Solar ... In the news

spgsc531

http://www.pv-magazine.com/archive/articles/beitrag/aging-overvalued-_100002542/86/?tx_ttnews[backCat]=167&cHash=1aac8466071c1a07d2b5aba974c87f89#axzz2qyQNJr1p

Another nail in the anti-Solar PV whining and bleating coffin?

ed110220

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I'll second your wow, and add a strewth!

Sadly, I suspect that the 3x3's are more likely to be a financial decision. "What can we get away with to look green, but cost the minimum?" I hope I'm wrong, as the extra cost of going to 12 panels, would have been minimal at the time, maybe £500 per property. Now it would probably be 3 times that?

I do believe in 'better than nothing', but a shame not to have maxed out the roofing potential. But I don't know the full story and my [STRIKE]nosey[/STRIKE] inquisitive mind is starting to ponder. Hmmm.

Mart.

This development was built by the housing association on the site of some precast reinforced concrete Cornish houses (one that has been refurbished rather than demolished is visible on the left)

Ed

Martyn1981

spgsc531 wrote: »

Pretty sure I've seen before, that there is new legislation coming in that will mean all new homes will have to have PV by 2019(?)

Public buildings before then I think(?)

Can't remember the link.

From what I recall there is two new pieces of legislation, overlapping.

Perhaps someone has more concrete info?

More porridge, than concrete, but I know what you're talking about. My understanding is that the tightening regs, would eventually make it too hard to meet with improved efficiency, insulation etc, and thereby necessitate the need for own production and off-set, such as PV, solar thermal, wind etc.

Does that make any sense ..... probably not? If you set the bar high enough, it becomes impossible to reduce consumption that far, so generation is used to balance the books.

Anyways, I also think something happened last year, possibly the govt slackened the incoming rules, to help reduce the cost of building new homes (by sacrificing annual running cost savings - short sighted?) so this link may be wrong, may be solar propaganda, or may now be out of date. But hopefully is at least 'in the right direction'.

The Code for Sustainable Homes

Mart.

Martyn1981

spgsc531 wrote: »

http://www.pv-magazine.com/archive/articles/beitrag/aging-overvalued-_100002542/86/?tx_ttnews[backCat]=167&cHash=1aac8466071c1a07d2b5aba974c87f89#axzz2qyQNJr1p

Another nail in the anti-Solar PV whining and bleating coffin?

Couple of articles here on long term degradation:

http://www.presse.uni-oldenburg.de/einblicke/54/files/assets/downloads/page0009.pdf

Testing a Thirty-Year-Old Photovoltaic Module

I now use 0.5%pa degradation when trying to estimate long-term generation (used to use 1%), but things may be even better (don't know).

Happy to chat with anyone about PV (no, really I do!), but generally avoid questions about particular panels etc, as we won't really know till it's too late, and those panels (any of todays panels) probably won't be in production still in 10 years, as things keep moving forward. So all guesses are probably pointless.

But ...... at least positive news and results, are better than negative ones, but we may have to agree to revisit this in 20 years.

Mart.

Martyn1981

EU outlines 2030 climate goals

The European Commission has outlined its plans for climate and energy policy until 2030.

The Commissioners want a binding target to reduce carbon emissions by 40% from 1990 levels.

Renewables will need to provide 27% of EU energy by 2030, but while the target will be binding at EU level there will be no mandatory targets for member states.

The policy proposals are subject to review by heads of government.

Mart.

silverwhistle

tunnel wrote: »

Wow, so many panels. The estate i pass is on its own without any surrounding houses to soak up any excess generation,

I don't think that's an issue. The distribution engineer will have had to design for a peak load, so there's no issue from that point of view. In fact, given the way people's behaviour and usage changes with having PV, they probably wouldn't have to design to such a big peak as load is displaced to the day (although I'm sure they do). In any such large development you'd hope there would be some other infrastructure (school,shops,pub,?) but in any case you'll have various demand profiles: retired, unemployed, shift workers, stay at home parent, as well as standard 9-5 absentees. Maybe they'll have installed Cardew's favourite immersion heaters?:D

silverwhistle

zeupater wrote: »

.... probably find that a good proportion resides with the UK Government's history of indecision and blithering on energy policy ... can't blame 'silverwhistle' unless (s)he's a politician, same for 'Cardew' too ....

Anyway, I for one find Mart's analysis of subsidies pretty interesting but reckon that there's still too much fat (market/margin protection) built into the capital costs for most of the technologies which will become apparent over the next few years ....
Z

She's not a politician! But I'd agree that decent planning could have resulted in lower subsidies with the similar result of bringing down costs long-term as companies and individuals would have known the framework they were working within. Let's face it; nobody has confidence in government on this, particularly the current one, and it's difficult to justify investments when you lack such confidence.

Your subsequent point about building in PV at the beginning is a good one, and a pretty obvious thing to do.You always design in function and quality at the beginning of a process, because subsequent rectification/changes in design are always very expensive. Frankly I'm sure that if I can pay £6K for a one-off 4kw installation in the south then, with economies of scale, designed in and no scaffolding costs £5k should easily be achievable.

Martyn1981

Just a quick update on a previous story:

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Glad you mentioned France, nice timing:

UK sidelined as French President calls for ‘Airbus’ approach for solar industry

France’s President Francois Hollande has called for an ‘Airbus’ style model of collaboration for the European solar industry.

Looks like France is pretty serious about getting into the PV business. Whether or not an EU consortium could compete with China, is questionable, but good on them for recognising the future, and at least thinking about it:

France, Germany forging PV alliance

French President Francois Hollande supports plans to build a giant PV module plant with an initial annual production capacity of 1 GW and which could expand up to 5 GW.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Just some info for any number junkies out there, regarding last year.

Looks like China topped the table, just.
PV rose to ~36GWp.
2014 predictions range from 42 to 50GWp

BNEF swaps Japan for China as biggest solar market in 2013

Mart.

zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

..... Looks like France is pretty serious about getting into the PV business ....

Hi

I'd reckon that Francois Hollande has absolutely no idea what he's talking about (as usual, it seems) as a mere 1GW is doomed to failure .... you'd need to compete on volume to achieve economies of scale, so the upper aspiration would need to be the start point ....

The real issue is attempting this as a start-up in France with their embedded social costs if it's a failure, so you'd need to ensure that the economies of scale offered a world-beating priced product ... I'd doubt that anyone would seriously take him up and invest any private funds on this ....

HTH
Z