Solar ... In the news

tunnel

aurion22 wrote: »

Not sure if this is the right thread .. just searched for "solar pv". I've had a visit today from a company whose salesman told me it would be £6900 for their solar pv setup if they send me a quote but, "if you sign up now", it would only be £6200. The slight snag is that there's NO cooling-off period so I would have been committing myself to the contract. Is that legal?
Thanks for any feedback.
Loretta

You may have been better starting your own thread on here rather than just attaching to this one(prob get a better response)

As for your question, that's just a hard sell tactic, see it all the time with windows, ignore them, ring round and get several quotes...although their price doesn't sound too bad, then again that depends on the size of the array? More info needed i'm afraid?

Martyn1981

aurion22 wrote: »

Not sure if this is the right thread .. just searched for "solar pv". I've had a visit today from a company whose salesman told me it would be £6900 for their solar pv setup if they send me a quote but, "if you sign up now", it would only be £6200. The slight snag is that there's NO cooling-off period so I would have been committing myself to the contract. Is that legal?
Thanks for any feedback.
Loretta

Alarm bells ringing like crazy.

Edit: Response moved to 'Solar PV system install' thread.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Interesting article, on many levels:

SEIA report: U.S. military cuts casualties and costs with solar energy

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/seia-report--us-military-cuts-casualties-and-costs-with-solar-energy_100011335/#axzz2Tiero01y

Just a few extracts:-

Cumulatively, over the past decade, more than 3,300 U.S. troops have died during attacks on fuel convoys.

The DOD has committed to meet 25% of its energy needs with renewable energy by 2025;

Domestically, the three military branches have installed more solar power than 37 U.S. states have done to date, collectively.

As the world’s largest energy consumer, the DOD spent more than $20 billion (€15.5 billion) and burned over five billion gallons of oil during the past year. Today, the military buys gas for just over $1.00 (€0.78) a gallon, but getting that gasoline to forward bases in Afghanistan costs more than $400 (€310) per gallon.

Sadlier and Sgt. David Doty believe that the use of solar generation on the battlefield is "a potential life-saver." After testing the mobile solar unit, Doty commented, "Our generators typically use more than 20 gallons of fuel a day. We are down to 2.5 gallons a day." The Fulton, Missouri native added, "The system works amazing[ly]. By saving fuel for generators, it has cut back on the number of convoys—meaning fewer opportunities for one of our vehicles to hit an IED."

Mart.

Martyn1981

Fund and asset manager Bluefield Partners today announced a deal to finance solar PV facilities across UK industrial and commercial sites owned by British Gas clients.

http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/british_gas_and_solar_fund_sign_industrial_sites_deal

Bluefield partner Mike Rand said: “Bluefield anticipates committing significant funds to enable large-scale installation of industrial solar plants on ground and rooftops across the UK. The proven track record of Bluefield and British Gas in installing and funding industrial solar plants provides a unique proven offering for industrial customers looking to reduce their energy bills while enhancing their energy efficiency ratings."

Mart.

Martyn1981

Some interesting numbers on PV development:

http://www.pv-tech.org/news/lux_research_pv_market_to_reach_us155_billion_in_2018

The solar PV market is poised to rise from the ashes of its 2011 crisis to grow to US$155 billion in 2018, according to analysts at Lux Research.

According to the company's latest report latest report Market Size Update 2013: Return to Equilibrium, the recent solar crisis will become a boon, as record low prices boost demand, more than doubling the global market to 61.7GW driven by a healthy 10.5% compound annual growth rate.

Personally I find all this interesting as with PV we seem to have both demand driven technology, and technology driven demand.

As the roll-out of PV increases, I expect to see a dramatic increase in ancillary equipment, like the intelligent switches, and battery storage that are starting to reach roll-out already. Should be a very interesting sector by the end of the decade.

Mart.

mac2008

I thought some people might find this interesting.

I do wonder how much of the price decrease is due to 'investment' via FiTs, but hey, nice graph anyway:

http://io9.com/solar-powers-epic-price-drop-visualized-510448484

Martyn1981

mac2008 wrote: »

I thought some people might find this interesting.

I do wonder how much of the price decrease is due to 'investment' via FiTs, but hey, nice graph anyway:

Cheers, I thought it was interesting. In fact, it was looking at the shape of the price curve several years ago (google search + images), that led me to believe that PV prices had a lot further to fall, since the curve hadn't even started to 'go shallow' (when you take into account the lack of investment and general growth in the industry during the previous 2 decades). This simple and obvious factor was apparently missed by many of the detractors.

The comments on that article seem to place a lot of the 'blame' for cheap panels on poor quality Chinese panels, and there definitely are some of those, but that doesn't explain how the price has fallen from $4/Wp to $1/Wp* for US, EU & Japanese panels.

*prices based on quick search of a UK retail supplier, for single panels, excluding VAT. Presumably, a pallet load (domestic roof) would be around 5% cheaper, and a container load (commercial roof) another 5% cheaper .... plus any trade discounts.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Bristol set to unveil ambitious solar strategy.

http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/bristol_set_to_unveil_ambitious_solar_strategy1

Bristol mayor George Ferguson is set to unveil a plan which he hopes will see the city installing 1GW of solar PV panels by 2020.

If Bristol can achieve anything like 1GW of PV, by 2020, then that will be extremely impressive, given that the entire UK target for 2020 is approx 22GW. Go for it. :T


Also, some UK news, with PV reaching the 2.5GW mark.

UK solar PV demand reached 520MW in Q1 2013.

http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/guest_blog/uk_solar_pv_demand_reached_520mw_in_q1_2013

Demand for solar photovoltaic (PV) panels in the United Kingdom (UK) grew significantly to reach 520MW in the first quarter of 2013, driven by a strong push from large-scale ground-mount PV projects completed during March 2013. Cumulative PV demand in the UK has now exceeded 2.5GW, with 93% of this demand having being realised in the past two years, according to the latest bottom-up analysis derived from the NPD Solarbuzz UK deal-tracker database that now includes over 1,400 non-residential PV projects.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Firstly, the Minister of State for energy and climate change is talking up the UK's PV potential:

Barker: UK is ‘the most exciting growth market for solar in Europe’

http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/barker_uk_is_the_most_exciting_growth_market_for_solar_in_europe_2356

Barker concluded: “No country in the EU is better-placed for growth and new solar deployment than the UK. No country has more potential for future solar deployment. Our stated ambitions mean that we have over 17GW of solar to deploy in the next seven years. And no country has a better mix of ingredients to support the solar industry.”


Secondly, what I think is extremely important news:

SMA’s manufacturing facility declared zero scope 2 carbon neutral

Inverters manufactured by SMA Solar Technology AG have been officially crowned zero carbon following an independent audit.

The UK arm of the German manufacturer appointed the independent verifier CICS to determine the carbon footprint of the company’s manufacturing facility in Kassel, Germany.

Whilst this doesn't reduce the energy payback time of a PV system (around 3 to 7 years), it does help to reduce the carbon payback time, which is dependent on the carbon intensity of the manufacturing processes. Renewables producing renewables. :T

Mart.

rogerblack

Martyn1981 wrote: »

endent verifier CICS to determine the carbon footprint of the company’s manufacturing facility in Kassel, Germany.

Whilst this doesn't reduce the energy payback time of a PV system (around 3 to 7 years), it does help to reduce the carbon payback time, which is dependent on the carbon intensity of the manufacturing processes. Renewables producing renewables. :T

Mart.

The embodied carbon - that in the component production process is likely to significantly exceed that of a factory manufacturing the inverters.
Assuming that the plant in germany is actually manufacturing from raw electronic components and isn't just doing QA and final assembly from sources in china. (which clearly would further decrease the german emissions)

As to future installations - well... https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/weekly-solar-pv-installation-and-capacity-based-on-registration-date

This gives a somewhat depressing reading.
Over the past six months, sub 4kW installations have been more-or-less constant at a rate of 300MW/year.
We're now at 1.6GW, and at the current rate would hit 17GW in about 40 years.

And unfortunately for this ambition, the price of installs is about to jump.
From 6th of August, a levy of 47% comes in on chinese solar modules and cells.

I do not see any reason with the current legislative framework, and market that installs will not fall, rather than rise.
While some of the cost of an install is labour - a goodly slice of it is panels - if the total price rises by 20-30%, this is not going to make more people decide to invest in solar.