MSE News: Solar subsidies to be slashed under government plans

zeupater

digitaltoast wrote: »

Watch last night's Panorama, "What's Fuelling Your Energy Bill?", then come back we'll take it from there...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0177101

Hi

A quick question which is most relevant ..... is it pv which you seem to object to, or is it subsidy ?

Z

orrery

digitaltoast wrote: »

Watch last night's Panorama, "What's Fuelling Your Energy Bill?", then come back we'll take it from there...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0177101

It was about the cost of wind energy - I watched it through knowing that I have the guys in installing solar PV now and there was little or no mention of solar.

grahamc2003

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

A quick question which is most relevant ..... is it pv which you seem to object to, or is it subsidy ?

Z

Not addressed to me, but I'll give you my take on the situation, because it's clear from your recent posts that you are confused on some people's comments.

PV is fine. I have a small solar panel to keep the battery topped up on a car I rarely use. As a contribution to the grid power requirements, solar in the UK is simply an insignificant nonsense in power terms, but a very high penalty in cost terms. If you spend billions on solar panels all over the uk, then you still have to spend more billions on generation which can supply power at the peak time, when the small contribution for the billions pounds worth of solar produces absolutely zero. (Can't you see any resource waste there?).

Subsidies to encourage and jockey along potentially viable industries are fine, and necessary. But subsidies which simply flog a dead horse for industries which, in a free market, will never. in the forseeable future, become competitive or viable in the UK are nothing short of madness.

Expertise and cash are rare resource. Common sense tells you that the deployment of rare resources should go to where they have the most benefit. If billions are being spent on solar, that means those billions aren't being spent on other technologies. For example, if it were spent on a new Nuclear build now, then we would have electricity generated on demand, a substantive generation at the period of peak demand, at 1/10th of the cost of solar, and in the scale required by the grid. Solar in the UK cannot generate on demand, will produce zero at the peak, costs at least 10 times the market price and is not available on the scale the grid requires in the near future. These are pretty serious attributes, which, if decisions were based on engineering requirements, would immediately (and very obviously) kick solar into touch in the uk. In any case, even after whatever is spent on solar, we will still have the overwheling requirement for more billions to be spent on substantive reliabe generation (and in the uk, our choices are limited to just one choice, which we can either like or lump, unfortunately).

I'm dissapointed you haven't responded to my comment about my in extremis example of hamsters generating electricity, and which argument of your rejects that method of generation. None does as far as I can see. You could generate employment, have it a part of the generation mix, ensure the UK is a world leader in hamster generation, is very green due to the biofuel diet hamsters eat, etc etc. What is missing from your argument in my view, is any analysis of whether the hamster, or solar, is an efficient method of supplying electricity to the grid.

digitaltoast

zeupater wrote: »

A quick question which is most relevant ..... is it pv which you seem to object to, or is it subsidy ?

It's the subsidy of PV. To expand.... what Graham says just above this post, basically!

BornAtTheRightTime

grahamc2003 wrote: »

What is missing from your argument in my view, is any analysis of whether the hamster, or solar, is an efficient method of supplying electricity to the grid.

I can't help but think it would be very difficult to get the facts and figures to do this analysis... do you happen to have the information available?

John_Pierpoint

grahamc2003 wrote: »

If billions are being spent on solar, that means those billions aren't being spent on other technologies. For example, if it were spent on a new Nuclear build now, then we would have electricity generated on demand, a substantive generation at the period of peak demand, at 1/10th of the cost of solar, and in the scale required by the grid.

I am far from convinced that Nuclear bomb factories are a cheap option if they have to pay their total costs, including guarding the waste they "breed" for (say) 50,000 years.

It is looking like there is soon to be yet another set to in the Middle East to stop the Iranian bomb factory - not sure it will be as simple as the surprise raid, by the "illegal" bomb country Israel, launched against Iraq and its French mentors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium

http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2011/11/08/warmongers-blood-letting/

Cardew

BornAtTheRightTime wrote: »

I can't help but think it would be very difficult to get the facts and figures to do this analysis... do you happen to have the information available?

It depends what type you use; Chinese hamsters(as you would expect) give an excellent output day and night.

However the Syrian is only active during the day so, much like solar, never generates when it is really required.

digitaltoast

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

It is looking like there is soon to be yet another set to in the Middle East to stop the Iranian bomb factory - not sure it will be as simple as the surprise raid, by the "illegal" bomb country Israel, launched against Iraq and its French mentors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium

Why would you be thinking of plutonium?
Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

grahamc2003

BornAtTheRightTime wrote: »

I can't help but think it would be very difficult to get the facts and figures to do this analysis... do you happen to have the information available?

I too think the figures would be hard to find - but we could do a back of the fag packet calc.

You could probably get hold of a decent Golden for £10, plus about £30 for a cage, so £40 for a decent 0.5wp system. To qualify for a subsidy, it would have to be an approved installation properly installed by someone qualified in the Mouselikegeneration Certification Scheme. MCS registration would guarantee a high quality cage and a happy rodent. Typical fully inclusive costs would be around the £8.5k mark (assuming 5% vat).

To encourage investment in this important and novel generation area and welcome addition to the generation mix, a return of appox 22%pa, index linked and tax free seems fair, which works out at £1650pa return, plus the electricity generated (which would be around 0.7p per annum, although some make dubious claims of up to 3p pa).

At about 10% efficiency, the power generated would be 440wh pa, meaning the subsidy would be around £3400/kwh, (to be paid for by all other hamster owners so as not to affect government spending).

Looks great to me, and the proof is everyone who gets £1650 for keeping a hamster thinks it's a fantastic idea - just ask them.

zeupater

Hi

Very interesting take on things, so addressing in order ....

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Not addressed to me, but I'll give you my take on the situation, because it's clear from your recent posts that you are confused on some people's comments.

I'm not confused on anthing to do with the comments .... what I am surprised of is that there is a misconception that pv=subsidy=forever=bad as opposed to nuclear=subsidy=forever=good, the only difference is the subjects of pv & nuclear which have been exchanged, therefore there's a logical view that it's pv not subsidy which causes the arguments, whereas another option of pv=timelimitedsubsidy=temporary=good is not considered

grahamc2003 wrote: »

PV is fine. I have a small solar panel to keep the battery topped up on a car I rarely use. As a contribution to the grid power requirements, solar in the UK is simply an insignificant nonsense in power terms, but a very high penalty in cost terms. If you spend billions on solar panels all over the uk, then you still have to spend more billions on generation which can supply power at the peak time, when the small contribution for the billions pounds worth of solar produces absolutely zero. (Can't you see any resource waste there?).

Let's take a hypothetical situation where the cost of solar, due to the temporary subsidy, reduces to a value where it is viable to install simply on something akin to a net-metering basis and therefore the cost of installation is fully bourne by the consumer .... isn't it the case that the 'very high penalty in cost terms' would be the choice of the consumer, a situation where the system is a consumer product. Yes, solar is currently insignificant, so were digital watch or video sales in the 70s, but times change. As for spending billions on pv when it's consumerised, well that would likley be the first time in the history of the UK that there wouldn't be some form of subsidy for generation capacity ... yes there will be a requirement for redundant capacity, but that's the issue isn't it, the capacity would be redundant .... no fuel requirement, just sitting there waiting ..... what you seem to be concentrating on is a waste of capital resource, whilst possibly failing to consider the waste of energy providing resource, the fuel itself .... again, with sufficient days of storage capacity major generating plant capacity could be taken offline for considerable periods ... an alternative would be to consumerise the storage capacity too, enabling virtually off-grid existance for many ....

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Subsidies to encourage and jockey along potentially viable industries are fine, and necessary. But subsidies which simply flog a dead horse for industries which, in a free market, will never. in the forseeable future, become competitive or viable in the UK are nothing short of madness.

Let's really consider that point .... The Fit tariff subsidy was set at a level when installations were £5 to £6/Wp and after 19 months of scheme operation a typical system would be under/around £3/Wp, with further reductions to around £2/Wp expected over the next few months .... What we're looking at is a 66% reduction in prices within two years which is solely due to free market competition combined with global FiT scheme support on a reducing level basis .... flogging a dead horse ? .... I wonder if a nuclear power station of the same design being commissioned two years after another would come in at one-third the price ? ...... To put this into context, consider the following: if the same level of cost/price reduction is possible over the next two years systems would be available at under 70p/Wp, therefore a 4kWp costing £2800 could be viable under net-metering or a combined savings/export basis and importantly, being able to achieve this without further installation subsidy .....

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Expertise and cash are rare resource. Common sense tells you that the deployment of rare resources should go to where they have the most benefit. If billions are being spent on solar, that means those billions aren't being spent on other technologies. For example, if it were spent on a new Nuclear build now, then we would have electricity generated on demand, a substantive generation at the period of peak demand, at 1/10th of the cost of solar, and in the scale required by the grid. Solar in the UK cannot generate on demand, will produce zero at the peak, costs at least 10 times the market price and is not available on the scale the grid requires in the near future. These are pretty serious attributes, which, if decisions were based on engineering requirements, would immediately (and very obviously) kick solar into touch in the uk. In any case, even after whatever is spent on solar, we will still have the overwheling requirement for more billions to be spent on substantive reliabe generation (and in the uk, our choices are limited to just one choice, which we can either like or lump, unfortunately).

I agree, but what happens to that very argument if/when the generation cost of solar falls below nuclear or fossil fuels ? .... it simply becomes a need to spend on storage, that's storage for pv, wind, off peak nuclear, wave, tide, fossil and whatever else could be listed ... again, I'm not against any form of generation at all, just pointing out that with temporary subsidy this is likely to happen through prevailing market forces ... a market which can only initially be grown quickly through subsidy.

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I'm dissapointed you haven't responded to my comment about my in extremis example of hamsters generating electricity, and which argument of your rejects that method of generation. None does as far as I can see. You could generate employment, have it a part of the generation mix, ensure the UK is a world leader in hamster generation, is very green due to the biofuel diet hamsters eat, etc etc. What is missing from your argument in my view, is any analysis of whether the hamster, or solar, is an efficient method of supplying electricity to the grid.

There's no need to be dissappointed at all, you probably just missed the answer in post #151 of the thread, so here it is again ....

zeupater wrote: »

.... regarding the regurgitation of the hampsters, well, if you're suggesting that you could install an array of hampsters capable of generating anywhere near the level of an average pv installation, maintain that array for the expected lifespan of a panel based system and do this for the cost equivalent to the capital outlay of a panel sytem then it's worth considering, however, if you can't do that I have no idea why it was raised, because we both know that it's irrelevant ....

I did note that the relevant calculations regarding lifetime feeding and replacement of labour, shiftworking, overtime, working conditions, heathcare and suitable pension arrangements for said hamsters along with the engineering solution for the relevant arrays wasn't forthcoming, so I simply presume that it's just seen to not be cost effective against pv and therefore an irrelevant argument by all concerned .... .... however I did note that you had seen the post as there was (yet another) selective reply .... my argument is from a point of view of subsidy being a temporary requirement to adjust pv costs to an affordable level has been missed or dismissed again as has the fact that it's working, evidenced by falling prices ....

HTH
Z