Solar ... In the news

Martyn1981

Quite big news on storage in the UK for commercial and industrial users.

C&I energy storage business cases ‘100% certain’

It is “100% certain” that a solid business case exists for commercial and industrial (C&I) users of electricity in Britain, delegates at this month’s Solar & Storage Live heard.

Vattenfall reaches out to solar farm owners with battery model in co-location push

Electricity and heat generator and retailer Vattenfall is developing a third party model for energy storage deployment which will see the Swedish firm deploy batteries alongside UK solar farms.

As the company prepares to deliver its first battery storage project in the UK at the Pen y Cymoedd wind farm in Wales early next year, Vattenfall recently revealed that it is already in talks with a number of solar farm owners.

NigeWick

GreatApe wrote: »

Stationary storage for places like the uk is a total waste just use your cash to install more solar where possible

Unfortunately, I have found that the sun doesn't shine on my solar panels after dark so I obviously believe that a battery system is a necessity. As I am connected to the grid and have Economy 7 I could also charge the battery on cheap electricity at night and discharge in daylight hours during winter when the panels are not producing anything like full capacity.

The premise is, that batteries and PV costs are going to come down so much that they will make it cheaper to own them than buy electricity from grid suppliers. Just because it can't be done now, doesn't mean it won't happen in a few years time.

NigeWick

GreatApe wrote: »

A I showed the largest uk PV farm

Who needs a PV farm when we've got more than enough roof space to generate what is required when combined with wind, wave and tidal generation?

EricMears

NigeWick wrote: »

Just because it can't be done now, doesn't mean it won't happen in a few years time.

Quite so ! When I was planning our house twenty years ago, I aligned it so that PV would be possible in the future although didn't fit it initially as it would have had a payback period of around 400 years (which I thought might be a little beyond my lifespan ).

Fifteen years later payback period had dropped below ten years and we did fit it. Now, we've almost collected enough FIT payments to cover the initial cost and are buying less than half as much electricity as we did when we first moved in.

Martyn1981

EricMears wrote: »

Quite so ! When I was planning our house twenty years ago, I aligned it so that PV would be possible in the future

Is it wrong that I got a mental image of you and the Mrs at opposite corners of a house, slowly adjusting it?

To me, to you!

zeupater

NigeWick wrote: »

Unfortunately, I have found that the sun doesn't shine on my solar panels after dark so I obviously believe that a battery system is a necessity. As I am connected to the grid and have Economy 7 I could also charge the battery on cheap electricity at night and discharge in daylight hours during winter when the panels are not producing anything like full capacity.

The premise is, that batteries and PV costs are going to come down so much that they will make it cheaper to own them than buy electricity from grid suppliers. Just because it can't be done now, doesn't mean it won't happen in a few years time.

Hi

That's why cf is meaningless for solar .. it has no capacity to generate at night, therefore those with anti-renewables tendencies invariably use this fact to skew figures ... also note the usual ploy of isolating one technology at a time (in this case solar) and attacking on the basis that as if it was to supply 100% of demand ...

Note 330TWh is a measure of energy, yet we're being led towards using the logic of Power density by area .. which makes absolutely no sense considering that without also considering an energy storage medium there'd be no supply/demand correlation, therefore the entire argument/approach is illogical ...

An individual argued similar long practised points almost exactly 2 years ago under a different profile before deleting well over 200 posts from a single thread to cover-up the illogical approach and lack of supporting data after others exposed serious flaws in the arguments & postulations ... here's the thread ... http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5332949 ... the argumentative positions are the same, the lack of supporting data is the same, the figures .. ,the grammar, the ... the ... , so there's no need to revisit a debate already concluded when you can simply read the history book ... have a read, it'll save us all a considerable amount of time ...

HTH
Z

GreatApe

NigeWick wrote: »

Unfortunately, I have found that the sun doesn't shine on my solar panels after dark so I obviously believe that a battery system is a necessity. As I am connected to the grid and have Economy 7 I could also charge the battery on cheap electricity at night and discharge in daylight hours during winter when the panels are not producing anything like full capacity.

The premise is, that batteries and PV costs are going to come down so much that they will make it cheaper to own them than buy electricity from grid suppliers. Just because it can't be done now, doesn't mean it won't happen in a few years time.

You will still need the grid for the winter months when your solar & batteries are not sufficent

What that means is if a large number did go solar + battery you would find the grid would just increase its charges and you would have no choice but to pay them.

You would also need the grid to dump the excess power and energy in the sunnier months and if lots of solar were installed they would only make you smaller and smaller payments for that power you export all the way down towards 0p a unit

Batteries dont get you off the grid in the uk.
Installed in large numbers all they would do is sift the grids model from low standing charges + some margin in each unit you import, to much higher standing charges and lower import numbers

Fundamentally there is no economic (nationally) or ecological argument for batteries in the uk grid

GreatApe

NigeWick wrote: »

Who needs a PV farm when we've got more than enough roof space to generate what is required when combined with wind, wave and tidal generation?

We dont really have wave and tidal but yes we can probably do fine with just offshore wind and interconnections

GreatApe

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

That's why cf is meaningless for solar .. it has no capacity to generate at night, therefore those with anti-renewables tendencies invariably use this fact to skew figures ... also note the usual ploy of isolating one technology at a time (in this case solar) and attacking on the basis that as if it was to supply 100% of demand ...

Note 330TWh is a measure of energy, yet we're being led towards using the logic of Power density by area .. which makes absolutely no sense considering that without also considering an energy storage medium there'd be no supply/demand correlation, therefore the entire argument/approach is illogical ...
Z

I am very well aware of standard units and am capable of converting one to the other.
If you need me to explain it to you here goes

The Largest UK solar farm produces energy of a little under 70 KWh per year per sqaure meter of Land. If you had a constant source drawing 8 watts that would use 70 KWh per year.

I did not say solar should provide 100% of electricity needs. Someone else said the land area required to do that would be small and acceptable so I showed that it was not small nor acceptable as it would require a land mass that was multiple times that of London in non stop PV farms

silverwhistle

Well, the 28sq.m (approx.) of solar panels on my roof produce 3600+ (approx.) kWh in a year, so not quite double, and they're not the latest more efficient panels. Perhaps you're cutting and pasting from an old file source?

If that can be achieved on an ex-council terraced house roof, think what could be achieved with more installations with the latest efficiency panels. All those aware consumers subtly adjusting their usage patterns and trying to maximise their own usage.

As for winter time, judging by the horizontal rain at football training tonight, the wind turbines should be taking up the slack!