Solar Panel Guide Discussion

zeupater

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I would respectfully suggest that most (all?) of our electricity imported from France, comes from this large power station, a short booze-cruise from Kent.:

The Gravelines Nuclear Power Station is the fifth largest nuclear power station in the world, the second largest in Europe (after the nuclear power station of Zaporizhia, Ukraine) and the largest in Western Europe. It is located in Nord, France, approximately 20 km (12 mi) from Dunkerque and Calais. Its cooling water comes from the North Sea. The plant houses 6 nuclear reactors with a unitary power of 900 MW. In 2006 the plant produced 38.14 TWh, 8,1% of the whole amount of electricity produced in France. Two reactors entered service in 1980, two in 1981, and two in 1985.
The site employs 1680 regular employees. As of the 2nd of August 2010, it became the first nuclear station anywhere in the world to produce over one thousand terawatt-hour of electricity[1].

The exercise is one of minimum cost accounting, the unit of measurement is the tonne of carbon. We are measuring a gas that is poisoning our planet. Once upon a time, we traded using the caret of gold (the weight of the widely available carob seed), Then we swapped between the world wars to accounting in fiat currency, though this was initially linked back to the gold standard. Now we have a new unit of measurement of something toxic and the name of the game is trying to minimise its output, not maximise output, because we live on a finite planet.
It is difficult to appreciate the new situation in a world motivated by maximising income production & consumption.

So the FiT is a reasonably honest tax, in that the politicians cannot deficit finance it by printing more FiT.

However it may not be the most cost effective way of reducing carbon dioxide production, though it does have the useful effect of allowing the individual to monitor their own carbon saving.

One of the major attractions is that as fiat money is devalued by deficit financing techniques, the FiT maintains its value. To the gold standard add the personal carbon standard, as a store if wealth.

Hi

That really opens up a pretty fundamental question which someone with grid expertise could perhaps address ....

In a situation where a massive interconnector is switched on, does it result in a fall in voltage in the area of the interconnector ? ... if so, does that effectively 'suck' the energy from the nearest higher voltage source, which progressively pulls power from further, and further afield via the grid .... If so wouldn't it be the case that the actual electrons injected into the interconnector would be more likely be sourced from the nearby generation and the effect of this on local supply would be compensated for by pulling electrons from progressively distant generating sources .... is this the way that a grid compensates/works ... ??

If so, wouldn't it be the case that the Gravelines station mentioned in the referenced post would be the logical & likely primary source for the majority of the interconnector's power .....

Interesting thoughtline John ....
Z

John_Pierpoint

I was trying to think of a liquid analogy, but as it is alternating current perhaps a sound analogy:

It is World War One and someone in Kent can hear the distant sounds of the guns: The energy is more than likely coming from "Ypres" than "Verdun", but the size of the guns probably has something to do with it too.

John_Pierpoint

zeupater wrote: »

The issue on these threads isn't to do with FiTs, if it was it would have been considered within scale, context and reason some time ago .... the fuel for the discussion is simply misplaced politics, misunderstanding and saving face ...

HTH
Z

I have no face to save !

I have three real world friends with PV panels and receiving the FiT.

One, a very early adopter (October 2009), could be said to be a true "greenie" but the primary motivation for the other 3 of us, is to farm the FiT subsidy - just like the agricultural industry.

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/latest-news/more-farm-subsidy-millionaires-than-ever/31918.article

[Unfortunately we won't be seeing articles just like that one any more, as some European court has agreed that the freedom of information questions that generate information about individuals, are an invasion of privacy - personally I think "sunlight is the best disinfectant" though I am aware that Cardew might motivate "rioters" armed with a catapult and a pocket full of ball bearings :eek:]

John_Pierpoint

EricMears wrote: »

:T :T :T :T :T :T :T

I keep looking at this thread because it pops up in bold in the topics list and I keep hoping that someone will really have posted something on the subject of "Solar Panel Guide Discussion".

Short of blanking out everyone who has contributed recently (which would be a shame because some of them seem to make quite sensible points in other threads), is there any way of stopping the topic from showing up in bold ?

Perhaps it is time for you to invoke:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

zeupater

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

..... the agricultural industry.

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/latest-news/more-farm-subsidy-millionaires-than-ever/31918.article

Hi John

I find it incredible that simply processing a claim costs as much as the average FiT payment for a 4kWp system.... no wonder it's preferable to have the energy suppliers administer the process ..... This has been my point all along, government is just so inefficient in such things.....

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi John

I simply find it incredible that simply processing a claim costs as much as the average FiT payment for a 4kWp system.... no wonder it's preferable to have the energy suppliers administer the process ..... This has been my point all along, government is just so inefficient in such things.....

HTH
Z

I was just reading yesterday about the various ways of subsidising PV in Australia (as you do!). Here's a link:-

http://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/the-economics-of-a-1-to-1-solar-buyback-vs-solar-feed-in-tariffs/

The 1 to 1 appears to be the same as net metering (or at least very similar). I appreciate that net metering is still a subsidy, since PV'ers would get to use the grid as a 'free' battery, but it probably comes over as a relatively fair subsidy.

Not sure if net metering would make domestic PV viable in the UK yet, but it's probably pretty close.

Mart.

John_Pierpoint

zeupater wrote: »

Hi John

I find it incredible that simply processing a claim costs as much as the average FiT payment for a 4kWp system.... no wonder it's preferable to have the energy suppliers administer the process ..... This has been my point all along, government is just so inefficient in such things.....

HTH
Z

http://www.cla.org.uk/In_Your_Area/North_East/Regional_News_Archive/Government/Defra/5805.htm/

Is is c0ck up or conspiracy, that makes our Civil Service turn simple ideas into a nightmare of complexity? Do they deliberately want the "sheeple" to not understand how their taxes are spent?
Obviously if there is a cadre of experienced clever administrators, they must feel frustrated. They are given a set of rules by a much smaller body, itself a poliglot organisation riven with differing political and economic ideas.
So they set about "gold plating" it.

Something similar is happening to the FiT, which hands out comparatively minute subsidies.

Anyway, when the subsidy was changed from production (wine lakes - butter mountains - etc.) simply to land possession, plus an obligation to cut the grass; England just had to demonstrate how to mess things up:

So introduce a complicated computer system, "discover" that farmers had removed hedges so that the Land Registry maps no-longer matched the actual topography.
Now resort to a satellite/gps system that could identify land accurate to a "sheet of A4 paper".
Argue about actual ownership (one of the largest beneficiaries in England is the parent company of that vendor of almost instant jumble sale input: Primark.)

At the same time invent some more subsidies (Entry Level Scheme) for not efficiently farming (ie don't take out hedges, do give the birds a chance to eat some of the weed seeds between crops) then add another set of subsidies (Higher Level Scheme) perhaps build a pond for migrating birds? All subsidised by you me and Cardew..............

But the real surprise was the discovery that if you offer a subsidy for cutting the grass (which you may do anyway) the number of "farmer" claimants suddenly more than doubles from about 44k to over 100k. I wonder how this compares with the number of "farmers" registered for the zero rating VAT kick back?

Both system and staff cannot cope, even when starting from "what did they get last year" and trying to migrate to what should they get based simply on area "farmed" - Woops can't do that or we will have millionaire tenant farmers owning thousands of acres of moor land and a hand full of sheep to cut the grass - so more rules about contour lines..

Here is a large industrial scale project - perhaps Cardew can ferret out the subsidies paid to the RSPB (Britain's largest pressure group) versus the subsidies payable for carpeting the area with PV panels - Perhaps we could do both as the EU is about to clamp down on the maximum subsidy payable to any one owner - Will that double the number of "farmers" again.;) Win Win! :beer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19598532

What would you think would be a fair price per tonne for agreeing to dispose of 4.5 million tonnes of clay on a "farm" (The sand and gravel is potentially valuable - I wonder if it pays the tax payable on land based aggregates?).

zeupater

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

.... or conspiracy, that makes our Civil Service turn simple ideas into a nightmare of complexity? Do they deliberately want the "sheeple" to not understand how their taxes are spent? ...

Hi

it's actually a lot more simple than that ....

The thought process seems to be ... "If I make the process more complex then I employ more people and therefore I become more important and they pay me more money" .... simple self interest, which the politicians have gone along with for years because it suits the employment statistics ....

To this you must also consider many public sector initiatives result in the rapid formation of new departments or agencies, with all of the supporting heirarchy, instead of achiving this through organic growth within existing departments by utilising a little forethought and planning .... a mass recruitment exercise based on whatever selection criteria are 'flavour of the day' .... however good the public sector are at recruitment, they certainly seem to be pretty inept at releasing serial underperformers ....

HTH
Z

Cardew

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Here is a large industrial scale project - perhaps Cardew can ferret out the subsidies paid to the RSPB (Britain's largest pressure group) versus the subsidies payable for carpeting the area with PV panels - .

John,

Some interesting points.

That there are other stupid subsidies, and on a far grander scale, is hardly a defence of the FIT scheme.

At least the money for those other subsidies comes from [STRIKE]The Public Purse[/STRIKE] (don't bite Z;)) ALL taxpayes and is not, like FIT, which is contributed to by electricity consumers without regard to their income/wealth!

John_Pierpoint

It mainly comes out of VAT
The sad thing is that the rich people in our country are not the ones that produce something needed and make a fair profit - it is the ones who know how to play the system - be it the tax system, the planning system or the funny money system, while farming the subsidies.