Solar Panel Guide Discussion

Cardew

The_Green_Hornet wrote: »

I'm confused (and not for the first time).

How can building massive solar farms address the original issue that initially inflamed this thread of the poor subsiding the rich through FITs? All you are doing there is moving the subsidies from home owners to landowners.

I think certain posters have contradicted themselves so much that any semblance of common senses and logic has disappeared altogether on this thread.

I'm off to talk 'bout my generation" .

Sorry you are confused, let me try and enlighten you!

All electricity consumers pay higher electricity charges to fund the FIT subsidy for the approx 1% of home owners and Rent a Roof firms who own solar PV displays.


Venture Capitalists and other organisations were prepared to construct 'solar farms'. You would be correct that land owners would benefit as well. Being prepared to invest £millions on these farms might also indicate they were rich.

However, importantly, they would have been prepared to have a lower FIT subsidy than the houseowners.

Therefore all electricity consumers paying into the FIT subsidy pot would see more solar electricity generated, and be available to the grid, than would be generated, and available to the grid, from sub 4kWp systems with their higher FIT subsidy.

I am not supporting solar farms, merely making the point that if our political masters decree that solar PV must have a subsidy, then solar farms are the lesser evil.

Martyn1981

Blossom2528 wrote: »

Panels stuck in a field sends electric to grid. Factory takes electric from grid. Cardew happy.
Panels stuck in a field sends electric straight to factory. Cardew confused, gets headache.
Panels stuck on factory roof, uses electric. Cardew angry, Cardew smash, Cardew write to MP - Dear MP their stealing my electric. MP writes to Cardew - stop whining and do the numbers.

Absolutely perfect demonstration of how export, or reduced import are the same thing.

But, you won't win, he's been regurgitating the 'and they don't have to export it all' for so long, without ever actually thinking about it, that he can't now back down. He has to keep saying that there is a distinction between the two, because he's running out of excuses to hide behind, or possibly bridges to hide under!

More export or less import, one and the same. Do the maths.

Mart.

don0301

http://www.theabbey-group.com/renewables/turves-solar-farm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2177630/Lets-just-hope-weather-holds-Britains-biggest-solar-farm-5-6-miles-frames-1-8000-panels-soaking-sun-heatwave.html

etc etc

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

However, importantly, they would have been prepared to have a lower FIT subsidy than the houseowners.

Couple of problems there, firstly, then why didn't they? Did they only notice the opportunity the day before the tariff changed, not the year and a half before?

Secondly, the large difference in the tariff only exists in your fictitious numbers - still no sign of those 20p v's 40p rates?

So what you are really saying, is that when FITs had been so successful in bringing down the price of PV (hooray, FITs is a monumental success story, for only a tiny budget) people started to spot an opportunity.

That opportunity was blocked by government intervention, but the opportunities for small installers was (I believe) wrongly left open for longer, before panic measures set in a few months later.

Now we have bands that across the 3 sectors (small, medium and stand-alone) are roughly similar in percentage terms, but much lower than before. So trim the grass in the 'lower 40' and get installing. But remember to export it all, otherwise it magically turns into pixie dust and floats away!

Mart.

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Actually it does .......

The 'public purse' doesn't relate to the government money as the government has no money, they raise & spend money from the 'public purse' ... ie, us, the public, via tax ...

Now, consider past discussions on this forum and elsewhere concerning how the money is accounted for by the treasury and you'll see that it is a tax which is both collected from the public via energy bill, then apportioned & distributed to the MCS registered installations on behalf of the government by private-sector agents, the energy companies .... it is therefore as much expenditure from the 'public purse' as an aircraft carrier, police, the NHS or anything else ...

HTH
Z

High Z,

Not it is not the same thing at all.

The 'Public Purse' is funded by all forms of Taxation - Income Tax, VAT, Corporation Tax etc etc. We contribute according to our income and expenditure.

Rich Mr Smith might pay £millions in various forms of Tax.

Poor Mr Jones on a minimum wage will pay virtually nothing in Tax

The FIT 'pot' is funded by a levy on electricity bills which all consumers have to pay - even Mr Jones. That levy is proportional to their electricity bills.

Mr Smith pays a lot more toward Police, Aircraft carriers etc.

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

Hi Z,

We are totally at cross-purposes.

There was ample evidence that plans were being made for large scale solar farms. The sole reason for the short notice slashing of the FIT to 8.5p/kWh was to kill those projects.

.....


It is not therefore a 'theoretical' discussion. Large solar farm projects were effectively quashed by lowering the FIT to a rate where they were not viable.

Surely you are not arguing that installing sub 4kWp on roofs houses all over the UK is more cost effective method of producing solar electricity than giving solar farms a lower but commercially viable subsidy?

Hi Cardew

This is incorrect .... what actually happened was a reduction in the tariff for the higher bands in order to remove a step-change between MCS FiT and Renewable Obligations (ROCs) which could have been utilised as a loophole to increase income .... it didn't kill off the larger pv farms at all, it just meant that many sub 5MWp systems would be registered under the RO scheme alongside potential >5MWp systems instead of the MCS scheme, mainly because the return was better within the RO scheme.

If you would like to check you will see that the RO scheme regarding pv is currently entering consultation regarding realligning RO/MCS and lowering the ROC payments to reflect the falling capital costs and explores the possibility of forcing large <5MWp systems into being registered only within the FiT scheme ... (http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/consultation/ro-banding/6338-consultation-on-proposals-for-the-levels-of-banded.pdf) .... the document is a pretty open insight into current DECC thinking, although quickly scanning through it there are some pretty obvious misconceptions, especially regarding the generating capacity from systems sized around 5MWp or above currently in the planning pipeline ....

Regarding "Surely you are not arguing ..." - Based on logic & evidence, my belief is that subsidy is falling because system prices are falling and that system prices are falling due to a combination of global demand and national competition and also that the demand is being driven by the subsidy ... a circular process flow diagram completed, which will logically result in further subsidy being withdrawn at a point in time in the not-too-distant future.... I also believe that the level of subsidy invested to build competition provided by microgeneration generation sources as a whole will act to moderate the profitability ambition of multi-national generating corporations which in time will benefit all consumers, be they poor, rich, with pv or without pv ..... jamesingram actually made a relevant post to provide evidence that this could already be happening yesterday (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=55799103&postcount=1735) , this likely being overlooked whilst concentrating on the term 'public-purse', which I believe is a valid description (as already posted).

Considering the above, at a point where subsidy is completely off the radar there will still be a difference in the overall cost/kWp installed between small and large systems, however, leaving very small systems aside the cost differential would probably not be as much of an issue as portrayed ... I know what <50kWp systems have cost in this area and the economy-of-scale doesn't result in an exponential curve when looking at the cost/kWp when compared to larger domestic systems ..... anyway leaving that aside, let's reverse the logic and query whether, in a situation where subsidy doesn't exist (simply a logical extension to falling tariffs), would it be more appropriate to question the corporate profitability derived from the 'commercial viability' of pv farms, or the logic of consumerised self-microgeneration ... it's simply a logical extension which should be explored, remember, you can't get from A to B without travelling a road and, in this instance, subsidy is simply a forms of road construction ....

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I really at a loss with this 'debate'.

Is the debate about whether, for example, if you want to install (e.g.) 10MW of solar capacity, whether it is more efficient to do that by a couple of thousand tiny installations on peoples' roofs, than a single large installation somewhere?

You first need to define efficient?

If efficient is generating capacity, then you need to realise that panel performance and inverter performance is much the same, whether you are looking at a 10MWp install or 2,500 4kWp installs. Just to clarify this bit, unlike most forms of generation, PV does not benefit from economies of scale in efficiency. Bigger is not better.

If efficient means, maximum kWh's per £ of subsidy, then you can look at the relative tariff rates - as long as both systems will be installed. And as long as the tariff rate exists.

If efficient means, shortest time to viability, then you concentrate the subsidies on the most economical systems, ie those that will produce electricity at a cost that provides an adequate return. Crucially here you will not only have to consider costs, but also income streams.

But if efficient means cost of producing each kWh, then it needs to include the cost of installing, and the annual cost of running those 2 differing situations, so you'll need to consider all costs. There are two ways to do this - 'do the numbers', or run away and hide behind some fictitious tariffs, and a theoretical situation.

Mart.

Cardew

don0301 wrote: »

http://www.theabbey-group.com/renewables/turves-solar-farm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2177630/Lets-just-hope-weather-holds-Britains-biggest-solar-farm-5-6-miles-frames-1-8000-panels-soaking-sun-heatwave.html

etc etc

Thank you.

That is excellent news - they will no doubt appear in the statistics to which Zeupater linked. Let us hope there are more.

It makes my point perfectly - if we have to pay a FIT subsidy it is by far the lesser of two evils, and better use of the FIT pot we fund, to have a solar farm with its low subsidies, rather than sub 4kWp systems with their higher subsidy and ability to use their generated electricity in-house.

They should have listened to Martyn though as he has done the figures to prove they are not as efficient as sub-4Kp systems

PV does not benefit from economies of scale in efficiency. Bigger is not better.

don0301

so you ignore

http://www.dunmowbroadcast.co.uk/news/essex_super_sized_solar_farm_earmarked_for_60_acre_site_in_henham_1_1493437

http://www.solarguide.co.uk/largest-solar-farm-in-the-country-to-be-built-in-suffolk

as you put it:

Cardew wrote: »

I don't suppose that you will understand, or want to understand, that those schemes in your links were, and are, too big for FIT subsidy. The limit for Solar FIT being 5MW.to 5MW.

so they are not taking any money from 99% of households, as you put it

yet you rejoice

http://www.theabbey-group.com/renewables/turves-solar-farm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2177630/Lets-just-hope-weather-holds-Britains-biggest-solar-farm-5-6-miles-frames-1-8000-panels-soaking-sun-heatwave.html

which are taking money from 99% of households

Cardew wrote: »

That is excellent news - they will no doubt appear in the statistics to which Zeupater linked. Let us hope there are more.

It makes my point perfectly - if we have to pay a FIT subsidy it is by far the lesser of two evils, and better use of the FIT pot we fund, to have a solar farm with its low subsidies, rather than sub 4kWp systems with their higher subsidy and ability to use their generated electricity in-house.

They should have listened to Martyn though as he has done the figures to prove they are not as efficient as sub-4Kp systems

it just doesn't stack up does it?

don0301

Cardew wrote: »

Do you not feel such insults make you look a little challenged.

I don't suppose that you will understand, or want to understand, that those schemes in your links were, and are, too big for FIT subsidy. The limit for Solar FIT being 5MW.


Incidentally I have not stated that there aren't solar farms that do get FIT - Zeupater has stated that there are none above 250kWh to 5MW.

I don't suppose you will understand, or want to understand, that because those schemes were, and are, too big for FIT subsidy and yet seemingly viable makes your argument that lowering of FIT killed off solar farms makes you look quite a lot challenged