MSE News: Legal threats over solar subsidy cuts

Cardew

I have a place in Florida, my brother lives in California and I have lots of friends and relatives in the USA.

Whilst a few have solar thermal for their pool, I don't know anyone who has solar PV. I talked to my brother tonight who has solar for the pool,(still just usable in early Nov) and he is not aware of anyone with Solar PV.

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

I have a place in Florida, my brother lives in California and I have lots of friends and relatives in the USA.

Whilst a few have solar thermal for their pool, I don't know anyone who has solar PV. I talked to my brother tonight who has solar for the pool,(still just usable in early Nov) and he is not aware of anyone with Solar PV.

Hi

In reality it's probably the same over here. Having pv we tend to notice panels as we drive around which others wouldn't necessarily see .... I would say that there are probably more people who have been made aware of solar pv from all of the press & TV coverage concerned with the reduction of FiT than had been been aware of the scheme before .... afterall 'There's no such thing as bad publicity' ...


Z

BarryQ

I think the problem is not just that the government is acting illegally but that successive governments have failed to implement a sensible long term strategy to provide the UK with an affordable, safe and secure energy supply.

Gas and oil isn't going to last forever and nuclear produces waste that we cannot deal with safely.

Of course we do have the option of invading another oil rich country to secure our supplies but we are rapidly running out of countries who have any oil left and it won't be as easy now the government are making all the soldier redundant.

We could always have another protest about high fuel prices like when petrol hit £1 a litre because that worked so well.

If you didn't get the sarcasm in the last two sentences let me spell it out, if you vote for the same old then that is what you are going to get.

jimjames

Regardless of the rights or wrongs of the system and dropping the tariff payments does seem to make sense, it is a complete farce that the cut is implemented before the consultation is even completed.

Not exactly the best advert for the govt to show that a consultation is actually worthwhile and not a foregone conclusion.

Andy_WSM

BarryQ wrote: »

If you didn't get the sarcasm in the last two sentences let me spell it out, if you vote for the same old then that is what you are going to get.

Without getting too political - I don't remember voting in the coalition...

HalloweenJack

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-15711200


have a read - another reason why this ` green power` is costing us money - the national grid is charging the north to send power down the wires;.

At present, those feeding power into the grid pay a charge of £24 per kilowatt if they are in the north of Scotland, western Highlands and Skye. It is slightly lower for those around Peterhead. A sliding scale charges those in the south of Scotland about £12.
But in much of the south of England, there is a subsidy of more than £6 per kilowatt.

lets sort that out first maybe.....

BarryQ

Unless I have misunderstood what you are saying, energy being fed into the grid gets this surcharge added.

That to me sounds just plain crazy seeing a kWh is charged at about 14p to the customer and companies buy in power from consumers at around 3p.

I must be missing something?

If this is the case then surely it makes a sensible case for people to generate their own power suing technologies such as solar as it would work out a hell of a lot cheaper.

HalloweenJack wrote: »

have a read - another reason why this ` green power` is costing us money - the national grid is charging the north to send power down the wires;.




lets sort that out first maybe.....

jamesd

BarryQ wrote: »

Unless I have misunderstood what you are saying, energy being fed into the grid gets this surcharge added.

It's not really a surcharge. It's a shipping charge based on where the power is being generated and where it will be shipped to to supply consumers.

BarryQ wrote: »

That to me sounds just plain crazy seeing a kWh is charged at about 14p to the customer and companies buy in power from consumers at around 3p. ... I must be missing something?

The costs quoted in the story are per kilowatt. The prices you've quoted for consumers are per kilowatt-hour - one kilowatt used for one hour. The access charge is for power generation that can supply the one kilowatt forever, not just for one hour. It's to cover the cost of building and operating the transmission lines to get that power to its markets.

A discount in central London because getting that to market costs less than the base charge that it takes for power stations in the country as a whole. A higher cost in Scotland, the edges of Wales and the edges of the South West or Islands to reflect their greater distance and need for longer and more transmission lines than average.

HalloweenJack wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-15711200 ... have a read - another reason why this ` green power` is costing us money - the national grid is charging the north to send power down the wires;. ... lets sort that out first maybe.....

Wrong way around, that isn't adding to the way green power costs money, it's helping to reduce the effect by discouraging siting power sources far from their markets. Build a place far from where the customers are and any business should expect to pay the cost of shipping the goods to their customers.

"The Redpoint draft report shows how charging might change over the next ten years to pay for upgrades of the national grid - with the grid access charge for power from the north of Scotland being more than doubled to nearly £60 per kilowatt, while central London power stations would have a £12 subsidy."

That seems entirely right to me. New generation should be paying the cost of the transportation it requires. If it doesn't then it's an added subsidy that we'd all be paying to put power generation in the wrong places.

While there are issues with domestic solar power installations, one of their significant advantages is that they generate power where it's needed, so they won't add as much additional need for transmission line building as some other sources of power.

This doesn't mean I'm opposed to power generation in the north of Scotland, though. No problem with that and siting users of the power close to the generation to reduce the shipping costs. That's why you find things like aluminium smelters and electroplating businesses close to hydro power plants in many places.

Another possible approach would be for those who think they can ship the goods more cheaply to build their own shipping system and have that join the grid wherever it makes economic sense to do so.

No surprise that some in Scotland would be begging for a subsidy of shipping costs to be paid to generators in Scotland, though. That's just regional beggar thy neighbour politics as usual.

HalloweenJack

Wrong way around, that isn't adding to the way green power costs money, it's helping to reduce the effect by discouraging siting power sources far from their markets. Build a place far from where the customers are and any business should expect to pay the cost of shipping the goods to their customers.

but - now we have the wall of NIMBY about south based on shore turbines.... - scotland is better location for wind and tidal power, given that large area`s are unihabited , and we WOULD save money and appease the NIMBY by balancing the system - or are you openly against green power in this way? reduce the `fine` being paid for having out of sight and out of mind wind farms.

BUT , there is a need for nuclear as well, something i agree with - all renewables have a place.

John_Pierpoint

jamesd wrote: »

While there are issues with domestic solar power installations, one of their significant advantages is that they generate power where it's needed, so they won't add as much additional need for transmission line building as some other sources of power.

The problem is that domestic solar PV (electric) panels is that they generate zero power, when it is needed: early evening in mid winter.
This means we still have to build the expensive second national grid to get that missing peak power from somewhere - nuclear cannot be turned on and off at short notice - so we are back to hoping there is a good stiff breeze in Scotland or off shore, or we will be firing up those gas turbines (jet engines) round our major cities.

Perhaps the intelligent meter and having summer time all the time South of Gretna Green might help as would more combined heat and power schemes?

"Why is the ice cream melting ? - Because the intelligent grid has turned off the freezer and we have yet to invest in an "A" rated new design.!"