Solar ... In the news

Martyn1981

penrhyn wrote: »

Renewables whether wind, or solar are not going to provide base load power, thats why the Americans are fracking, the Chinese are building coal fired power stations and the French are 82 % Nuclear.

Slight problem with your argument there ....... all 3 countries are also investing heavily in renewables. There is not a black and white solution to our energy mix.

So (as Ed was pointing out) when it comes to renewables and PV, it would seem pretty much everyone has seen the light. Well, almost everyone.

Mart.

Martyn1981

penrhyn wrote: »

Well if the report comes from the Ecoloons at Edinburgh Univerity it must be true.

Since you're interested, thought you may like this article, it has more info, and a link to the report:

Parliament seminar ups solar awareness in Scotland

The report explains how PV is not only becoming cost competitive with other renewables, but could become cheaper.

penrhyn wrote: »

16%, generated during the summer months when its not needed.

Didn't really understand this. I appreciate that 16% is 1/6 but I read that statement as suggesting leccy generation isn't needed in the summer months. Obviously that can't be right, especially in a country like Scotland that has a large and growing amount of wind generation, which is less productive during the BST period.

Also, and just a pedantic point, but that PV generation wouldn't be spread evenly. It would probably be split 1/3 GMT period, 2/3 BST period. So during the summer months would technically be more than 16% - if it ever reached those levels of deployment.

penrhyn wrote: »

How you going to store it, for when its wanted?

Article today that may interest you. Whilst the interviewer is a little boring, the two vids give some indication of just how fast this sector is developing, and how seriously it should be taken:

Alan Whitehead says electricity storage could be ‘glue’ that holds the network together

Mart.

Solar_Freak

Hey all

What about the latest solar pv innovation in the offing - tin based perovskite cells? Are they really efficient? Also do they work well with energy switching devices?

Martyn1981

Solar_Freak wrote: »

Hey all

What about the latest solar pv innovation in the offing - tin based perovskite cells? Are they really efficient? Also do they work well with energy switching devices?

Hiya, and welcome.

I assume as a newbie you can't post links, so I'll pop a few on to do with this interesting approach, especially as it seems to be very recent:

Scientists Develop Coal-Killing Solar Cell Made From Tin

Scientists develop the first low-cost, environmentally friendly solar PV panel

Solar Researchers Find Promise in Tin Perovskite

Cheers.

Mart.

zeupater

Solar_Freak wrote: »

Hey all

What about the latest solar pv innovation in the offing - tin based perovskite cells? Are they really efficient? Also do they work well with energy switching devices?

Hi

Welcome to the forum ....

I picked up on the article from Mart's link too. Looks interesting, but even if it proves to be a stable product, anything that interesting is likely to be a decade away from mass-production.

Regarding the question on efficiency, I recently read somewhere that the tin based development cells were currently around the 6% mark whereas the best lead ones had achieved about 20% ... elsewhere I've seen mention of 45% to 50% efficiency being the goal, but I would consider this as being the usual developer mix of hype and wishful thinking for the foreseeable future ...

HTH
Z

penrhyn

The neighbours at Plas Newydd are having a 300kwh water souced heat pump installed. Interesting article on the BBC Wales news sight.
PS Well worth a visit, if only for Rex Whistlers mural.

zeupater

penrhyn wrote: »

The neighbours at Plas Newydd are having a 300kwh water souced heat pump installed. Interesting article on the BBC Wales news sight.
PS Well worth a visit, if only for Rex Whistlers mural.

... link ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27505207

Interestingly, I would have thought that the condensation would have been on the seawater return, not feed ... oh well, so much for journalism ...

HTH
Z

lstar337

zeupater wrote: »

... link ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27505207

Interestingly, I would have thought that the condensation would have been on the seawater return, not feed ... oh well, so much for journalism ...

HTH
Z

If the room had a high relative humidity then it would likely be on both. I'm sure the sea water temp would be low enough for that.

Wouldn't the return be prone to freezing, or at least have a small amount of frost on the pipe outer? Or does it just not get that cold?

zeupater

lstar337 wrote: »

If the room had a high relative humidity then it would likely be on both. I'm sure the sea water temp would be low enough for that.

Wouldn't the return be prone to freezing, or at least have a small amount of frost on the pipe outer? Or does it just not get that cold?

Hi

I agree, it would, but it hasn't really been that warm for long enough so far this year. We get condensation on the cold mains riser in the house when it's humid after a period of warm weather, but it's bone dry at the moment.

The point is that it's far more likely that condensation would form on the seawater return pipe because this would inherently be cooler due to the energy removed .... If apparent on both feed & return, then the return would almost certainly be far wetter, so I'm pretty confident that this would be the pipe which the reporter would have chosen to have shown as it has more impact ...

Regarding freezing/frost, probably not under normal operating conditions. I have a good friend with a GSHP and this is prone to ice forming where the ground loop return is connected/exposed - I'm told that this is more evident when the HP is working hard later in the heating season, probably due to the ground mass in the vicinity of the loop cooling before being replenished over the summer .... with a water loop the operating temperature should remain pretty constant throughout the heating season (sea winter temperature ~8C) due to the tidal flow preventing localised static mass cooling ...

HTH
Z

lstar337

zeupater wrote: »

Regarding freezing/frost, probably not under normal operating conditions. I have a good friend with a GSHP and this is prone to ice forming where the ground loop return is connected/exposed - I'm told that this is more evident when the HP is working hard later in the heating season, probably due to the ground mass in the vicinity of the loop cooling before being replenished over the summer .... with a water loop the operating temperature should remain pretty constant throughout the heating season (sea winter temperature ~8C) due to the tidal flow preventing localised static mass cooling ...

HTH
Z

We have a large ASHP unit at work (feeds 8 internal units) and this freezes, and will (at times) run itself in reverse to defrost the coils.

I may be sad (change that to definitely) but I have watched it do this more than once, It was fascinating to watch the iced over coils melting before returning to their normal job! :rotfl:

I wonder if this sea powered unit will also run in reverse to provide cooling during hot summer months?