Solar PV Feed In Tariffs - Good or Bad?

rogerblack

'Developing solar technology' is a red-herring from a FIT point of view.

The key technology is pretty much in one, and only one area.
Development of more efficient and cost-effectively manufactured solar cells.
Everything else is essentially make-work, if your aim is to make solar cheaper.

Encouraging people to fit solar panels on their roofs does nothing at all to develop solar cells.
Funding factories to manufacture solar panels from imported cells does nothing.
Funding factories to produce solar cells in the UK, using existing methods does little.
The only real development that can be done to meaningfully drop the cost of solar is to invest in fundamental research, which is going to be expensive to commercialise.
The US recently spent a _large_ amount on this - IIRC totalling a bilion dollars, and some of the companies went under based on the crashing world price of solar-pv

grahamc2003

What Roger said, plus the faux 'job creation' aspect.

Cut the fits, then, as we have seen, many of the newly created jobs simply disappear (obviously). Yet the fit carries on for another 25 years.

Probably the worst job subsidy scheme going, in terms of jobs created per pound spent. It no doubt created some ephemeral jobs in year 1 of the 25 year scheme, but few in year 2 to 25.

Not sure what type of green industry we are trying to create, as is sometimes heard. The industry is already there, mainly in China. I'm not sure if anyone seriously thinks we're going to start making solar cells do they, and installations will soon have 'made in Britasin' stamped on them? At the margin, some companies (no doubt with other government grants) may start up in the UK to assemble solar panels from Chinese solar cells, but is it the aspiration of most these days for the UK to become an assembly factory for Chinese goods?

As to the puerile argument that anyone who dares raise some salient facts about solar power being unable to have them, then I can confirm that is a false assertion.

don0301

@grahamc2003

good job your posts are always brimming with salient facts, hey

ps thanks for subsidising my FiT

grahamc2003

don0301 wrote: »

@grahamc2003

good job your posts are always brimming with salient facts, hey

ps thanks for subsidising my FiT

Thanks for contributing to the debate.

Do you have any response whatsoever to the points I raised, apart from the trite and banal?

HalloweenJack

sharp panels are made in the uk not just assembled....

don0301

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Thanks for contributing to the debate.

Do you have any response whatsoever to the points I raised, apart from the trite and banal?

was that a bite, bob? lol

cheer up, its all good

as soon as you make any decent point, Ill consider an appropriate response

ps thanks for subsidising my FiT :j

rogerblack

HalloweenJack wrote: »

sharp panels are made in the uk not just assembled....

True.
However, manufacturing a well understood product that is made in many plants throughout the world does not advance solar technology other than very marginally.

HalloweenJack

it was replying to grahamc2003 who said we didnt have any `made in britain` solar panels when in fact we do....

grahamc2003

HalloweenJack wrote: »

it was replying to grahamc2003 who said we didnt have any `made in britain` solar panels when in fact we do....

Did I really? I thought I said we wouldn't make solar cells in the uk, but we could have an assembly function here. Must be mistaken, as must Sharp themselves, who, on their website, says Sharp in the UK solder together Japanese manufactured cells.

Unfortunately, the Wrexham assembly factory has recently announced plans for 500 redundancies (accoprding to the Wrexham local rag - anyone have any more definitive information?), leaving the workforce halved. Not very nice at all, but it does illustrate (yet again) that businesses dependent on subsidies simply downsize with the subsidy. It's hardly rocket science. And the subsidies are hardly building a sustainable business, now are they?

Anyhow, think I'll go for a spin in the DeLorien.

Martyn1981

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Anyhow, think I'll go for a spin in the DeLorien.

Well spin her up to 88 and go back 10 years. You'll find a lot more people who agree with you.

Almost every country on the planet is now investing in renewables. They don't necessarily like it, but they're not stupid.

The world moves on, and most people become better informed, well I say most people....

Mart.