Solar PV Feed In Tariffs - Good or Bad?

Cardew

albyota wrote: »

Thanks Cardew, I wonder if it would be worth graham or Ze or Mart or indeed your good self actually doing some projected 2012....2013....2014....2015 figures......lets face it we can't go back, and must look to what this means for the future......

That is totally dependant on the level of subsidy the poor have to pay the middle classes(to quote George Monbiot )

If they pay a big enough subsidy for electricity generated by by Hamsters turning their wheel, Britain could become world leaders. - and Hamsters work on a winter's evening when the UK has its peak load.

albyota

Cardew wrote: »

That is totally dependant on the level of subsidy the poor have to pay the middle classes(to quote George Monbiot )

If they pay a big enough subsidy for electricity generated by by Hamsters turning their wheel, Britain could become world leaders. - and Hamsters work on a winter's evening when the UK has its peak load.

my bold.....What peak load?? think future

edit.............without subsidies

albyota

WWF has produced this.......we live in hope eh?

http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/2011_02_02_the_energy_report_full.pdf

John_Pierpoint

Congratulations on a civilised debate everyone.
The BBC world service has been enthusing about scientific progress expected in 2012. including the better battery:
That gives us a surface area the size of Wales.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/better-battery-storage-0725.html

[Reality check - our walk-round-the-house land-line phone system from "Siemens" is only about a year old and already showing symptoms of battery decay.. That is worse than its "brick" predecessor]

Martyn1981

Just to clarify a few points;

Z - I agree entirely about the 'when' that 500,000MWh's will be produced, and would accept that last years generation should be reduced to say 1/3. However, the original statement included a reference to this year and 20 mins, during which the full 500GWh's, plus some more would apply, so it appeared to be horses for courses, and reasonably fair.

I actually spotted this mistake on the 13/1/12 post #258 'Legal battle launched over solar subsidy cuts'. On that occasion I didn't reach for my calculator as it was clearly out by a huge factor. This suggested to me that a simple error had occurred, perhaps transposing k's, M's or G's. So I let it go, not wishing to 'kick any puppies'.

However, when it was repeated again, by someone who keeps telling me how knowledgeable he is, I believe it was then fair to assume it was a further attempt at dis-information.

This issue has raised a very interesting point (well I find it interesting), current domestic solar, can match Drax for nearly 7 days (using Z's 76.1% number). Remembering that PV is not even in it's infancy yet, it's still in the gestation period, I find that quite impressive.

If PV eventually (and this could be a long time) rolls out over 20% of households, then that number jumps to 140 days. Add in a similar amount of commercial / industrial installs (which I believe are borderline financially viable this year), and your up to 280 days and rising.

If Drax produces around 7% of the UK's electricity, then a clean, renewable power source, that has zero fuel price inflation for its entire life, that can possibly match it - well, isn't that potentially interesting to all of us.

Obviously, I don't want to single Drax out, it provides baseload, which is very valuable, whereas most renewables provide intermittent supply. However, this is the route we have to go down, and any pretence that these numbers are not potentially considerable, is unfair and unjust.

The challenge as I recall it was to 'put up or shut up', well I put up, let us see about the other half.

Thanks for enduring another lengthy lecture, and apologies for all the additional popcorn and pizza costs. Perhaps they can be seen as an early adopter investment.

Martyn.

Can I at this point, please ask for a momentary sanity check, on what renewables hope to achieve. If even one of PV's harshest critics, can now see a 1,000 fold improvement in their potential, then these debates can return to the key point, which is whether or not the current subsidy scheme is of value. To put it bluntly, is the short term pain, worth the long term gain. M.

don0301

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Gulp. Gulp again. Yes, you're right. Humble pie being eaten, apologies to all. No excuses whatsoever .....

- I'll go back and edit some previous posts which may mislead people if left as they are.

now, what was it you said........

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I always find the best way of helping people is to advise on matters where you have some knowledge, not simply make things up as you go along.

:D:D

ps thanks for subsidising my FiT

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

It is worth pointing out that the installed capacity of 625.5MWp was as at 21/12/2011.

So that column with an annual generation of 500,345MWh is not an actual figure(as at 21/12/2011), but an estimate of what that installed capacity will produce assuming 800kWh/kWp.

Given many of those installations would have been installed in the feeding frenzy leading up to 12 Dec 2011, they would have only produced a few kWh.

So have we an estimate what was generated in the last 12 months?

Hi

I agree, that's why I posted this ....

zeupater wrote: »

.... If Wikipedia is to be believed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_Kingdom), then as of August last year the UK had approximately 200MW of installed pv capacity, which they claim to be capable of providing 200GWh of energy over a year, this may be a little high (1000kWh/kWp), so let's work on 840kWh/kWp and say that 168GWh would be the 2011 pv production ....

... and later qualified the position with ....

zeupater wrote: »

... Recent posts have stated capacity installed late in 2011, this is in my view invalid as it wasn't generating throughout 2011. other posts suggest that 500MW of installed capacity is available, but for the same reason this should be discounted, 200MW was a view of the installed capacity mid-year and therefore would likely be considered the average installed capacity for the year as a whole ..... (let's not even consider that the EOY installed capacity, according to DECC, was ~830MWp as this simply means that the 12 minutes becomes 9 days domestic scale to ~10days total ) ....

... in reality I believe that 168GWh for 2011 would be slightly on the low side if there was an average of 200MWp of installed capacity over the year, but it wouldn't be far off so I'd consider it to be a decent guestimate .... there'll probably be some statistics published somewhere when DECC finally get their feedback on payments from the FiT scheme operators.

HTH
Z

HalloweenJack

forget solar and just build the tidal barrage on the severn river

Martyn1981

Interesting article. Seems to state that the 21p rate is a safe bet till 31/3/12.

This does of course raise the obvious question, 'what rate after?'.

I hope this is better managed from now on, with regular reviews.

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2139484/government-clarifies-solar-feed-tariff-rate-industry-uncertainty-escalates

Mart.

Martyn1981

HalloweenJack wrote: »

forget solar and just build the tidal barrage on the severn river

Oy, what's with all the Welsh 'stuff' today. John wants to cover Wales in batteries, and you want to add another invasion point (why do you think we only charge on the bridges to get in)! I tell you, it's more than a WelshBoy can take some days.

HJ, if you want to make a start, I've got a couple of bags of cement in the shed that won't be much use soon. Tidy!

Mart.