Solar PV - Green but not ethical?

thescouselander

What is everybody's view on this? Solar PV is all very good if you get direct benefit but for the rest of us the financing of feed in tariffs is undoubtedly adding to already high energy prices. With so many people being forced into "fuel poverty" it seems to me that exploitation of these schemes is morally dubious.

The_Green_Hornet

thescouselander wrote: »

What is everybody's view on this? Solar PV is all very good if you get direct benefit but for the rest of us the financing of feed in tariffs is undoubtedly adding to already high energy prices. With so many people being forced into "fuel poverty" it seems to me that exploitation of these schemes is morally dubious.

This has been discussed in depth on the following thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3731587

Do you have anything new to add to the debate?

rogerblack

I am in favour of PV as part of the UKs energy mix.

This notion that this should be done in other than the cheapest p/kWh is rather barking mad.

Why on earth for example should a solar panel on a roof attract ~20p/kWh - but a cheaper to erect panel in the garden get 8p?

If it becomes uneconomic to put panels on roofs, fine.
As long as it's economic to put them somewhere.

However, this has been gone over pretty much to death already.

thescouselander

The_Green_Hornet wrote: »

This has been discussed in depth on the following thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3731587

Do you have anything new to add to the debate?

I hadn't seen that thread but I'm now convinced more than ever the whole solar PV thing is a bit of a scam. Lets hope the government continues to reduce FIT rates.

Martyn1981

thescouselander wrote: »

I hadn't seen that thread but I'm now convinced more than ever the whole solar PV thing is a bit of a scam. Lets hope the government continues to reduce FIT rates.

Don't worry, there's no need to hope. FIT rates had a built in reduction when they were launched. However, as prices fell faster than expected, the reductions have also been greater (and sooner) than scheduled.

As to a scam:

PV has been working for many decades.

FITs (worldwide) has helped speed up the reductions in panel prices, and bring forward the financial viability of the technology.

For off-grid generation, for example PV is now financially viable in India even on a small scale. And recently a non-subsidised large scale project for construction in Spain was announced, meaning grid viable. (hope this dodgy translate works!).

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gehrlicher.com%2Fen%2Fhome%2Fpress%2Fdetails%2Farticle%2Fgehrlicher-solar-espana-firma-con-el-gobierno-de-extremadura-el-convenio-para-la-construccion-de-u%2F&act=url

Obviously, as Spain gets between 50% & 100% (depending on location) more PV generation than the UK, we are well behind, but progress is progress.

Mart.

Cardew

George Monboit the Environmentalist Guru summed it up with this quote:

Those who hate environmentalism have spent years looking for the definitive example of a great green rip-off. Finally it arrives, and nobody notices. The government is about to shift £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes. It expects a loss on this scheme of £8.2bn, or 95%. Yet the media is silent. The opposition urges only that the scam should be expanded.

On 1 April the government introduces its feed-in tariffs. These oblige electricity companies to pay people for the power they produce at home. The money will come from their customers in the form of higher bills. It would make sense, if we didn't know that the technologies the scheme will reward are comically
inefficient..............


In other words, the government acknowledges that micro wind and solar PV in the UK are between seven and nine times less
cost-effective than the alternatives.

The FIT scheme has achieved exactly as he said - moved £billions from the poor to the well off, with around 1% gaining. The well off includes the venture capitalists funding Rent-A Roof companies; just one company has installed over 10,000 systems getting the high rate of FIT.

IMO the scheme is morally indefensible. It differs from most(all?) other forms of subsidy in that it is individual electricity customers who foot the bill and not the Taxpayer.

Also IMO there is no criticism of those who cash in on the system, but please spare us the disingenuous justifications of the FIT scheme.

EricMears

Cardew wrote: »

The FIT scheme has achieved exactly as he said - moved £billions from the poor to the well off, with around 1% gaining. The well off includes the venture capitalists funding Rent-A Roof companies; just one company has installed over 10,000 systems getting the high rate of FIT.

IMO the scheme is morally indefensible. It differs from most(all?) other forms of subsidy in that it is individual electricity customers who foot the bill and not the Taxpayer.

Also IMO there is no criticism of those who cash in on the system, but please spare us the disingenuous justifications of the FIT scheme.

Whilst it's probably only the well off householders and very well off venture capitalists who are gaining, there's really no justification for saying that only the poor are contributing towards it. All electricity consumers (including those of us who have reduced their expenditure on electricity by installing solar panels or any other way) are contributing towards the costs of the FIT scheme in direct proportion to the size of our electricity bills and the biggest contributors to the scheme must therefore be the better off consumers for whom it's not an option to install panels (e.g. those who have a roof pointing the wrong way or have shading issues).

Without such a scheme in place, the UK Government (i.e. we taxpayers) would have been faced with a huge 'euro-fine'. There's really very little difference in practice between a proportional levy on electricity bills and raising the money by income tax; if anything, the bill levy is harder to avoid by employing creative accountants so would have more effect on the better off than tax would.

All subsidy schemes introduce an element of unfairness and usually benefit the better-off more than the 'poor'. e.g a large scale farmer who could 'set aside' hundreds of acres of his land received a huge subsidy; a pensioner who decided not to crop his single allotment plot got nothing.

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

George Monboit the Environmentalist Guru summed it up with this quote:

The FIT scheme has achieved exactly as he said - moved £billions from the poor to the well off, with around 1% gaining. The well off includes the venture capitalists funding Rent-A Roof companies; just one company has installed over 10,000 systems getting the high rate of FIT.

IMO the scheme is morally indefensible. It differs from most(all?) other forms of subsidy in that it is individual electricity customers who foot the bill and not the Taxpayer.

Also IMO there is no criticism of those who cash in on the system, but please spare us the disingenuous justifications of the FIT scheme.

Sadly it would appear that repeating the same argument over and over for two years, you may have managed to brainwash yourself. The opinion as stated was only one view, it was never fact even back then.

The counter-argument then for FIT schemes (all over the World), was that they would help to

increase demand for PV, leading to
increased production of PV, leading to
lower production costs of PV, leading to
the faster attainment of an additional financially viable renewable technology.

So, who was right?

Well, given that,
production has risen faster than was hoped,
prices fallen faster than was hoped,
acceptance and installation larger and faster than was hoped, and
financial viability being achieved, and spreading faster than was hoped,

then I’m surprised that you still base your views and anti-FITs campaign on an article that time and progress has proven to be incorrect.

You’re still advising on a horse race, apparently unaware that it ended some time ago. It’s time to stop quoting the form guide, and instead study the results.

If, however, you are determined to keep using an old article/opinion then could you please tell me what alternative there is that is 9 times more cost-effective than PV?

Given that ‘even’ in the UK, a company could now install a medium sized (20-50kWp) system, and achieve a unit price for electricity far below 5p/kWh (possibly sub 4p), what clean, renewable, carbon free alternative would you suggest they install that would be 9 times more cost-effective?

Lastly, what exactly is it, that all of those governments, in all of those countries have done that is morally indefensible, isn’t it part of their job to look to the long-term future well-being of their people, even if the necessary decisions involve some small financial hardship?

It’s easy to make statements, even out of date statements, but some up to date numbers and references would be far more educational.

Mart.

Martyn1981

EricMears wrote: »

Whilst it's probably only the well off householders and very well off venture capitalists who are gaining,

Hiya Eric, I wouldn't worry too much about his cherry picking, many additional groups can also benefit;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/05/wrexham-europe-solar-energy?intcmp=122

and that's before we start to see the financial benefits of more stable electricity prices during some peak demand times that Germany is already enjoying;

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/09/solar-pv-reducing-price-of-electricity-in-germany/

(PS last week Germany was seeing around 17GW of PV generation around noon, not bad for late March!)

plus, he's so worried about the poor, and likes to quote the Guardian, well how about quoting this one then, where the Guardian claim that it's the poor that will suffer the most from global warming. Perhaps we should introduce a policy that would help? Can you think of a way to promote and introduce low-carbon & renewable technologies as quickly as possible?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/jan/26/flooding-climate-change-heatwave-impact-risk?intcmp=122

Mart.

Cardew

EricMears wrote: »

Whilst it's probably only the well off householders and very well off venture capitalists who are gaining, there's really no justification for saying that only the poor are contributing towards it. All electricity consumers (including those of us who have reduced their expenditure on electricity by installing solar panels or any other way) are contributing towards the costs of the FIT scheme in direct proportion to the size of our electricity bills and the biggest contributors to the scheme must therefore be the better off consumers for whom it's not an option to install panels (e.g. those who have a roof pointing the wrong way or have shading issues).

Without such a scheme in place, the UK Government (i.e. we taxpayers) would have been faced with a huge 'euro-fine'. There's really very little difference in practice between a proportional levy on electricity bills and raising the money by income tax; if anything, the bill levy is harder to avoid by employing creative accountants so would have more effect on the better off than tax would.

All subsidy schemes introduce an element of unfairness and usually benefit the better-off more than the 'poor'. e.g a large scale farmer who could 'set aside' hundreds of acres of his land received a huge subsidy; a pensioner who decided not to crop his single allotment plot got nothing.

1. Indeed all electricity customers pay toward the subsidy - who said otherwise? That includes the poor!

2. approx 1% of households benefit - so 99% lose out.

3. Your farmer analogy doesn't apply - the subsidy is paid by the Government/EEC, so the taxpayer.

4. If the Government were facing a fine - then provide the subsidy from taxation; not a levy that the poor pay.

5. 'Little difference in practice between a levy on electricity bills and funding from income tax?' I take it that is meant to be a joke?

6. If it was necessary to generate xxGW PV electricity, can you think of a more inefficient method than having scores of thousands of installations on the roofs of of far flung properties around UK; and pay them 43p+ per kWh for electricity they don't even have to export.

Solar farms would have produced(and exported!!) electricity for a fraction of that subsidy.

7. As I said please spare us from the disingenuous arguments to justify a lucrative income for the 1% - nobody is making a criticism of individuals cashing in!

Martin1981,

Your posts are so lacking in logic that they do not merit a response!

EricMears

Cardew wrote: »

5. 'Little difference in practice between a levy on electricity bills and funding from income tax?' I take it that is meant to be a joke?

Absolutely NOT a joke !

It's well known that the richer you are, the more you can wangle off a tax bill by creative accounting. Thus anything funded from general taxation may be considered an unfair burden on the poor.

A percentage levy on electricity bills is about as fair as I can envisage it getting.


The super-rich use a lot of electricity and hence pay a large sum as a levy; admittedly, the unit cost of electricity tends to be cheaper for large consumers but it's really not a huge discount they're enjoying.

The very poor use much less electricity so are asked to pay very little as a levy.

Very few people use no electricity at all - but if you can find anyone in that category then it seems reasonable to excuse them from contributing to such a scheme.


The farmer example was just one easy to understand case where a subsidy results in 'unfairness'. And those grants are NOT paid by our government or the EU (EEC is not a term in current use) - neither of which have any money at their disposal apart from that levied on taxpayers (or in the case of the CAP - 'food eaters' ! ). Applying just a little logic to the FIT scheme, you will see that the money is collected from electricity bill payers on behalf of our government or the EU and immediately paid out (also on their behalf) to recipients of the subsidy. Without such a scheme in place, similar sums would be collected from somebody - by a method I'd consider even less fair - and paid into EU coffers.

The declared objective of FIT schemes all over the EU was to encourage the use of solar (& other renewable) generation schemes and to reduce prices of such equipment by economies of scale. Judged by those criteria it's been an outstanding success. If only a few more government schemes were as successful ! e.g. we once had a scheme called 'The Road Fund' which was supposed to collect monies from the rich people who could afford a car and spend it on providing roads that would enable drivers at any point in the wealth scale to benefit. The superb highway network that was envisaged would become the envy of the rest of the world, have encouraged car ownership, reduced prices and stimulated the economy. Alas, successive governments stole larger and larger sums from that fund leaving us a network of rural roads that wouldn't even make a third world country envious.