Does anyone here have an ideological objection to Solar?

Martyn1981

doughnutmachine wrote: »

but using your figures of 1400/kW for domestic and 1000/kW for commercial shows you get more value for money with the larger schemes?

i agree that small solar does act as a billboard for green energy and raises awareness of reducing energy use though.

Yep, and the larger commercial installs can still get between 11p and 13p per kWh generated, compared to domestic at 15.44p.

So is the extra for domestic (and the gap is closing still, due to the quarterly digression system) worth it to keep the public involved, and launch both a commercial scale and domestic scale PV industry? I may have PV but I'm also an energy bill payer, and I'd rather give you 15.44p than give Tesco's 13p.

This isn't a trick question, if you say it's not worth it, then that's your opinion, I just feel that the gap is small, the costs and tariffs are continuing to fall, and this subsidy has been a monumental success on an international scale - when was the last time you got to see that?

Mart.

PS:

doughnutmachine wrote: »

i would just rather fits supported more UK viable power schemes.

Like what, it already includes PV, wind, CHP, hydro and anaerobic digestion? Others receive grant research funding around the world. As I've said previously I'm a huge fan of the Severn Barrage, which out of the top 20 UK tidal prospects, it is bigger than the other 19 put together. But until it looks to be on par with off-shore wind costs how do we persuade anyone to front up the £30bn? M.

Martyn1981

doughnutmachine wrote: »

since the sun is always shining somewhere in the world we could have huge solar powerstations over the equator. Then connect each country to them. ok, grid losses would be high, but solar prices are dropping fast, so sooner or later it will become economic.

Check out this site, and also the Greater East Asia tab:

http://www.desertec.org/en/global-mission/eu-mena/

you'll see how renewables can be linked together, with each country focusing on it's greatest assets. For the UK that would naturally be wind, and Norway as batteries!!!

Edit: Sorry should have included something on UK interconnectors (click on 'Click here'):

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/how-the-supergrid-could-help-keep-the-lights-on-7640771.html

Mart.

pwllbwdr

ed110220 wrote: »

Hydroelectric power has the problem of limited suitable sites and I don't think the UK has many left... if we did they would probably have been used long ago as hydroelectric power is very mature technology and has been in widespread use at least since the 1930s.

No, that's not quite right. There are a number of new (in the sense of being practically viable) types of turbine wihch can harness hydro power at very low head sites. There are thousands of these up and down the country - old watermill sites.

The problem is that whilst these old mill sites often have river flows which are sufficient to generate virtually all year round, and more significantly are always able to generate, 24/7 during the winter period (including at night...), the equipment and engineering is very expensive up-front.

The FIT for such a scheme is, in my case anyway, only just enough to offer simple capital payback over the period of the tariff. Compare that with the solar PV system I installed earlier this year which gets a ludicrous 45p per unit and will offer capital payback in less than 10 years despite my place not being ideal.

The FITs should in my opinion have been biased more in favour of the technologies which are more likely to generate during the times of high load. Solar PV would be a long way down my list.

ed110220

pwllbwdr wrote: »

No, that's not quite right. There are a number of new (in the sense of being practically viable) types of turbine wihch can harness hydro power at very low head sites. There are thousands of these up and down the country - old watermill sites.

The problem is that whilst these old mill sites often have river flows which are sufficient to generate virtually all year round, and more significantly are always able to generate, 24/7 during the winter period (including at night...), the equipment and engineering is very expensive up-front.

The FIT for such a scheme is, in my case anyway, only just enough to offer simple capital payback over the period of the tariff. Compare that with the solar PV system I installed earlier this year which gets a ludicrous 45p per unit and will offer capital payback in less than 10 years despite my place not being ideal.

The FITs should in my opinion have been biased more in favour of the technologies which are more likely to generate during the times of high load. Solar PV would be a long way down my list.

Sorry, I should have said for large scale/economically attractive hydro. I have often wondered about the potential of all the weirs etc on the rivers across the country, but I presume it is low as there is very little interest.

Solar is of course not available during the time of very highest load on winter evenings, but during the day especially in summer demand is very well above base load so will be displacing relatively expensive and polluting gas. Think how much more electricity is used at midday than at 3am.

I think solar is also attractive in that costs are expected to continue to fall rapidly, while even a new hydroelectric turbine uses technology that is pretty mature and unlikely to fall heavily.

Lastly, small scale hydro schemes are unlikely to be able to impound much water and so cannot be store up potential energy for hours or even days, weeks or months like large scale hydro can (one of the reasons hydro is so attractive for where there are good locations).

pwllbwdr

Well that's the point isn't it. Solar PV was not economically attractive when the FITs started - that is why it had to be given a monstrous FIT rate to make it attractive.

I don't dispute that there is energy consumption on sunny days when PV yields are good. Of course there is. But most households (i.e. the places which have received the highest subsidies for PV, including me) don't have high energy usage at those times. That is precisely why devices such as Immersun exist.

If I try to run an appliance such as a dishwasher to synchronize with PV generation it is a minefield. I can go from 2kw surplus export to 2kw import in a matter of seconds depending on clouds and the thermostat in the wm. The difference has to come from other means of generation.

The point with watermill sites is that they generate with the river flow and the head available, not by storing any amount of water. They generate whenever there is sufficient flow to power the turbine. How often that doesn't happen depends on the nature of the river, but most rivers flow nicely in winter, including at night, which starts well before 3am.

If the FIT for hydro had been higher more of these sites would have been viable. You are right in saying that the cost of equipment and other capital costs would not come down with time - much of it is bespoke to each installation. That is the only big advantage I can see in favour of PV, and clearly installation costs have plummeted.

doughnutmachine

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Like what, it already includes PV, wind, CHP, hydro and anaerobic digestion? Others receive grant research funding around the world. As I've said previously I'm a huge fan of the Severn Barrage, which out of the top 20 UK tidal prospects, it is bigger than the other 19 put together. But until it looks to be on par with off-shore wind costs how do we persuade anyone to front up the £30bn? M.

but large scale anaerobic gets 9p per kWh, and large hydro gets 4.5p per kWh. it just seems strange that the power sources that could close down conventional power stations get less than solar.

anaerobic gas can also be stored over time, also burning the gas means methane is not released into the atmosphere.

doughnutmachine

pwllbwdr wrote: »

The FIT for such a scheme is, in my case anyway, only just enough to offer simple capital payback over the period of the tariff. Compare that with the solar PV system I installed earlier this year which gets a ludicrous 45p per unit and will offer capital payback in less than 10 years despite my place not being ideal.

if you've had experience of looking at small hydro i'd be interested in reading about it if you start at thread? it's something i've always wanted to do.

doughnutmachine

pwllbwdr wrote: »

If the FIT for hydro had been higher more of these sites would have been viable. You are right in saying that the cost of equipment and other capital costs would not come down with time - much of it is bespoke to each installation. That is the only big advantage I can see in favour of PV, and clearly installation costs have plummeted.

perhaps if fits for small hydro were higher hydro would come down in price as well? i've always thought small hydro would be suitable for being manufactured in kit form.

after all, the turbine/ generator could come prefabricated in a small shipping container. the upstream inlet structure could be a couple of concrete manhole rings. the pipework could be flexible reinforced rubber pipes. All stuff that a small builder could install on site.

if only fits was increased so some pump turbine manufacturer could get some economies of scale.

doughnutmachine

ed110220 wrote: »

Lastly, small scale hydro schemes are unlikely to be able to impound much water and so cannot be store up potential energy for hours or even days, weeks or months like large scale hydro can (one of the reasons hydro is so attractive for where there are good locations).

the amount of flooding in the UK seems to be increasing, perhaps more hydro (with associated water storage) would reduce the amount of flooding.

Martyn1981

doughnutmachine wrote: »

but large scale anaerobic gets 9p per kWh, and large hydro gets 4.5p per kWh. it just seems strange that the power sources that could close down conventional power stations get less than solar.

anaerobic gas can also be stored over time, also burning the gas means methane is not released into the atmosphere.

But large scale solar gets 7.1p!

Burning methane and releasing CO2 instead is great, but solar doesn't release either.

There's no point trying to pit one technology off against another, they all bring something different and important to the table, and we'll just keep going round in circles. It's better to look on all of them as a package - a new energy revolution.

I appreciate that meeting our future energy peaks is crucial. But this is, dare I say it, irrelevant to the debate on PV.

PV reduces CO2 output. Trying to de-carbonise our 'annual' leccy generation is the purpose behind FITs. To subsidise and support technologies that were not (and largely still aren't) economic, in order to artificially shorten the timescale to when they are.

If, as you have gently suggested previously, PV took funding from other methods of generation, then fine, complain, but you still haven't demonstrated that, that has happened. Schemes and funding exist for all of them.

We need to address all of our power generation volume, and a very large part of that is during the daytime.

Mart.