Solar PV Feed In Tariffs - Good or Bad?

Cardew

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Sally, well done for having the guts to call it trivial. You are of course right,

Well said Don –

threads like this one you'll find loads of intelligent and dare I say humorous individuals (smiley faces - got to love em). Roger, John, Zenoka, HJ, Don, Blossom, Sally, Penny, James, Ed, Albyota (and everyone else who knows me, as they say on Pop Master).

Do you not feel your obsequious contributions are a little out of place in a ‘Grown Up’ debate?


Silly question I suppose.

jamesingram

Cardew , if you dont like that style of posting do as you suggest, ignore it . happy to have grown up debate, wont mentioned such again. thanks jim

How will Pv and these subsidys possibly benefit us 'all' in the future , if there's a fair agreed result
then we can try and see the worth of the subsidy

grahamc2003

I'm not sure what people are saying with the cost per household of the fit. If it works out at £5, or £20, or £100 it is a poor measure to use. The thing about 'trivial' amounts is that there is an infinite demand for such 'trivial' amounts. If people are saying £20pa (or whatever) is really not worth bothering about, then great - add another £20pa onto everyone's bill, and give me the £990m raised by it. I doubt many would like that idea - therefore (for those who can follow logic) the argument that it is a small amount doesn't hold water - there must be other criteria to decide whether spending £990m on something is worthwhile or not.

I always use the total cost of all these 'green initiatives' - there are so many of them - hundreds in one form or another - that it's likely each one is only a 'trivial' amount (that is, trivial to those who have spare cash well above the trivial amount, but certainly not trivial to those who have less than the trivial amount left over each month.

The only wa of seeing whether solar generation (or wind or wave or any other type) is to compare the cost/kWh generated, and the value of that generation (which varies throughout the day) and then apply various adjustements depending on many and various characteristics of that particular genertion. One massive adjustment would be whether the generation is schedulable or not (i.e. if an grid engineer can schedule - or place an order for - the generation). The generation is high value if it is schedulable, and low value if it isn't. The current view on this board from some is that £1bn is a trivial amount, so it doesn't matter at all whether it's thrown at something which produces not very much, and what little it does produce is of low value. It's called a waste of resources, and that is anything but environmental imv.

Cardew

jamesingram wrote: »

Cardew , if you dont like that style of posting do as you suggest, ignore it . happy to have grown up debate, wont mentioned such again. thanks jim

How will Pv and these subsidys possibly benefit us 'all' in the future , if there's a fair agreed result
then we can try and see the worth of the subsidy

I suspect we will never agree on the 'value' and contribution of solar electricity to meet the UK's needs - the arguments have been well rehearsed.

However we all agree that our political masters have decreed that solar will be part of the 'green' electricity production and they have allocated a fixed sum for this purpose that will be paid directly by electricity customers.

That being the case surely it makes sense to produce as much solar electricity as possible from that allocated funds.

Therefore to pay such a stupidly high level of subsidy(that includes the reduced rate of FIT) to install solar in almost the most inefficient method possible - tiny systems on roofs of far flung properties in UK - is IMO indefensible. To add insult to injury the recipients of that subsidy do not even have to export all that electricity - they can use 50% or even all of it in their houses.

As you are aware I have advocated large solar farms in the South West where economies of scale, highest output in UK and 100% of production exported, must make sense.

Yet there was hardly a murmur of disapproval when the rate for these farms was dropped to 8.5p/kWh early last year; yet an outcry when it was dropped to 21p/kWh for tiny systems.

The only counter argument to 'Solar in the SW' has been to raise the issue of distribution losses. Yet the majority of our power is produced away from centres of population. We are happy to import nuclear electricity from France and bring it in to Kent.

If distribution for SW farms is a 'show stopper' - which IMO is clutching at straws - then have them close to where required. There are hundreds of acres of unused land behind the fences of nuclear power stations.

jamesingram

Graham , all fair , cost/kWh generated compared to current alternatives .
the problem with that is renewables are only recently being invested in ,so will currently have a high £/kwh generated , relative to drax etc. is it possible to forcast the future costings and then look how they compare.
Yes , despatchable/scheduled ( are those the same ?) energy is more valuable.
Renewable energy in most cases cant be relied upon to guarantee despatchable energy for demand so a certain amount of doubling of capacity is required (though diversity of generation type will reduce this) Pumped storage is a possible solution to store renewable energy for peak demand or scheduled requirements.So investment in storage and renewables is required .
All very costly .
If you dont believe there's a need to invest in renewables then it's a waste of money
So does it really boil down to 'do you' see the need .
If you do , is there another option , as the current 'UK energy road map' seem very complex
and getting on my fav. hobby horse ""the marginal benefit of complexity". That is because complexity has a cost - it costs energy to maintain complex systems. As you keep increasing complexity, this benefit become negative. The cost of complexity overtakes its benefit."
cheers

jamesingram

jamesingram wrote: »

Oh , just before I go
Cardew ,
yes your right , large solar farms will definately give better value for money in terms of
kW installed /£ , I wonder if the competion mantra of the last few decades made them go for the mirco level , bottom up model , rather than the large installs , few players cartel thing ?

I do think the long term benefits of lowering demand and on site mircogeneration needs longer to show thier potentials before we compare these budgets and generation types/models against one another.
cheers jim

Cardew you might of missed this,
I posted this yesterday in reply to you point in another thread that i didn't follow up . Would this 'market forces' mirco model skew the initially presumed £/kW obvious benefits of large scale installs.

Cardew

Martyn1981 wrote: »

But that 1% argument is a complete farce. Cheery picking at it's absolute best. Last year you could have said 0.5%, next year maybe 2%!

This quote and the rest of your post sums up your contribution to this 'debate'.

Unpalatable as it might be to you to raise any fact, 99% paying for 1% to benefit describes the situation concisely.

The irony of aiming for 98% paying, for 2% to benefit, as your solution obviously escapes you.

jamesingram

Cardew wrote: »

There are hundreds of acres of unused land behind the fences of nuclear power stations.

Perfectly good idea.

as mentioned the £/kW view ignores the potential benefit of onsite generation as a small part of the design in creating energy automonus/generating buildings in the goal to reduce finite energy resource usage.

i'd have to ask you the same question as Graham ,
do you see a need for renewable generation or any attempt at using finite energy resources in a more efficient way?

wuthton

Large scale solar farms would need to be built on green field sites, the planning restrictions and nimbies would make it a complete non starter.

Can you really see large solar farms ever getting the go ahead across swathes of Cornwall. Wind farms would be positively picturesque in comparison.

jamesingram

quick side note re. 99% paying 1% ,
Are you ignoring the value of the 1% capital in the investment
the return was suposed to be 5-8% on capital invested (without return of capital)
due to mismanagement by HMG/DECC this has turned out, for some, much higher.
then there the risk on that capital invested in PV
possible few;
equipment failer.
poor quality install leading to unforseen cost.
estimated outputs lower than expected.
loss of return on alternative investment.
concerns for future unfamilar buyers
Inability to sell house due to legal concern over RAR roof ownership rights

and the big one
possible future tariff reduction for existing installation .
Yes it's in the small print , the government aint that daft.