Solar Panel Guide Discussion

lanstrom

mardycow wrote: »

Scaffolders have arrived and doing their thing, Tomorrow the installation should commence- 3.9 kw system split over 2 sides of the roof. 16 panels and 6 panels with SMA 4000tl. ooh the excitement!

WELCOME to THE CLUB

Where abouts are you, and will you be putting your generation stats online ?

zeupater

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

That is not necessarily true. If the financial system can efficiently reallocate resources within the economy, then 2 + 2 really does equal 5.

Can we say that casino banking has that effect - probably not, by betting against its customers it seems more likely to bankrupt the productive firms in the economy.

Personally my ancestors were so bored knapping flints, that they just had to get a loan from the "Flintstones Bank" and set up a foundry for making bronze arrow heads.

http://www.pasthorizons.tv/tv/view/15/flint-knapping-washingborough-archaeology-group/

Hi

Banks are service sector, they simply take the created wealth and move it from one place to another ... and of course, take a cut of the transaction .... that's what they do, it's not wealth creation, it might be wealth concentration though and that's exactly what recent governments have based the UK economy on .... ..... If anyone actually believes that 2+2=5 then that's fine by me, but they really do need to classify themselves as being 'creative accountants'. 2+2 is four and if it ever deviated from that then it's probably more like 2+2(+borrow or steal 1)=5, it's just that the part in brackets (borrowing, or even stealing ) is usually hidden by accountants, governments or those with swag bags.

I've heard the 2+2=5 argument many times before when discussing recycling wealth, but it doesn't really stand up to scutiny .... If £1000 of wealth is created and then spent on different services in £1 chunks it's the same £1000 and if it changes hands 1000 times, it's still the same £1000, it's just that different people hold part of that wealth at different times .....

Casino banking, well I'm looking forward to the day that it becomes illegal for bankers to sell anything that they, or their clients, do not hold or buy anything which they, or their clients, do not have funds to fully cover. It's entirely possible to ban the purchasing of commodities if you don't have the ability to stock that commodity ... just think how this would help reduce world prices ...

Anyway, enough 'off topic' ranting for now

HTH
Z

grumpyoldsteve

grahamc2003 wrote: »

So if the only consideration about jobs is their creation and nothing else, then I assume you'd think it great if we employed 1 million of the unemployed to dig holes in the ground, and the other million to fill them in? There you have it - zero unemplyment, and a bankrupt country.

Nope, I definitely don't want to see that - isn't that the job of utility companies already. As for bankruptcy, maybe that's where Greece and Italy have gone wrong - the wrong balance of hole digging versus filling!:p Regarding whether renewable jobs are the right or wrong kind for the success of the country, I guess as renewables are part of the energy mix then by definition we need jobs created in that sector, and we should also be expanding in the manufacture and export of renewable technology while we are at it.

grahamc2003 wrote: »

The test of any sensible generation is whether it can be instructed to generate at the period of maximum demand. The coal fired stataions you don't seem to like (the largest and cleanest being 36 years old and not near its end of life, contrary to your post) can be relied upon to produce electricity when needed, windmills and solar panels can't be. No matter how many short-lived windmills (each leaving us with hundreds of tons of waste concrete to deal with) and solar we install, we still have to have sufficient conventional capacity (oil, gas, coal, Nuclear) to meet the maximum demand (plus contingency), so building windmills isn't making coal stations dissappear, it's just causing duplicity (i.e. we pay twice for windmill/solar capacity, and that is in the billions of course).

Sorry about seeming anti conventional power stations, wrong choice of words maybe, I realise we need those as well for the reasons you have stated (although hydroelectric can be called on to cater for peaks in demand in lieu of conventional sources). Having a mix of all of the above including renewable, should help us at least to reduce our consumption of fossil fuel, and make our existing reserves last longer so we have more time to find further reserves to help maintain energy security, and develop the technology to make them even less polluting and reduce the rate of possible climate change. Not to mention developing the technology to integrate all these sources of power onto the grid and distribute it where it is needed as efficiently as possibly. Although I guess we must be getting there on that seeing as we are seeing a huge increase in a range of diverse technologies powering the grid.

zeupater

TrickyDicky101 wrote: »

It's not just not necessarily true, it's utter sh*te. We could all be making stuff 100% of the time. But with no idea how to market, design, develop, sell or use said items (and a whole host of other 'service-related' skills) we would be in a very sorry state.

Hi

Agree to a certain extent (apart from the'utter sh*te' part ), but the majority of manufacturers have their own design, development & marketing functions. They take materials, add value by making something physical which has a value and therefore create wealth when that item is traded. There are very few service industries which add significant value, but many which just add cost, some are necessary, but some are unnecessarily expensive .

The UK has a great history of design, development, manufacturing & marketing products, however, in recent years we first forgot how to market our own products and then ignored how essential manufacturing is to the balance of trade and the economy as a whole .... it might be a little too late to have finally realised this .

HTH
Z

grumpyoldsteve

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

In reality the only creator of wealth is the creation of something physical, apart from that everything else is merely a leach on that wealth, distributing and recycling it around the service and public sectors. This is where successive recent governments have failed...

Z

Here, here, cannot disagree with that. This is the same mentality which devalued tradesmen skills learnt through hands on work learnt in proper apprenticeships where you learn to make and build physical things doing real work in the process - I had one of those jobs once, now I am just a leach as well working for the MoD. These days both goods and skills have to be brought in from foreign lands, because we have lost so much of that ability.

zeupater

orrery wrote: »

Just like Germany did with a similar scheme before us. Now, where is that inverter made that I just ordered? Ah, yes - Germany. Where was the alternative inverter that I was offered made? Ah, yes - Germany.

Our only mistake was not doing it earlier.

Hi

Exactly .... just look at the relative strength of the manufacturing sector in Germany and how better balanced their economy is than ours .... 'Installations in Germany using items manufactured in Germany installed by the German service industries' v 'Installations in the UK using items manufactured in Germany installed by the UK service industries' .... I suppose that under EU law there's actually nothing stopping that being 'Installations in the UK using items manufactured in Germany installed by the German service industries', so all of the jobs could be German, but without a manufacturing base it couldn't be the other way 'round. _pale_

HTH
Z

John_Pierpoint

I bet the Germans get better pay and perhaps get to keep more of their pay?

zeupater

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I bet the Germans get better pay and perhaps get to keep more of their pay?

Their exports offset much of their high public sector costs, which in the UK would need to be, and are, financed by government borrowing or taxes .... I just wonder who will be asked to reduce the national debt in the UK which has been racked up by successive governments spending on the national credit card in order to be 'loved' by the masses instead of setting appropriate level taxation

Z

KevinG

-MRS_T- wrote: »

I have seen this PVGIS mentioned in the thread before but it seems quite complicated and I cant really work it. Is there an easier way. Is the database average they have available on google somewhere do you think.

This one is easy enough:

http://www.efficientenergysaving.co.uk/solar-irradiance-calculator.html

zeupater

-MRS_T- wrote: »

...I have seen this PVGIS mentioned in the thread before but it seems quite complicated and I cant really work it. ...

Hi

In it's most basic form ...

Click on this link ..... http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php
Type the nearest city/town/village to where you live in the box above the map
Click search
Type the size of array (eg '4' for a 4kWp system) in the box marked 'Installed peak PV power '
Type the orientation of your roof into the box marked 'Azimuth' ... (0 is South, 45 is S/W, -45 is S/E etc)
Click on 'Calculate'

The window which opens has a column 'Em' with entries by month ... this is your Estimated generation in kWh for each month. At the bottom of column Em it shows the annual estimated generation alongside where it says 'Total for year' ... assuming that you don't have any shade and you have a standard type roof this is all you will need to do to get an idea of what a system will produce.

HTH
Z