but I've quoted one of his posts in my blog summary of solar PV. I'll post it again here because it's just such a beautifully concise summing of the the jobs aspect:

cardew wrote: »

I am hoping to start a production line, and employ lots of people making a copy of this wonderful device a friend of mine found in the USA.

It consisted of a beautifully engineered stainless steel box. On the outside it had lever marked On and Off.

When you pressed the lever down to the 'On' position there was a humming sound, the lid slowly rose and a mechanical arm appeared and pulled the lever up to the 'Off' position, the hand withdrew and the lid slammed shut.

That is all it did, and it was named 'The Nothing Box'!

My great idea was to have the lid covered with solar panels so it would be 'Green'. I have not yet managed to get a Government subsidy, so sadly no people will be employed on this worthwhile project.

Far neater than my burger analogy, which, incidentally, no-one has taken me up on yet....


Now, I was wondering... do we have anyone here who knows how to interpret these National Grid charts? It looks like there's a wealth of data here, and it would be interesting to know how to interpret it/get at the raw data to make some sort of "daily demand" chart we could overlay onto a "solar output" chart.

Cardew

The 'Nothing Box' actually existed, and it really was a superb piece of engineering - an 'executive toy'.