Solar PV Feed In Tariffs - Good or Bad?

jamesingram

wuthton wrote: »

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.

Cardews point re. surrounding nuc. station or other brownfield sites
seems fair

Cardew

wuthton wrote: »

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.

Factory/supermarket roofs, brownfield sites, scrubland etc.

Some places abroad have the panels raised 2 metres on frames and animals graze below.

If you consider panels unsightly, are they acceptable on roofs of houses?

A major NIMBY objection to wind farms is the noise, affect on TV transmission, and killing birds.

Cardew

jamesingram wrote: »

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)

I think we are at cross-purposes.

About 1% of houses in UK have solar panels( a large proportion owned by R A R companies). The owners are the people who gain from the subsidies that the other 99% pay.

grahamc2003

jamesingram wrote: »

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?

I'm afraid your question is based on a misconcepotion. As far as the grid and electricity are concerned, 'renewables' (lets atm limit to just wind and solar) actually do the opposite. They introduce factors which, tbf, the layman can't be expected to know about, which cause other generation methods to become more inefficient, i.e. more coal/oil/gas is burnt to enable wind and solar to be integrated into our grid.

The term 'renewables' is also misleading - different renewable technologies have different characteristics. No one can simply say 'renewables are good, or bad or anything else - each technology has to be considered on its own merits (as does conventional generation). I don't 'hate' solar, or coal, or hamsters, and I don't 'love' Nuclear or barrages. Those terms are emotional and, in this sense, meaningless. It is the characteristics of various generation technologies which is important, not whether you (one) are 'green' or 'anti-green' (if such term exists). Simply saying solar is a fantastic generation technology because some get £1600pa from it seems to me to be the biggest mistake people make here.

We don't have to worry about the source fuel for electricity for many generations yet. That doesn't mean we should waste fossil fuels - we should make them last as long as possible. But we have Nuclear technology, which can generate electricity safely for many generations, even with current technology. Even the waste products can be used with little reprocessing to extract the remaining 95% fissionable material in depleted fuel rods (hence why they are usually stored on-site and available, instead of being permanently made unavailable), but the will isn't yet there to take the research closer to implementation. For those who think co2 is a problem, Nuclear also solves that problem. Back to your original question about fossil fuel depletion - well, who is to blame for the billions of tons of fossil fuel burnt over the last 50 years when, with more Nuclear, 80 or 90% of it would still exist?.

There are no technicsal problems to supplying electricity, but the ideological views of some (that is, not based on any engineering or scentific reasoning at all), have brought us to the point of facing power cuts in the next few years. No matter how many 'renewables' we have then, I don't know of any which will help with reliably meeting the periods when power cuts will occur (and don't underestimate the devastating effects on some of power cuts - to some it means much more than not being able to make a pot of tea).

jamesingram

R A R also have capital investment risk .
PV is being considered a posistive for the state ( right or wrongly ) and part of the future of energy supply strategy of the state.
so in this case the ROI is paid by the electricity consumer on behalf of the state .
that make any sense ?

jamesingram

grahamc2003 wrote: »

. As far as the grid and electricity are concerned, 'renewables' (lets atm limit to just wind and solar) actually do the opposite. They introduce factors which, tbf, the layman can't be expected to know about, which cause other generation methods to become more inefficient, i.e. more coal/oil/gas is burnt to enable wind and solar to be integrated into our grid. .

Fair point regarding renewables ( vague heading describing many different types of possible energy source or production methods)

As to solar and wind causing decreased efficiency in fossil fuel based generation. Yes true , but to what extent , to make them
completely redundent ? Some studies suggest so , others dont.
and thats as is now , after 20 years+ this may differ , this offers one possible solution.
http://www.roadmap2050.eu/attachments/files/PowerPerspectives2030_FullReport.pdf

Forget CO2 for a bit , there are other negatives from fossil fuel use that are detrimental to our lives , so yes "we should make them last as long as possible" and tryto reduce there use.
Nuclear , yes a possible solution ,
the 50s dream of safe, cheap and plentiful energy (no need for insulation or energy efficiency then) I dont mean this mockingly if achieved it would be a great leap forward.
but it come with problems as do all the other methods discussed. Also large investment required.
Do the benefits of nuclear outway its potential negatives
over the 'multi renewable' fossil fuel/nuclear mix option.
I'm unsure

I have to say I like the mirco energy supply model though I realise its an expense , somewhat unknown one.
For me it's the idea of designing systems that self sustain (a cradle to cradle , closed loop system) that I find attractive and believe could result in a very long term solution to all resource supply. Pv is a small part of this.
Making an effort towards this with a scientific/enegineering view point should be possible

Cardew

jamesingram wrote: »

R A R also have capital investment risk .
PV is being considered a posistive for the state ( right or wrongly ) and part of the future of energy supply strategy of the state.
so in this case the ROI is paid by the electricity consumer on behalf of the state .
that make any sense ?

ROI isn't the issue; it is the cost per kWh to generate and export electricity that is important.

Even assuming that a subsidy of 21p/kWh gave a householder a reasonable ROI, what is the relevance when solar can be produced much cheaper; and we allow the househlder to consume as much of that subsidised electricity as he wishes.

If a farmer can produce, say, potatoes for a 5p a Kilo subsidy, why should we have to give a private householder a subsidy 10p a kilo for all potatoes produced, because that gives him a reasonable ROI. Especially when he can eat as many of those heavily subsidised potatoes in-house as he wishes.;)

zeupater

Hi All

Looks like everyone's gone back into orbit around the same points again, so let's try to look at it from the viewpoint of a single dwelling ....

Mr & Mrs Average are owner occupiers of a property where there is a roof plane which faces somewhere between W & E (yes I know that there are arguments that not everyone is an owner/occupier and there are lots of flats/apartments etc ... but bear with the logic) ..... and decide that pv could be an option as they can afford to finance the installation by some means or other ..... let's not consider payback or any form of ROI, just accept that they want it, will pay for it and through some means will recover their financial outlay over time. The current electrical energy usage in the household is 3300kWh/year, of which there exists a roughly even split between daytime and nighttime use over a year.

Mr & Mrs Average get their quotes in & buy a system, which for ease of logic in this example, includes an export meter. Within the first year the couple find that they have generated 3300kWh from their system and exported 2300kWh so they expect their electricity purchased to have fallen by 1000kWh ... however, their imported energy has almost halved to 1700kWh, a reduction of 1600kWh ... Mr & Mrs average are confused as to where the missing 600kWh have dissappeared to, however it soon dawns that this is due to the energy savings which they have made as a result of being more aware of what they are using (unplugging standby equipment etc), it soon also dawns that a good proportion of the missing 600kWh must logically be energy which would have previously been consumed overnight and that their changed energy usage pattern has moved a good proportion of their previous 'darktime' usage to within daylight hours in order to make use of their own resource ....

Mr & Mrs Average, now being very aware of their household energy consumption, over the next few years replace the majority of household appliances with the latest 'low energy' alternatives, some of this being within the natural replacement cycle, some being 'consumerism' led and some being as direct result of a financial payback calculation, but which ever the reason, after a number of years their imported electricity reduces to 1000kWh/year.

Mr & Mrs Average have noticed that as a few years have passed their export meter has continually shown a higher reading than the year before, they soon realise that this is due to their lower consumption items using less power during daylight hours than the previous versions ... they are happy, as their neighbours are consuming the power, because that's the way electricity works ....

.....

Okay the above is simplistic, but that's effectively the situation for everyone I know who now has pv, it's also mainly the case on these boards, it's just that without an export meter most consider the efficiency savings as being attributable directly to pv production.

I know that the above only concerns Mr & Mrs Average, but they live in Average Road in Averageton in Averageshire, therefore their experience is replicated many hundreds of thousands of times, which, over time is found to have an effect on the overall load on the National Grid, both in daylight and at nighttime and the evidence is that all of these hundreds of thousands of households are importing so little electricity ... whether or not the reduction is as a direct result of pv is debateable, I would say that it isn't, but it certainly is as a direct result of energy usage awareness, an awareness which is intensified by direct and personal association with the generating equipment which does not exist if the same electricity is generated by large-scale generation ... without the advantage of association with generation, farm-scale pv generated electricity might as well be from any other source (from a consumption reduction viewpoint), therefore there would likely be a far smaller, or far slower, reduction in overall consumption. .....

At this point I feel that a potential disagreement which is likely to be utilised against the logic, so I'll address it before it's raised, which is the relative cost effectivity of installation and maintenance. Yes, hands up, it's less effective/efficient to bolt a few glass panels to a roof than to 'pave' a field .... but .... the inefficient utilisation of capital in these areas needs to be balanced by the individual efficiency improvements applicable to each site, therefore there would be a definate trade-off, with the likely balance being in the favour of standalone systems ... why ? ... because Mr & Mrs Average are importing 1000kWh/year and using far less energy than previously, unlike their neighbours across the road who are still using 3300kWh/year !

The above contains logic without including the emotive elements which tariffs, subsidy and payback represent, so leaving them aside, would the logic involved in representing individual arrays be considered as being more preferable than large scale pv, and would it be possible that there would be an overall reduction in overnight baseload as a result of changed consumption patterns ?

HTH
Z

SallyKing

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%!

PV FITs could be beneficial to around 20% of the households, but why stop there,

what about FITs for other micro-generation, such as hydro, wind and bio-mass, but why stop there,

what about the Green Tariff that FITs sits in, that offers free or subsidised loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, energy bulbs, advice and guidance, but why stop there,

anyone that reduces their energy demands (gas or electric) will have a positive effect on fuel prices for everyone else through simple supply and demand economics. If 50% of car owners invested in higher efficiency / hybrid / electric cars, then I'd benefit from the reduction in demand for petrol / diesel.

Time to start looking at the big picture. Picking out 1% and using it, does you a disservice each and every time you quote it.

Mart.

Exactly, well said Mart.

The poor in this country are pretty well looked after. They get free money, free housing, free grants worth thousands for new boilers, free insulation, free winter fuel payments...

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

Mr & Mrs Average are owner occupiers of a property overall consumption. .....

etc

HTH
Z

Mr and Mrs Average are just 1% of the population - they are house owners, not tenants, don't live in flats and have suitable roofs.

So you justify 99% of the population(including the poorest etc), paying huge subsidies so 1% of the houseowners(i.e. well off!!) in the land become more energy conscious and reduce their consumption?

Wouldn't that money be better spent ensuring 100% of households reduce their consumption?

Run that by me again please;)