Solar ... In the news

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

I thought you were against Rent a Roof schemes?

I'm rather indifferent to be honest:

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Personally, I think, this 'coulda' been handled much better, but a useful learning exercise, and a lot of installs (and involvement) shifted into the lower income market.

On the plus side it means that households with low income can still have PV, and at a lower subsidy rate, with the monies distributed across more parties.

Cardew wrote: »

This scheme is nothing more than a firm offering a form of RaR system or selling their systems to developers/housing associations/home owners.

Not sure what your point is. This is a scheme to get PV onto the roof of more social housing. The subsidies going to the investors, be they the LA, HA or private companies and the leccy savings to the tenants.

It's hard to find a negative. In fact with regard to PV in general, it must be getting pretty hard to find any negatives these days ....... hence the many desperate references to nights! :rotfl:

Mart.

Nosler

We have solar panels in our office. They have hardly produced more than 100W in the last month. I'm into the environment etc, but I can't help thinking that solar power in the UK is a bit.... cr4p.

zeupater

Nosler wrote: »

We have solar panels in our office. They have hardly produced more than 100W in the last month. I'm into the environment etc, but I can't help thinking that solar power in the UK is a bit.... cr4p.

Hi

Without knowing what size the array is we can't gauge how bad that is ... if it's 100Wp then it's doing quite well ...

Seriously though, this time of year isn't really the best for generation and in addition, the past month-or-so has been particularly dull ... having said that, our system is still just about on it's original target (PVGIS-Classic) for this month ...

HTH
Z

captainhindsight_2

Cardew wrote: »

Of course all of the FIT subsidies(as usual) are paid for by other electricity consumers in increased bills.

Just like part of your energy bill is earmarked for re-investment in energy infrastructure. Why is it people don't moan about their energy bills going to foreign companies for reinvestment in fossil fuel power generation and in the pockets of oil and gas giants but then moan about the same thing for renewables that is going in the pockets of british people? Seems odd.

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Seriously though, this time of year isn't really the best for generation and in addition, the past month-or-so has been particularly dull ... having said that, our system is still just about on it's original target (PVGIS-Classic) for this month ...

HTH
Z

Even 3+ years in I'm still surprised by the monthly PV generation. As you say this month has been grey and wet, and feels like a very poor performance, but looks like generation will be around 91% of target for the month.

Over the years my results against monthly targets have only varied from 82% (June 2012) to 131% (July 2013). Quite a surprise to me.

Biggest surprise (I think) was this August's generation. I think it was a cold wet August, not nice for children and holidaymakers, but most of the rain was showery (not day long black skies) and the colder temps must have boosted generation. It felt like a poor result month, but I got 108% of target - quite a surprise.

[Caveat - my Nov to Feb targets are quite low, as with shallow(ish) off south panels both targets and generation rely more and more on daylight rather than direct sunlight.]

Mart.

ed110220

Nosler wrote: »

We have solar panels in our office. They have hardly produced more than 100W in the last month. I'm into the environment etc, but I can't help thinking that solar power in the UK is a bit.... cr4p.

I guess it depends what your expectations are. The average domestic PV system produces very roughly the same amount of electricity per year as the average home uses, which seems pretty good.

I think most people would also be surprised how well solar PV performs in the UK compared with the best locations in the world. Most people would probably guess that solar PV in the world's sunniest places would produce many times more electricity as in the UK, but the best place I could find using PVGIS http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/ (somewhere in the Namib desert inland of Swakopmund, Namibia) is only estimated to produce about twice as much as southern England.

Ed

Martyn1981

World's Largest Solar Farm Goes Online In California

Another giant solar farm has been constructed on desert lands in California, stealing the title of the largest solar plant in the world. The farm, which is called Topaz, recently went online after its final 40-megawatt phase was completed, making it the first 500-plus megawatt solar plant to be up and running in the US.

Construction of the $2.5 billion project began two years ago, but it wasn’t anticipated to be finished until early next year. The company behind the project, First Solar, said that the plant should generate 550 megawatts, which is enough to supply around 160,000 average homes. What’s more, it will also remove 377,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Mart.

EricMears

What’s more, it will also remove 377,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

Do they really mean that the electricity generated is going to be used to run some chemical plant that will remove CO2 from the atmosphere and process it into some chemically stable form ?


OR

do they just mean that if someone else was burning coal etc to produce the same amount of electricity then they would have produced 377,000 tons ?


I'm sure the latter is more likely but for a few milliseconds I was getting quite excited.

ed110220

EricMears wrote: »

Do they really mean that the electricity generated is going to be used to run some chemical plant that will remove CO2 from the atmosphere and process it into some chemically stable form ?


OR

do they just mean that if someone else was burning coal etc to produce the same amount of electricity then they would have produced 377,000 tons ?


I'm sure the latter is more likely but for a few milliseconds I was getting quite excited.

Great news but poor journalism there! Also, I presume they mean it will produce 550 MW in standard conditions, but it would be more useful to know how many MWh/year (though the difference probably escaped the journalist)

Martyn1981

ed110220 wrote: »

Great news but poor journalism there! Also, I presume they mean it will produce 550 MW in standard conditions, but it would be more useful to know how many MWh/year (though the difference probably escaped the journalist)

Good point. The company's site has more info, but not that crucial bit:

San Luis Obispo County, California USA

However, given it's location, I'd suspect it would produce about twice the leccy of a UK system, so perhaps 2GWh/MWp pa. So around 1,000GWh?

Edit: Wikipedia Topaz Solar Farm

According to First Solar, it created about 400 construction jobs. Annual generation is expected to be 1,096 GWh.

Mart.