MSE news: Government solar panel plans legally flawed

Martyn1981

grahamc2003 wrote: »

1 never
2 never
3 never

(Never = within the forseeable future)

They only generate during troughs of demand when electricity is cheap, and never at the peak, when electricity is very expensive. When smart meters have variable tariffs, you'll see the scale of the difference in retail prices, and the really low benefit solar actually gives. (This little nugget is hidden at the moment with retail prices being constant throughout the day for domestic users).

The 'midday peak' is simply a figment of your imagination.

My guess, based on Nov / Dec price drops bringing a 4kWp system down to about £8k (£2k per kWp), and all based in s. west;

1. Need prices at about £1,500 per kWp, so 10kWp system with economies of scale on panels, and savings on a larger inverter. If premises in use 6 days a week giving 80% to 90% consumption of generated units - probably about now.

2. Need prices at about £1,250 per kWp if consumption high, and daytime use. £1,100 per kWp or less if consumption lower and light daytime use - 3 to 5 years.

3. To be honest no idea. With such a tough wholesale price target, the panels would have to be very cheap, and it would probably all boil down to annual land, admin, security and insurance costs.

As for the mid day peak, if you don't believe me nor the national grid site, then I doubt you can be persuaded. If for argument sake there was a mid day peak, you'd see it higher in the summer than the winter due to a/c consumption, which conveniently mirrors PV generation, making an office roof installation highly suitable.

Cheers.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

Well if a commercial solar farm could exist with no subsidy - then Great - except as I understand it nowhere in the world can the manage without subsidy.

I have no more idea of the costs than you, and what is the point in speculating?

One thing is cast iron certain, that is a solar farm with the economy of scale with optimum, non shaded, orientation will be far more efficient than sub-4kWp installations dotted all over the country. That is both for installation and subsequent maintenance.

This is why all Governments reduce the level of subsidy as the installation gets bigger.

If a solar farm can produce solar electricity at, say, 50% of the price of sub 4kWp installations, what is the point in trying to determine the subsidy for a sub-4kWp installation?

Give me one financial argument to justify the sub-4kWp installation?

1. Retail prices are easier to approach than wholesale prices.

But the sub 4kWp installation has a tougher fight than a commercial installation in the 10 to 50 range due to consumption of generated units

2. You may be right that a solar farm can produce at half the price, I don't honestly know. But the annual running costs may have a large effect on this. Plus even at 25% consumption, a domestic system (1/4 retail price savings and 3/4 wholesale export earnings) breakeven price target is twice that of the farm.

All of this is subjective however. If the aim is to remove subsidies, then commercial may be the start we needed. If maximum generation of clean energy is the target, and fast, then investment in PV farms, where they are most economical.

Hope that helps.

Mart.

anon_ymous

Im not one to refuse free money but surely when the price of solar panels come down, the feed in tariffs should too, and the money given from feed in tariffs could be pumped in to commercial, business grade investments?

Considering that you "save" you £670/year on bills with the FIT's
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generate-your-own-energy/Financial-incentives/Feed-In-Tariffs-scheme-FITs

these should pay back after around 15 years (average installation being £10000) If say, the price of solar panels come down to £1000 (Not saying it's possible but Im not saying it's impossible either), it would make less sense for the government to pump money in to these things if they come down in price by that much

At the moment however, hopefully the government giving FIT's to people will fuel the renewable sector and eventually it could take care of itself, considering the amount of investment gone in to it

anon_ymous

Martyn1981 wrote: »

1. Retail prices are easier to approach than wholesale prices.

But the sub 4kWp installation has a tougher fight than a commercial installation in the 10 to 50 range due to consumption of generated units

2. You may be right that a solar farm can produce at half the price, I don't honestly know. But the annual running costs may have a large effect on this. Plus even at 25% consumption, a domestic system (1/4 retail price savings and 3/4 wholesale export earnings) breakeven price target is twice that of the farm.

All of this is subjective however. If the aim is to remove subsidies, then commercial may be the start we needed. If maximum generation of clean energy is the target, and fast, then investment in PV farms, where they are most economical.

Hope that helps.

Mart.

Commercially, there is at least one company which runs entirely on renewable energy. I was very surprised to see them being cheaper than nPower for electricity (not as cheap as M&S, but still much cheaper). Here's the company:

http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/

Im not too sure if they'll sell gas, y'know being all renewable and green etc... -Their eco shop is a bit expensive though

EDIT: I don't know why the gov't cares more about solar than wind power. I mean wind may not be as green as solar, but we could sell wind to the world. We barely get any sun in this country either. I mean wind does get some subsidy ( I think) but it's not as talked about

Though if more and more solar panels work on the basis of absorption of light however, that's slightly different

EDIT 2: Just wondering if any one knows how a regional subsidy would work out ie: to get the maximum money to put in to the national grid. How about more subsidy for solar panels in the south and more subsidy for wind power in the north and vice versa

Martyn1981

waqasahmed - be warned, thinking about such things is a slippery slope, you could end up as confused as me!

Regional tariffs, off the top of my head thoughts. Sounds logical, support the best areas first. But, support for the better areas will annoy those in less favourable areas. But that is sensible if not politically riskable (bad english). But, the current tariffs reward generation so don't abnormally support poor (solar poor) areas. But, that still means disproportionate investment per kWh generated. The better areas are southern where population density is higher. But, the south is seen as richer than the north so uneven subsidies ......

Total minefield, and that's just 2 mins of thinking.

Personally I think there has to be some acceptance that there is no overall good solution to this until subsidies are completely removed.

If any of my guesses, (and that's all they are) are correct, then once international prices have fallen far enough and subsidies are gone we should see a natural 'creeping' of private installations from the south west spreading across the UK. But when?

More guesses, but even with lower local electricity prices, some areas of the world have already begun to reach this point. But can we?

Did some quick checking on PVGIS, and compared Plymouth (just because I've referred to it before) to N. Africa.

4kWp system, south facing.

Plymouth 35deg incline = 3,840 units
Casablanca (I thought coastal cooling may help) 30 deg = 5,810 units
Jabil National Park also 30deg = 5,940 units

So the UK needs 50% more sun. Not much I can do about that, but there is another solution, more panels.

Twice as many panels would make our generation comparable, but that would cost twice as much. Not if panel prices half again in cost, which they look likely to do in the next 2 to 3 years. There is however a downside (isn't there always), whilst we might be able to match total average generation, we wouldn't be able to match the longer day spread, and the day to day consistency. Certainly not without better storage, and that's an even bigger headache. If panels were cheap enough, then a proportion could be positioned to include west sun for end of day generation 8pm + in the summer, but these would still not add any generation after 4pm in late December.

Your figure of £1,000, if applied to a large 16 panel system equates to £62.50 per panel. 2 years ago I'd have thought you insane, 1 year ago eccentric, but now with panel costs already around £1 / watt (£200ish) in Britain and under 1euro / watt in Germany- I wouldn't bet against you!

A few days ago Jamesd pointed out that we could now just sit back and wait, which is an interesting idea. And,

HUD made an excellent comment earlier, that sums everything up better than I or my counterparts have so far:

"where the set-up cost is unpalletable, but the downstream costs will be unaffordable."

That's the crux of the whole issue, but unlike most renewables, PV is moving so fast that we shouldn't have to wait too much longer to get a better fix on the situation.

Personally, my best guess on UK PV contributing a small but financially sustainable amount to the ever growing diversity of our electricity supply, well how best to put it:

"the futures so bright, we're gonna need shades, we're gonna need shades".

Thanks for listening.

Mart.

[Deleted User]

Now if only you guys lobbied parliament before FITs was implemented...

Martyn1981

jeepjunkie wrote: »

Now if only you guys lobbied parliament before FITs was implemented...

Nah, I leave the lobbying to the experts, I'm just a nosey guy, with a quick mouse finger who likes to learn new stuff! :rudolf:

Mart.

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

Put it another way, if large farms could produce as many potatoes as the UK needed, and deliver them to the distribution point, for 15p a kilo, would we even consider paying a few private individuals 30p a kilo for exactly the same product? i.e. make every consumer pay double for his potatoes by way of a subsidy?

Yet that is exactly what we are doing with solar electricity. We know solar farms can produce as much electricity, at a certain price, as the Government needs to meet its treaty obligations , yet the big debate on this thread is should we make all 25 million electricity customers, give 1% of private owners double that price?

Edit
If we were to make a true comparison with solar, don't forget that 25% or even 50% of the electricity generated is used in the house and not exported. So take one of the people who claim to use 50% of generated electricity in the house. For every 2 kWh they generate we presently pay them 86.6p + 3.1p = 89.7p. However they only export 1kWh so we, the electricity consumer are paying 89.7p/kWh for electricity.

Considering the hard time I've been giving you lately, it's only fair and polite of me to acknowledge when I think you are right.

I agree with everything you say above, and your analogies (unlike your Hamster idea - please don't invest any more of your money in that scheme), are spot on.

My only gripe is that you keep reverting back to subsidies, and trying to beat PV over the head with them. All of my arguments and numbers relate to the (hopefully) short term removal of these for smaller systems. This is also ironically the background to this thread, which relates to the 50% reduction of PV Fits after only 2 years, which identically matches the 50% drop in install prices over the same period.

I appreciate the reduction has been stalled, but that was due to legal issues, not sensibilities. Whether it is the 1/1/12 or the 1/4/12 or somewhere inbetween, I can't imagine the reduction being any less. And hopefully we'll see more regular management of the tariffs, I'd like to see 6 monthly adjustments at the very least.

Perhaps we're reaching some form of consensus?

Best of luck.

Mart.

rogermunns

It should be a crime for a government to offer such a generous subsidy. The whole set up is absurd. Notice how the posts here are mainly commenting on rate of return, payback etc. That attitude to life is just why the country is in such a financial mess. Try working for a living!

grahamc2003

rogermunns wrote: »

It should be a crime for a government to offer such a generous subsidy. The whole set up is absurd. Notice how the posts here are mainly commenting on rate of return, payback etc. That attitude to life is just why the country is in such a financial mess. Try working for a living!

Even at 21p/kWh, the subsidy for solar dwarfs all othe subsidies, with the rhi being around the 6 to 11p/kWh. Should be a sign of the inefficiency of solar, but, as you say, those benefitting from the fit aren't at all concerned about things like efficiencies, only the number of ackers they can get in their bank account. To be environmental means being efficient, so there's a paradox there in the fit (not that that concerns anyone).

Reminds me a bit of the film Wall St - 'Greed is good', except these days it's 'Green is good' as some sort of justification without conscience for taking 1.5 grand pa off generally poorer people for being 'green' (which to my mind is usually the opposite of environmentally aware). (and what a lovely word con science is!). Sheesh, even home wind turbines still get a subsidy, and they were proved to be an absolute waste of resources for a negative benefit a few years ago.