Solar ... In the news

silverwhistle

I'm sure the government could continue to argue on this one, and maybe even discreetly ignore for as long as possible. The problem is, if they do succeed in maintaining the status quo they won't know whether to trumpet their own achievements given the weapon that would give to the Eurosceptics..

In terms of policy and what we are trying to achieve it does seem a perverse one: we'll probablyy end up with 15% VAT on fuel bills. ;-)

Martyn1981

STA launches costed solar plan which outlines vision for fossil fuel-competitive solar by 2020

The UK could be benefitting from rooftop solar-generated electricity at parity with retail prices and solar farm-generated electricity at parity with new gas CCGT station prices by the end of the decade, according to the Solar Trade Association’s Solar Independence Plan for Britain.

The plan calls for the government to raise its solar ambitions and target a scenario whereby the UK installs 25GW of PV capacity by 2020. The association has outlined six steps that it believes would allow the industry to hit the higher deployment ambition:

• Adjust feed-in tariffs to drive growth and target zero subsidy in 2020, by increasing the tariff for the 250kW-1MW band, leaving all other tariffs unchanged and accelerating quarterly tariff reductions in the domestic market
  
• Safeguard the Renewables Obligation for sub-5MW systems to 2017
  
• Allow solar a fairer share of the Levy Control Framework
  
• Adapt Contracts for Difference to benefit solar and small businesses
  
• Incentivise the incorporation of solar into new build houses and offices
  
• Address grid constraints decisively and strategically.

The plan, independently verified by Imperial College London and the Centre for Economics and Business Research, shows that a higher solar ambition from the government could result in the sector employing 57,000 people directly and through supply chains. In addition, the UK would have 2.1 million homes with solar, 24,400 commercial and community arrays and 2,300 solar farms generating clean electricity. The STA calculates that the raised ambition would cost £13 per year on the average household bill.

Mart.

ed110220

nigelpm wrote: »

Interesting point on the full moon. Anyone also experienced this?

The energy from the moon is so weak compared with the energy from the sun that even if the panels could capture it, it would be so little that I don't think it would even be detectable.

A quick internet search gave a figure of 0.00146 watts per square metre for moonlight in the tropics. Not sure if that is average or for a full moon, but it's so little I don't think it makes much difference.

Say you had an array of 25 square metres and you got 0.00146 W/m2 on it twelve hours per day (or per night!) for a full year with no clouds etc, that would only be 160 watt hours per year even if the panels could convert it to electricity at 100% efficiency. At 17% efficiency typical of solar panels that would be 27 watts hours per year or 0.07Wh per night ! I doubt any electricity meter in use could measure 0.07 Wh. At 13p per kilowatt hour, it would be worth 0.351p per year, which would probably be lost to rounding ;-)

Ed

nigelpm

ed110220 wrote: »

The energy from the moon is so weak compared with the energy from the sun that even if the panels could capture it, it would be so little that I don't think it would even be detectable.

A quick internet search gave a figure of 0.00146 watts per square metre for moonlight in the tropics. Not sure if that is average or for a full moon, but it's so little I don't think it makes much difference.

Say you had an array of 25 square metres and you got 0.00146 W/m2 on it twelve hours per day (or per night!) for a full year with no clouds etc, that would only be 160 watt hours per year even if the panels could convert it to electricity at 100% efficiency. At 17% efficiency typical of solar panels that would be 27 watts hours per year or 0.07Wh per night ! I doubt any electricity meter in use could measure 0.07 Wh. At 13p per kilowatt hour, it would be worth 0.351p per year, which would probably be lost to rounding ;-)

Ed

Appreciated as it felt ludicrous.

On the VAT point yet another reason for tell the EU to do one - but that's a much wider discussion I don't plan to get into now!

Although given my earlier posts I doubt it will make much of a difference - certainly not to SW-SE inclined arrays.

zeupater

ed110220 wrote: »

The energy from the moon is so weak ...
...0.07 Wh. At 13p per kilowatt hour, it would be worth 0.351p per year, which would probably be lost to rounding ;-)

Ed

Hi

And more importantly, even if the inverter would register the panel voltage under no load, it wouldn't kick in and do anything with it until there was sufficient to maintain generation under load ...

We've occasionally seen a small spike reported by the inverter at night which was interesting at the beginning, but simply put it down to a little internal data 'housekeeping' to account for rounding or time-slice cut off points for the previous day when writing 'current day' data to historical files ... we sometimes also see one time-slice recording low or missing and the subsequent one increased, which is something you would come to expect in a data read/write file or resource contention issue (usually record lock conditions) .... changing the inverter system time whilst generating would be a likely cause for both ..

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Household generation and energy saving materials could lose 5% VAT status:

Domestic solar facing 15% VAT hike following EU ruling



Seems silly to me that we fail to discourage energy consumption by keeping a 5% VAT rate on energy bills, but may have to discourage investment in energy generation / savings.

I think the FiT is currently FAT, as demonstrated by the recent degressions every 3 months. A 15% price hike might mean a slowdown in rollouts, and a longer retention of higher FiT rates.

I believe that State Aids rules allow for government support in renewables, so they could (possibly?) give new PV owners a 15% cashback incentive, or just use the extra VAT to help maintain FiT rates at a higher than necessary level. But this all seems like a circular waste of time and effort.

Mart.

Update:

HMRC ‘rules out’ VAT rise in this parliament

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has reconfirmed its intention to implement a ‘tax lock’ until 2020, despite a European Court of Justice ruling which said that the UK’s lower VAT rate for energy saving measures was against its VAT directive.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Rise in solar PV generation demands ‘new approach’ from National Grid

The dramatic increase in solar PV generation in the UK is forcing traditional power companies and the National Grid to evaluate their practices and adapt to new challenges, according to energy data company EnAppSys.

The company says that the rise in renewable generation and, in particular, the unpredicted explosion in UK solar has "serious implications for traditional fossil fuel generators and the National Grid's ability to manage supply side issues".

According to EnAppSys, overall renewable energy generation in May accounted for 23% of the UK's total energy generation. Taken in concert with an increased level of imported energy from the continent, fossil fuel's share of energy generation is falling: from 80% in January 2009 to less than 50% in May 2015.

Interestingly, the company estimates that solar PV accounted for 6% of total power output on both 23 and 30 May. Peak output levels reached 15% of half hourly generation and almost broke the 5GW milestone of power on 23 May.

Mart.

michaels

There was a piece recently saying although for individuals s facing panels give max output for the grid w facing panels make much more sense, not only because there is already a lunchtime spike but also because power demand is greater in the afternoon.

One obvious way to address this would be with a variable fit that rewarded more useful generation more highly.

Martyn1981

Short article with PV facts and targets for Europe:

PV exceeds 2020 EU renewable energy target

Solar PV technology has already exceeded its deployment goals under the European Commission's renewable energy targets. Overall, the EU is on track to meet its 2020 targets, with renewables accounting for a projected 15.3% of overall European energy consumption in 2014.

At 7.77 million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe), solar PV, at the technology level, has already exceeded both its 2014 and 2020 deployment targets of 3.9 and 7 Mtoe, respectively. Based on current estimates, PV is expected to reach between 10.1 and 10.4 Mtoe by 2020 (1 Mtoe is equivalent to 11,630000 MWh). Overall, the EU aims to deploy 242.1 Mtoe of renewable energy by 2020.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Leading German solar players call for end to minimum price

Wacker, Baywa r.e. and MVV, three major German companies in the energy sector, have called for an end to the minimum price regime applied to Chinese modules. The companies claim the minimum price regulation is standing in the way of German market growth.

According to the estimation by Wacker, Baywa r.e. and MVV the costs of PV in Europe is 10% higher than they would be without trade barriers.

"The minimum import price has prevented a further price reduction in recent years," says Westermeier. According to Westermeier even the Germany Federal Ministry of Economics has recognized this and now sees it as being the main cause of the weak Germany solar market in 2015.

UK installed more than 2.5GW of solar in Q1 2015

The 2.53GW of new capacity means that the UK now has 8.16GW of solar capacity as of 31 March 2015.

Huge rush to get PV farms built before changes in the ROC rules. I think that PV generation in 2015 might be close to matching all UK hydro generation. Quite a feat given how little PV there was just 5 years ago.




BYD: EVA-free solar modules, 3 new energy storage batteries

Several items in this news piece, but this line caught my eye:

Interestingly, the solar cells are not embedded in an EVA film, but rather in silicone, which is applied in liquid form. Many experts are keen to remove EVA, because it can form free radicals upon penetration of moisture.

According to BYD, the new technology will increase the module’s service life to 50 years.

50 years!

Mart.