Impact of solar PV on national grid

grahamc2003

SallyKing wrote: »

Having just re read this thread, I thought it would be worthwhile summarising. So the consenus is that Solar PV reduces the amount of fuel burnt at the power station, but does not help with overall generating capacity.

Sort of. PV will decrease the amount of fuel burnt in stations. But remember, the amount of PV is miniscule on grid scale, so there'll be a miniscule amount of coal/oil/gas (hence co2) saving.

Each PV system installed will add to the total generating capacity of the grid. That number is simply the sum of all the nameplate capacities (termed 'peak capacity' in pv). The more important parameter is Availability, which is the amount of the installed capacity which can be called upon to generate. It's clear that, at the time of maximum demand, around 17:30 on a winter's evening, the whole of the installed solar capacity will have zero Availability. I might as well add that for all the billions of pounds worth of installed wind capacity, zero can be relied upon to have availaibility at those peak periods. The result of that should be obvious - however much wind and solar capacity we have, none of it can be taken into account when ensuring there is sufficient availability to meet peak demand. All that availability (plus some for contingency) has to come from conventional generation.

Another salient point is that this is a capital intensive industry. Very high costs to build the equipment, with low manning and running costs. Any intermittent generation simply causes duplicity of those very high costs associated with capital intensive industries, and redundancy of very expensive generating plant. (I.e. Billions is spent on wind and solar, then necessarily duplicate billions on conventional stations which sit idle if the wind is blowing, just so they can generate when it isn't).

Meanwhile, the number of people going into fuel poverty rises each day.

The_Green_Hornet

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Meanwhile, the number of people going into fuel poverty rises each day.

Including Her Majesty The Queen. Apparently she is only one more price rise away.

Just goes to show what a meaningless phrase "fuel poverty" is.

SallyKing

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Meanwhile, the number of people going into fuel poverty rises each day.

Yes, exactly which is why is a disgrace that we are being mislead over the costs for nuclear - £260 every year from each and every taxpayer.

Meanwhile, wholesale costs are dropping and the profits for the Big 6 just keep growing. I thought that Ofgem were supposed to stop the energy companies from making excessive profits?

Nationalised shale gas may well prove to be the future.

grahamc2003

The_Green_Hornet wrote: »

Including Her Majesty The Queen. Apparently she is only one more price rise away.

Just goes to show what a meaningless phrase "fuel poverty" is.

It's just shorthand for 'spends greater than 10% of disposable income on energy for the home (or palace I suppose)'. Please feel free to suggest an alternative expression which indicates that energy costs are getting unaffordable for many people, and expensive for the rest.

Does the Queen really have an income which is only ten times her energy costs? Seems unbelieveable to me, but I suppose accountants at the disposal of the Queen can come up with any financial fact she wants. In any case, even if the Queen is in fuel poverty, I don't see how that makes the term meaningless.

Cardew

SallyKing wrote: »

Meanwhile, wholesale costs are dropping and the profits for the Big 6 just keep growing. I thought that Ofgem were supposed to stop the energy companies from making excessive profits?

Not so! Ofgem have no such powers.

grahamc2003

SallyKing wrote: »

Yes, exactly which is why is a disgrace that we are being mislead over the costs for nuclear - £260 every year from each and every taxpayer.

Meanwhile, wholesale costs are dropping and the profits for the Big 6 just keep growing. I thought that Ofgem were supposed to stop the energy companies from making excessive profits?

Nationalised shale gas may well prove to be the future.

I'm afraid your first paragraph is a paradox.

Having worked for many years on the various stages of privatisation of the industry, having supported it for many years, I now think it was a mistake, mainly because of the new supplier functions introduced which simply didn't exist before. All the crap customers have to deal with appears to me to have originated from poorly qualified managers taken on to run these new supplier functions. Suppliers seem to go out of their way to introduce needless complexity and confusion, which even they don't understand.

Ofgem does appear to be toothless in the face of the supplier cartel, but remember the government pulls their strings in this now highly political business.

As to shale gas - well that the talk of the moment. But as I said before, there's a world of difference between something having potential and realising that potential. There are hundreds of technologies with the potential to help in our looming energy crisis, but the nature of things is that very few technologies actually come to fruition. Take Fusion for example - that's had potential for decades. Whether a fossil fuel like shale gas can defeat the green lobby these days is an interesting question.

rogerblack

grahamc2003 wrote: »

It's just shorthand for 'spends greater than 10% of disposable income on energy for the home (or palace I suppose)'. Please feel free to suggest an alternative expression which indicates that energy costs are getting unaffordable for many people, and expensive for the rest.

'Would spend greater than 10% of disposable income on energy for the home, if it were heated to minimally acceptable standards'.

I'm not in fuel poverty, simply as I've not got the heating on, and am on the sofa, under an electric blanket.

This would also cover people who aren't rationally in fuel poverty, because for example, they have the house heated to 28C (when they are fit), and leave windows open sometimes, they spend more than 10% of their income on fuel.