Solar ... In the news

penrhyn

I totally agree, we should put our resources where we get the biggest bang for our buck. To my mind security of supply must be the overriding factor. We need a mix of sources, we cant rely on supplies of LPG from the far east or Russia.
IIRC we are pulling in twice as much electricity from France this morning as we are generating from wind.

I love the old fashioned meters on this site:-

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Martyn1981

penrhyn wrote: »

I totally agree, we should put our resources where we get the biggest bang for our buck. To my mind security of supply must be the overriding factor. We need a mix of sources, we cant rely on supplies of LPG from the far east or Russia.

I agree with this, so I struggle to understand why you keep criticising renewables?

As long as there is any gas generation, then renewables are acting as gas reducers, without any need for storage.

During the winter, during a sustained period of high wind generation (7 to 8GW) we saw gas generation drop at night to only a couple of GW. Even then, we're still not in need of storage (yet) as coal's dead (Zed), coal's dead. So expect gas generation to increase to meet the loss of cheap coal - cheap if we ignore the enormous health impacts (subsidies) and CO2 impact (subsidies).

Only when that generation is covered will we need storage. And in addition, there'll be even greater gas generation to cover the falling nuclear element, until the new fleet gets built.

Looking forward, we still have the issue of gas CO2. We also have limited nuclear fuel - I believe estimates are of approximately 200 years, sounds good till you divide that by a hoped for 60 year reactor life, so we can triple world nuclear generation, to about 6%(?)

We also have biomass, but not cheap, and again some pollution issues.

So we need a bit of everything, including wind and PV, so why all the moaning, when on-shore wind and PV are our two cheapest technologies already, with fast large scale deployment. And on the smaller scale, demand side, nothing can compete with PV.

Mart.

PS, Addendum to my list of myths and pointless remarks - "wind doesn't generate when the wind's not blowing". Cheers, didn't know that. M.

mac2008

penrhyn wrote: »

I totally agree, we should put our resources where we get the biggest bang for our buck. To my mind security of supply must be the overriding factor. We need a mix of sources...[/url]

Like Mart, I agree with this, even though the first and second statements are potentially contradictory, in my mind at least.

But what do you mean exactly by security of supply? security in our ability to supply customers with what they demand, or security from external risks (e.g. not relying on imports?). Or a bit of both? I'm not trying to catch you out, I'm just curious, as its one of those phrases mentioned quite often and I get the feeling people mean different things by it.

Mac

zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

... We also have limited nuclear fuel - I believe estimates are of approximately 200 years, sounds good till you divide that by a hoped for 60 year reactor life, so we can triple world nuclear generation, to about 6%(?) ....

.... until it becomes necessary/viable to recover Uranium from seawater, then it becomes a non-issue ...


HTH
Z

lstar337

zeupater wrote: »

.... until it becomes necessary/viable to recover Uranium from seawater, then it becomes a non-issue ...


HTH
Z

Or we develop inherently safe liquid fluoride thorium reactors. Thorium is much more abundant, and is actually a waste product of rare earth metal mining.

Martyn1981

Solar Panels Drain the Sun’s Energy, Experts Say

This week, a scientific research facility in Wyoming made a startling discovery that is certain to change the way millions of Americans look at the environmentalism movement, after they found conclusive evidence that solar panels not only convert the sun’s energy into usable energy, but that they are also draining the sun of its own energy, possibly with catastrophic consequences far worse than global warming.
Scientists at the Wyoming Institute of Technology, a privately-owned think tank located in Cheyenne, Wyoming, discovered that energy radiated from the sun isn’t merely captured in solar panels, but that energy is directly physically drawn from the sun by those panels, in a process they refer to as “forced photovoltaic drainage.”

Mart.

penrhyn

Hells bells, that's nothing to what's being drained by photosynthesis. We must spray the forests with agent orange without delay.

Martyn1981

Barclays cites solar threat as it downgrades entire US utility bond market

Barclays downgraded the entire high grade corporate bond market for the US electric sector last week in a strong indication that solar PV-generated power coupled with storage presents a long term disruptive risk to utilities.

US financial news outlet Barron’s reported on its blog that the credit strategy team at Barclays had downgraded the entire sector to ‘underweight’. The report claimed that the utility industry is not preparing itself for the long-term challenges presented by solar, and in particular by residential solar, coupled with energy storage.

According to Barron’s, Barclays believes the position of electric utilities as “a sturdy and defensive subset of the investment grade universe”, will be threatened by the “confluence of declining cost trends in photovoltaic (PV) power generation and residential scale power storage”. The combination of these two trends, falling costs in solar and the increased deployment of residential energy storage, is the first truly cost-competitive substitute available for grid power for over 100 years, the Barclays credit strategy team claims.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Ok, not quite what Pink Floyd sang, but something I've been following, the 'Solar Schools' campaign.

At this stage still small, but things are going well, and building momentum:

Schools raise £100,000 for solar in eight months

Solar Schools has announced that it has raised over £100,000 in eight months in order to install solar arrays on 19 schools across the UK.

The programme, run by 10:10, encourages schools to use a combination of fundraising techniques to help raise the money required to install solar. 10:10 calculates that a typical PV installation will generate over £30,000 in energy savings and associated feed-in tariff (FiT) payments for a school over the array's FiT lifespan.

The department of education has said that it will actively encourage the deployment of PV on schools in addition to boosting energy efficiency. Commenting on the potential of solar, education secretary Michael Gove said: “Solar panels are a sensible choice for schools, particularly in terms of the financial benefits they can bring. It is also a great way for pupils to engage with environmental issues and think about where energy comes from.”

Mart.

Martyn1981

Not specifically PV, but a brief article on the REN21 report. It explodes some of the common myths (often posted on this board) that renewables can't supply a substantial amount of our energy, and that there's no point in us doing anything as India, China and the developing nations are expanding conventional fuels, an argument that conveniently ignores the investment by those countries in renewables:

Developing world helps drive renewable energy capacity to global record

there's no point picking out paragraphs, as the article has a good list of brief bullet points to read.

Anyone interested in the full report, here it is:

RENEWABLES 2014 GLOBAL STATUS REPORT

It's a beast, and PV is reviewed from page 47.

Some of the pretty pictures are interesting, and the incredible fact that in 2013 - Global investment in solar PV declined nearly 22% relative to 2012, but new capacity installations increased by more than 32%. :beer:

Mart.