Solar Panel Guide Discussion

zeupater

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

.......but surely poor people have smaller roofs that rich people .....

Hi John

.... or looked at from another POV, those with a larger roofspace most likely pay more council tax, therefore capping the payment at a straight percentage ensures that any one demographic profile is not unduely advantaged at the expense of the other, council tax being a progressive form of taxation, the concept of fairness should be maintained. (;):D) ...

HTH
Z

digitaltoast

zeupater wrote: »

.... or looked at from another POV, those with a larger roofspace most likely pay more council tax...

...or looked at another way, those least able to afford a system will also be those most disadvantaged and least able to take advantage of it.

And it has nothing to do with roof size or council. Given that ALL of the subsidies to those lucky enough to own their own home will come from ALL of the billpayers, it's just as likely that a little old lady could have an east-facing roof and life on the corner with a millionaire with a south-facing roof as her neighbour, and she'd be partly paying for his panels. And you can bet that situation is the most common one.

And this is a good thing how?

zeupater

digitaltoast wrote: »

...or looked at another way, those least able to afford a system will also be those most disadvantaged and least able to take advantage of it.

And it has nothing to do with roof size or council. Given that ALL of the subsidies to those lucky enough to own their own home will come from ALL of the billpayers, it's just as likely that a little old lady could have an east-facing roof and life on the corner with a millionaire with a south-facing roof as her neighbour, and she'd be partly paying for his panels. And you can bet that situation is the most common one.

And this is a good thing how?

Hi

... isn't life so left of centre a really negative place to be ....

The original thought around the level of subsidy was described as being ".... the level which would be based on the estimated annual production on the MCS certificate and would be capped at a maximum proportion of the annual council tax bill" ...

It's pretty simple really ... the 'millionaire' you mention living in a high tax-band property would already be paying a multiple of the council tax being paid by those in lower tax-banded properties and is therefore already subsidising the use of council services for others .... In reality, if this system was in place, the reduction in council tax should not be considered a subsidy to the 'well off', it would be a reduction in the subsidy from the 'well off' to the 'less well off' ... the payment from central government to the local authorities in compensation would be a transfer of money from all national tax sources back to the local community to ensure that local service levels could be maintained at current levels, services which mainly benefit the 'less well off', as local services tend to do ....

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

digitaltoast wrote: »

.Given that ALL of the subsidies to those lucky enough to own their own home will come from ALL of the billpayers, it's just as likely that a little old lady could have an east-facing roof and life on the corner with a millionaire with a south-facing roof as her neighbour, and she'd be partly paying for his panels. And you can bet that situation is the most common one.

And this is a good thing how?

But again this is focusing all complaints against the payment of the subsidy, rather than the purpose of the subsidy, which is to create more zero/low carbon generating capacity in the future, without subsidies.

The benefits should be seen as the increased supply of the electric, not who gets the FIT since that is reducing.

All electric customers will benefit from the increase (the whole increase (despite Cardew's opinion) since generation is up, but demand is constant) regardless of where installs are sited.

Hopefully as costs keep falling, more and more people with suitable properties will be able to install PV.

I still struggle with the somewhat hypocritical arguments that get thrown up by others regarding the installation of PV. Some are happy to complain that not all can install PV, but will also advise those reading these threads that the returns are not actually that good, and that putting PV on your roof is detrimental to your property. So it would appear that having PV is bad, but not being able to have it is unfair.

Very confusing! It's almost as if the goal is simply to try to find fault - with everything?

Mart.

EricMears

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Very confusing! It's almost as if the goal is simply to try to find fault - with everything?
Mart.

Since the chances of this discussion page influencing Government policy are pretty slim, what other object has this 'discussion' served other than an awful lot of finding faults with a wide range of irrelevant subjects ?

zeupater

EricMears wrote: »

Since the chances of this discussion page influencing Government policy are pretty slim, what other object has this 'discussion' served other than an awful lot of finding faults with a wide range of irrelevant subjects ?

Hi Eric

Totally agree .... there's absolutely no chance whatsoever ....

I think that what's been happening in the recent discussion(s) would be classified as 'shaping the argument' to simply ensure that illogical positions are seen to be what they are .... we'll never likely reach consensus as illogical positions soon merge with political beliefs and, as is usually the case, politics should be considered as being the art of disinformation ...

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 wrote: »

That's something I've been thinking about. Since renewables have no respect for fluctuating energy prices on the spot market, they will (as seen in Germany) make life harder and harder for conventional energy generation. I'm not sure how competitive the current generators are, as regards technological improvements, and truly chasing down efficiency gains. But if push becomes shove, they are going to have to up their game, and hopefully improve their performance.

I think?

Mart.

Further to the above, here's an opinion piece by a German professor on PV and it's impact on the profitability of baseload generators. Looks like it could get ugly (uglier?).

http://www.volker-quaschning.de/articles/The-Final-Battle/index.php

Some extracts:-

"Yet, brown coal and nuclear plants do not like to ramp up and down. They are not really able to keep up with such fluctuations, and wear and tear increases significantly when they try. Overall, their profitability suffers in the process. Sooner or later, they begin to lose money and may even end up being shut down altogether."

"What’s more, the returns on many solar arrays are considerably below the margins common in the conventional power plant sector. Homeowners are pleased to get a three or four percent return on their solar roof. Here, new competition is cropping up, and the energy firms do not know how to face it."

"But for power providers, generating solar power with their own large solar arrays for retail customers is not really an option. They would have to transport the power across expensive lines to customers, and even then they would only be competitive with locally produced power in rare exceptional cases."

Also a document by the same professor giving some simple graphical breakdowns of the possible future role of PV in Germany.

http://www.cic-invest.de/fileadmin/media/Downloads/Future_of_Photovoltaics_in_Germany.pdf

Looks like the wild ride has begun, too late to jump off now!

Mart.

John_Pierpoint

I loved the "tooth" graph, where the nuclear power stations were dumping power into the nearest river on sunny summer Sunday afternoons, just to stop themselves from meltdown.

Did you pick up on the magic supply of German import of PV - so is that coming in a huge DC cable up the leg of Italy from the Muslim state of Libya?

Anyone got any insights into the practicality of power storage by "methanisation" - that is not just a power source but a feestock for the plastics industry.

Finally, for what is the "ct" a unit of measurement? (it is used in the domestic diagram for 2016 where spare PV is being dumped into a heat store tank, shared by a "boiler" (perhaps wood pellet fuelled)).

John

PS. Back in the real world, where the politicians are attacking those of us who think PV panels are some sort of inflation proof pension:

http://www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/news/2206274/ons-to-consult-on-revised-rpi-formulae-which-could-wipe-millions-off-scheme-liabilities

Martyn1981

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Did you pick up on the magic supply of German import of PV - so is that coming in a huge DC cable up the leg of Italy from the Muslim state of Libya?

Anyone got any insights into the practicality of power storage by "methanisation" - that is not just a power source but a feestock for the plastics industry.

Hiya John, maybe Germany can start carpeting Greece with SP's, a little bit of job creation, and some Greek exports too. Especially as they are getting on so well with each other at the moment!

Hydrogen and methane production from excess PV already takes place, but I don't think it's on a large scale, and in full cycle is still quite inefficient, possibly 25%?

I'll try to find an article on him, but there was a tv programme showing an American who has taken the PV / hydrogen idea and run with it. He's ex Nasa, or aeronautics engineer. His house has lots of PV, then spare used to produce hydrogen, then when needed, the hydrogen is run through fuel cells (he's built) to power house, or the fuel cell car he's converted.

Slightly scary, he has about 6 huge hydrogen tanks on his property, but he explains that they are low pressure, and if they leak, the hydrogen would just go upwards, quite quickly. Well that's all right then!

I think the cost of it all was about $500,000 as a personal project. Fancy one?

Mart.

Edit: here's an article, but it's not the one I was thinking of, which I'm sure is in a more 'desert like' location.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hydrogen-house

M.

orrery

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Did you pick up on the magic supply of German import of PV - so is that coming in a huge DC cable up the leg of Italy from the Muslim state of Libya?

The idea has been around for a good while. It is described in David MacKays's book "Renewable Energy without the Hot Air" and is being looked at by the Desertec Foundation:
http://www.desertec.org/en/concept/

The only sensible place to put large solar farms is in desert locations where there is no competition for agricultural land.