MSE News: Legal battle launched over solar subsidy cuts

Martyn1981

I hope the govt gets this sorted quickly. I believe the subsidies can help in the long run, but any pretence that 43.3p is now fair, can only lead to further loss of respect in this scheme. As things are going, the govt could probably justify a further review in April (19p?).

Quick scan for budget changes FITs v's ROCs found this article. You know the govt's handling is in trouble when even a solar company finds it 'silly'.

http://www.leeds-solar.co.uk/blog

Handy little table at the bottom showing cost impact.

Mart.

Cardew

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I hope the govt gets this sorted quickly. I believe the subsidies can help in the long run, but any pretence that 43.3p is now fair, can only lead to further loss of respect in this scheme. As things are going, the govt could probably justify a further review in April (19p?).

Quick scan for budget changes FITs v's ROCs found this article. You know the govt's handling is in trouble when even a solar company finds it 'silly'.

http://www.leeds-solar.co.uk/blog

Handy little table at the bottom showing cost impact.

Mart.

Except the 'handy little table' is wrong. See:

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environment/fits/Documents1/Feed-in%20Tariff%20Table%201%20August%202011.pdf

They correctly show FIT for Standalone dropping to 8.5p/kWh post 01 Aug 2011, but show the original FIT rates for larger installations above 50kWp

Anything above 250kWp had the FIT dropped from from 30.7p/kWp to 8.5p/kWp wef 01 Aug 2011.

grahamc2003

Just as an aside, using figures from that table. For those who want a sense of scale of the contribution of solar in the grand scheme of things, the total energy output from home solar last year was 500MWh, and the total output from Sizewell (one of out Nuclear stations) was 4.7TWh.

Or put another way, Sizewell (i.e. a single station) generated our total annual home solar output in every 54 minutes.

The annual cost of last years home solar fits was £216m. At that rate, Sizewell's output would have cost £2030bn (that's billion).

(I won't labour the point that Nukes generate at the period of maximum demand, therefore don't have to have the capacity duplicated, whereas solar doesn't, so does. Oopse, I just have).

Edit - 17/01/12 the source data here is incorrect, please ignore the numbers in this post

grahamc2003

Could I pre-empt the replies to the above I think likely, and invite anyone so minded to do similar calculations on projected solar/Nuke output for this year, or next year, or any year in fact?

I'd be interested in seeing the year of 'grid parity' between solar and Nukes, i.e. when the solar cost drops to Nuclear costs for example.

don0301

@grahamc2003

your completely missing the point

nuclear power doesnt give me a nice fat cheque every 3 months

or allow me to use my electrical devices for free or extremely cheaply during the day

Martyn1981

Always difficult to guesstimate ahead, but I’ll take a punt, and invite others to have a go, as it’s quite a fun mental exercise / learning experience.

Grid parity, depends on definition, so I’ll try a few.

Unit cost: Looking at Sizewell B, then that has a suggested unit cost of 6p/kWh (excluding future finance costs).

Referring to my post #168, I’d guess that a suitable domestic install, after adding £2,000 for future inverters, could hit approx 5.5p around 2016.

I’d assume that commercial sites and PV farms could hit parity at an earlier date.

Production parity, I’d refer you to my previous guess post #60 ‘Govt to appeal High Court Solar subsidies’. Again only my guess, but rising PV generation and falling nuclear production could meet around 2020 at perhaps 8% of demand each.

Subsidies, well there are many related to the nuclear industry, but to stay within your Sizewell example: Sizewell A alone has an estimated decommissioning cost of £1.2bn, or approx 4 years of FITs subsidies.

Consumption of generation: There are of course a growing number of methods for storing excess generation from renewables, ranging from low efficiency methane / hydrogen production 25% up to pumped storage hydro 70% to 80%.

However, as PV generates (largely) from 8am to 4pm, production is entirely within the period where demand is greater than baseload as displayed in the recent national grid posts / references, (baseload is mostly supplied by nuclear and coal), so storage is not necessary as it enables the grid to reduce its requirement on additional generation means, such as gas. However to avoid localised issues generation will need to be distributed evenly.

Obviously, all of my numbers are simply my own extrapolations drawn on current data, and will therefore contain a growing +/- error factor as the years go on.

One interesting point, that I have avoided up to now, is that of hybrid panels (such as the Sanyo HIT models), these are approx 30% more efficient than standard panels per m2. However, they are about 50% more expensive at the moment, and whilst MCS approved, are relatively new technology compared to ‘old’ tech panels. If their price falls far and fast enough, then most of my guesses will need revising up, proportionally.

Anyway time for lunch, anyone else want to have a play at some of these numbers / guesstimates?.

Mart.

ed110220

grahamc2003 wrote: »

(I won't labour the point that Nukes generate at the period of maximum demand, therefore don't have to have the capacity duplicated, whereas solar doesn't, so does. Oopse, I just have).

Edit - May I also apologise in advance to those offended by the use of facts in these discussions.

Rather misleading as a nuclear powerplant cannot be started and stopped at will - it produces at minimum demand at say 4am just as it does at maximum demand say 7pm.

Therefore, nuclear is best suited to providing baseload capacity, ie enough for minimum demand, on top of which plants that can be fired up on demand will be needed to meet the extra demand above the baseload anyway.

Given that the period of minimum demand is always in darkness (late night-early morning before dawn) solar is not going to contribute when extra electricity is not needed and nuclear can fullfill the task. It will be substituting for rapid-response gas fired plants which will need to be fired up less, thereby saving gas and carbon emissions.

HalloweenJack

except its pointless having solar at peak demand in the winter as its dark by 4.30pm

don0301

so then you fire up the rapid-response gas fired plants

Duh....

HalloweenJack

which defeats the object of the poster i replying to point


duh