Solar ... In the news

Martyn1981

Gulp! 27km2 PV farm.

China builds world's biggest solar farm in journey to become green superpower

Built at a cost of about 6bn yuan (£721.3m) and in almost constant expansion since construction began in 2013, Longyangxia now has the capacity to produce a massive 850MW of power – enough to supply up to 200,000 households – and stands on the front line of a global photovoltaic revolution being spearheaded by a country that is also the world’s greatest polluter.

Martyn1981

This is potentially massive news.

EU member states have rejected European Commission proposals to extend anti-dumping duties attached to Chinese solar imports.

EU member states reject proposed solar trade duties extension

Breaking: EU trade committees vote against solar trade duties

EU member states reject proposed solar trade duties extension

Apologies for this PV news coming from PV news websites, but waiting for the Daily Mail to publish it, or Kim Kardashian to tweet it, seems somewhat daft!

Martyn1981

Anyone willing to spend an hour watching this video might be shocked. It makes 'crazy' claims about the disruptive nature of PV and batts.

However, it's around 10 months old, and may actually be behind the curve!

The Great Energy Disruption

Nearly 10 months ago, Tony Seba, author of the 2014 book Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation, posted a video on YouTube, “CleanDisruption.” In both, he projected that a nearly complete disruption of the energy business would begin in 2020 and be well underway by 2022, the year he projects for distributed solar power with battery backup to fall below the cost of transmitting electricity. It is a point at which centralized power plants, if they are to compete with solar-plus-storage, will have to provide power for free. He believes that all centralized electric power producers will be obsolete by 2030, as will conventional cars and utility companies.

I would suggest that anyone reading the book or watching the video keep in mind that the projections are wrong. Tony Seba gives really compelling reasoning leading to his conclusions. The problem is that the rate of change he expected seems to have been off a bit. It appears that he was much too conservative, and change is going on much faster than he anticipated.

This news article today follows the same line, that a 10% change in a market can cause massive and rapid disruption, and PV and EV's are both capable of this. Note, it's the impact of EV's, and the impact of PV, not EV + PV (as in solar only charged EV's, though that would be nice too!)

Electric cars and cheap solar 'could halt fossil fuel growth by 2020'

Falling costs of electric vehicles and solar panels could halt worldwide growth in demand for oil and coal by 2020, a new report has suggested.

A scenario that takes into account the latest cost reduction projections for the green technologies, and countries’ pledges to cut emissions, finds that solar power and electric vehicles are “gamechangers” that could leave fossil fuels stranded.

Polluting fuels could lose 10% of market share to solar power and clean cars within a decade, the report by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the Carbon Tracker Initiative found.

A 10% loss of market share was enough to cause the collapse of the coal mining industry in the US, while Europe’s five major utilities lost €100bn (£85bn) between 2008 and 2013 because they did not prepare for an 8% increase in renewables, the report said.

NigeWick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

It makes 'crazy' claims about the disruptive nature of PV and batts.

I recently read Tony Seba's book and he makes sense to me. He has a fair track record on predictions too.

Martyn1981

NigeWick wrote: »

I recently read Tony Seba's book and he makes sense to me. He has a fair track record on predictions too.

Hiya Nigel. My 'crazy' statement was tongue in cheek.

As you said elsewhere, folk don't appreciate how fast things are changing. I genuinely thought his claims were a bit too strong, even when I already knew that some had been bested.

Even for a RE enthusiast and optimist like me, the rate of change is incredible. Good fun too.

Martyn1981

Over 1,100 homes to be offered solar by North Ayrshire council

North Ayrshire Council has approved plans to investigate interest among its social housing tenants for the installation of solar PV on around 500 homes in an attempt to tackle fuel poverty and reduce carbon emissions in the region.

With the reduction in the FiT, the poor have lost out as so many councils/social housing had to scale back or cancel PV rollouts, but this approach is interesting, they are getting the tenants to make a contribution towards the scheme, which helps with the costs:

A report submitted to the local authority’s Cabinet on 17 January outlined the approach to the £2.3 million scheme, which would require a financial contribution from tenants on a voluntary basis to be combined with feed-in tariff payments so that the scheme can be cost neutral over 20 years.

This would be made through increased rent for those that agree to the installation of panels on their homes.

In return the tenant would be able to make a saving on their domestic electricity spend which over the 20 year period is projected to reach an average of £96 per annum.

“Even in the first year we anticipate that each tenant will save approximately £40 on their energy bills rising to £175 by year twenty.”

Martyn1981

Cheap and unsubsidised PV in Mexico:

Mexico signs lowest-price solar contracts to date

Contracts have been signed for 1.8 GW of solar in Mexico, including one contract at a price of US$26.99/MWh by Fotowatio. The median price for solar in this auction was around $31.70/MWh.

I had to post this, not just because world wide PV is getting cheaper, but because of a joke on Navitron, that the contract price was only this cheap as Mexico didn't have to pay for any frames or land costs. They are just going to attach it to the south facing side of Trump's new wall.

Martyn1981

This is solar news, but I suppose applies to all energy generation.

Basically, the supply side don't see battery storage as viable yet, but are ready to act as soon as it is. So ..... hurry up and wait, for now.

Major UK solar investors pessimistic over current battery storage opportunity

Listed funds in the UK which own a significant portion of the country’s utility-scale solar PV assets are not currently convinced by battery storage’s feasibility, but remain primed to deploy the technology at scale when the time is right.

Both Armstrong and Bonte-Friedheim said they considered battery storage to be a “free hit”, meaning that they would not miss out by refraining from being an early adopter and would still be able to reap the benefits as soon as the cost reductions made investments economical.

Armstrong said discussions surrounding battery storage were likely to be held at the start of every year. “When it becomes viable, then we’ll move,” he said. Bonte-Friedheim implied the same would happen at NextEnergy Capital, adding that his firm could install battery storage at all of its operational solar farms in a relatively short space of time as soon as it was viable.

I think this means there are roughly 3 stages to battery deployment.
1. Contracts to meet emergency balancing, which has now become viable, just.
2. Possibly some sort of government encouraged national deployment to allow intermittent generation supply to better match variable UK demand. Not there yet, but might be considered.
3. Generation companies (as in this article) deploying storage to improve the value of their product by selling it at higher prices into higher demand periods. Not there yet.

Martyn1981

I know we all know this, but nice to see it being said out loud:

Government accused of trying to kill off UK solar industry before it can become cheapest form of electricity

The Government has been accused of trying to kill off Britain’s solar energy industry just as it is about to become one of the cheapest suppliers of electricity – with no need for any kind of state subsidy.

In fact, according to the Government’s own projections, only onshore windfarms could provide cheaper power within the next decade or so – and the Conservatives pledged in the party’s election manifesto to “halt their spread”.

“There is strong consensus amongst mainstream energy analysts globally that solar will dominate future power systems. Hampering the British solar industry now is akin to shackling mobile phone operators on the cusp of the telecoms boom – extremely unwise.

“It is bewildering that a Government that says it wants the cheapest, clean power for consumers, has pulled the rug from under the cheapest and most popular, solar. They urgently need to look at solar again.”

NigeWick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I know we all know this,

I've written to my MP about this and the tax they're intending to apply to schools that have put solar on their rooves.