Solar ... In the news

ed110220

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Much anti-PV myth and nonsense gets posted on here, but one of my favourites is the regularly repeated (every 6 months or so) claim that PV doesn't repay it's embedded energy during it's whole lifetime.

Well here are some new numbers from The Bavarian Institute of Applied Environmental Research and Technology:

Study reveals solar’s ‘energy payback’ time is 0.55 to 1.3 years



Mart.

Good find Mart! Didn't realise it was that short! The other thing of course is that no-one knows exactly how long the panels will last, though all the indications are more than the 25 years or so usually given as the design life and that the manufacturers guarantees against degradation are conservative.

Ed

Martyn1981

ed110220 wrote: »

Good find Mart! Didn't realise it was that short! The other thing of course is that no-one knows exactly how long the panels will last, though all the indications are more than the 25 years or so usually given as the design life and that the manufacturers guarantees against degradation are conservative.

Ed

Hi Ed, some good news on degradation here:

Martyn1981 wrote: »

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

and another article here:

Aging overvalued

However, I wonder if the real lifespan of panels, is as and when something better comes along - if the technology improves enough, might I (in 20 years or so, if still around) replace perfectly working panels, with even better panels, if the additional gain outweighs the replacement/upgrade costs. Hmmm???

I suspect we'll see a busy trade in 2nd hand panels appearing on sheds, improvised groundmounts and charitable schemes.

[Tucked away in that bifa report (table 6) is a suggestion that panel outputs could, in the mid-term, grow to 350Wp.]

Mart.

tunnel

Am i wrong in my understanding of this or are the energy companies now increasing rates to pay for the FiTs? I ask as i'm currently looking at renewing my business electric contract and got this off the SSE website for some rates i was considering

Duration Standing Charge Day FiTs Night 12 month tariff: £16.03 11.36 0.29 6.51 24 month tariff: £16.03 11.55 0.32 6.69 36 month tariff: £16.03 11.71 0.34 6.76 48 month tariff: £16.03 11.80 0.36 6.83

The bold figure is SC, then day rate, then FiT then night rate. I put it on as a chart but it went strange

When i rang them they said it was an industry wide practice and other companies prices would include this "additional" tariff but SSE's were being kept seperate to help explain the costs.

If its right it looks like the goverment are passing on the costs of the FiTs, anyone know any different?

ed110220

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Hi Ed, some good news on degradation here:



and another article here:

Aging overvalued

However, I wonder if the real lifespan of panels, is as and when something better comes along - if the technology improves enough, might I (in 20 years or so, if still around) replace perfectly working panels, with even better panels, if the additional gain outweighs the replacement/upgrade costs. Hmmm???

I suspect we'll see a busy trade in 2nd hand panels appearing on sheds, improvised groundmounts and charitable schemes.

[Tucked away in that bifa report (table 6) is a suggestion that panel outputs could, in the mid-term, grow to 350Wp.]

Mart.

Sounds pretty realistic given that the most efficient panels in a 'normal' size are already up to 345W. They are the Sunpower X21 series but don't seem to be available in the UK. Doesn't seem unrealistic that not too far in the future the average panel will match the best of today.

Ed

groovyf

Smaller (squarer?) panels, with decent rating would be a vast improvement and help with those roofs that aren't as accommodating with usual 1.6mx1m

Martyn1981

Firstly, Swindon Council has voted to relax/scrap solar planning permission rules .... subject to local support and being non controversial:

Swindon council votes to relax solar planning rules

UK town may scrap solar farm planning permission


And here's an interesting interview (compilation of snippets) with the UK sales manager of Trina Solar, discussing UK PV this year and next, and particularly the commercial sector (the one I think is most important to the UK):

Trina Solar: Commercial sector could drive UK to 3GW in 2014

Mart.

ed110220

groovyf wrote: »

Smaller (squarer?) panels, with decent rating would be a vast improvement and help with those roofs that aren't as accommodating with usual 1.6mx1m

Possibly, but I think the trouble is that panels are made for a number of uses such as ground mounted solar farms, commercial and industrial installations etc where larger panels are more convenient. Therefore small panels might be a more expensive niche product.

Martyn1981

Yet another move to damage confidence in the renewables industry from our 'greenest government ever'!

George Osborne is preparing to kill off Britain's renewable energy revolution

Some extracts:

Tucked away in the budget's red book is an innocuous-looking line that Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) tax breaks will no longer be available for companies benefiting from the renewables obligation certificate (ROC) scheme or the renewable heat incentive (RHI).

Of these, the ROC scheme is the big one. It underlies all the big wind, solar and other renewable technologies in the UK. The EIS tax breaks are available to investors who put money into all sorts of start-up companies. Until now that has also included firms building wind and solar farms. Now, after royal assent to the legislation in July, it will not be.

The point about the chopping and changing of support for renewables is that it creates uncertainty among investors, as countries such as Spain and Italy have found to their cost. They made retroactive changes to laws that left many investors high and dry, so they will not consider other investments there.

Before you decry "subsidies" to renewables, remember that much bigger subsidies have gone to North Sea oil and gas, coal and every other dirty fuel for decades, to say nothing of the ruinously expensive decision to build the new £16bn Hinkley Point nuclear reactor which, if built, will burden future generations with expensive electricity until nearly 2060.

Renewable energy, with the exception of offshore wind power, is now cheap, getting cheaper all the time and is well below what consumers pay for their electricity. It is also much cheaper than nuclear, and safer. It soon will require no support – in many countries it has already reached "grid parity".

Mart.

Martyn1981

PV momentum continues to grow fast in the US.

Now we have a former US Energy Secretary and Nobel prize winning physicist declaring that PV + storage could be:

“as disruptive to electricity distribution and generation as the internet”.

Former US energy secretary Chu: Utilities need to respond to ‘disruptive’ solar-plus-batteries

According to Chu, in order to remain competitive, utilities need to respond by applying a new business model to prepare for the likely coming of cheap solar power and falling prices of residential storage batteries.

Speaking at a University of Chicago event earlier in the month, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist gave an often light-hearted and humorous talk on “energy, innovation and global climate change”, in which he discussed the changing energy landscape of the USA and the world.

Chu explained that as the cost of PV modules plummeted and battery prices also fell, it was possible to envisage a situation in five to 10 years where homeowners could be 80% ‘self-sufficient’ and off-grid with a US$10,000 to US$12,000 solar-plus-battery system.

PV - the little subsidy that could!

Mart.

Martyn1981

I think this is big news, but it's still not clear.

Following the EU v's China anti-dumping war, PV prices and volumes from China were fixed. However, the agreement included a clause that the minimum price could be amended in line with general prices.

Well, prices have fallen, and China now believes that the minimum price is to be lowered:-

EU-China floor price to be cut to €0.53/watt, say reports

The minimum price for Chinese PV modules imported into the EU free of tariffs is set to be cut from €0.56 (US$0.77) to €0.53/watt (US$0.73), according to reports in China.

As part of the price undertaking agreed between Brussels and Beijing, an import quota of 7GW of modules was set alongside the minimum import price (MIP). Any product sold below this level or in excess of each manufacturers’ individual share of the quota is subjected to punitive duties.

The price undertaking includes a mechanism that allows the €0.56/watt price floor to be adjusted to reflect market conditions. The pricing level is based on Bloomberg’s Module Spot Price Index.

Chinese press reports claim that a number of industry insiders have indicated that the three eurocent drop is imminent.

The reason I think this is important, is that the falling prices in 2012 (and early 2013) were blamed on oversupply and Chinese dumping tactics. But we may now be seeing 'real' worldwide prices falling low enough to more naturally continue the pattern of falling prices.

Mart.