if solar is good why hasnt every one got it

Richie-from-the-Boro

tberry6686 wrote: »

Wrong on that one.

Most scientists believe in some form of global warming. AGW is very much in doubt. Every time one scientist announces new evidence to support AGW, it is pointed out that, at best, the evidence is flimsy and very open to interpretation. There is not one robust piece of evidence for AGW (even the evidence for GW is weak when you look at the unedited data).

Thankyou tberry6686 - agreed, the real 2 important fact for myself are that whilst global warming is happening (1) there's no evidence that its caused by mankind and (2) the half of science that blames mankind is the very vocal paid bribes to flaky scientists that form opinion on behalf of heavily vested financial interests. Know nothing populism from politicians and artificial non science from Kyoto to the present continue to drive an artificial world market forward filling the pockets of big business.

My bottom line is that while we follow this false prophet we contribute nothing to an alternative UK economic 'keep the lights on' policy. We have had tidal, windy mills, magic mirrors, kettle lakes, and many other non effective energy generation research over almost 50 years. I too wish we could have magic free energy, but if we are ever to achieve it in the next 50 years we need brand new thinking - while we wait for the 100 wasted years we need to keep the lights on.

Richie-from-the-Boro

HiYa Martyn1981 ,

Yes I recognised you nym and remembered your viewpoint from previous encounters in this section of MSE before I replied to you in #69. I don't read other boards on MSE. You have your view and I have mine. 50 wasted years doing it your way, at some point we must all look in the right place and confront facts, an ideology latched onto and slavishly followed for decades has made us all poorer, made the rich even richer and led us no where. We are no where, we have not moved one energy-economic inch in that time. Find a new way or build UK owned nuclear to get us though the next 50 years until we do find a truly new way to make energy. All the UK anti-nuclear lobby have achieved is to make us buy overpriced French nuclear - we are still using nuclear but only 18% is UK generated and 12.5% from [old 2012 figures] Holland & France, 73% still comes from dirty coal & oil. URL="http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-T-Z/United-Kingdom/"]June 2015 figures[/URL We are still using nuclear, its just that we are paying someone else to generate it for us. Best of luck.

MEVW62

safestored4 wrote: »

Going back to your original question I wouldn't instal solar heating panels on my roof because:

1. When I eventually come to sell the house I can not be certain what impact the existance of these will have on the decision of the mortgage lender to lend to the buyer.

2. I would want to attract the broadest range of buyers. Like it or not a lot of people do not like the look of solar panels.

3. I am sceptical about the claimed financial savings. It all reminds me of double glazing salesmen 20 years ago.

4. As I understand it these panels have a finate life. How often do they have to be replaced and who pays for this?

I could add more but that's enough to be going on. I am happy to be shot down on all these points on matters of fact.

1. Fair point. But they could be a plus. They do add to the property's EPC rating and that's something that mortgage lenders ought to like. I think this is more of an issue with the 'rent a roof 'schemes where the property owner doesn't own the solar installation. But if it looks like they're an issue and you own the panels, you could have them taken off and moved to your new property or possibly sold if still viable (see also 4, below). That wouldn't be free, but in the context of house prices the sums involved shouldn't be huge, of the order of or probably less than estate agents' fees, depending where you live and what you're selling.

2. Indeed. I don't have a problem with the more recent all-black designs but I have seen some very ugly and obtrusive installations. Some of it's what you're used to. I still find wall-mounted satellite TV dishes objectionable.

3. This is certainly true. I've just been through some of that and it's exactly the same as the double-glazing scams. Some time and effort spent in useful forums like the Green & Ethical money saving one here will be rewarded, however. I believe a well-designed solar PV installation will pay for itself, but probably not as quickly as many of these quotes suggest, as a large part of the calculated saving is based on guesses about future inflation and energy costs.

4. The panels do have a finite life but most are now guaranteed for 20 years. They will decline in efficiency over this time but should keep working to some extent, and once they're paid for, anything you get from them is a bonus. When they do fail, it would be the owner's responsibility to replace them but who know what they'll cost (or what else might be available instead) in 20 years? Given the sharp decline in panel prices over the last 5 years or less, replacement should cost only less in real terms in another 20 years.

Hope this helps.

MEVW62

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Thankyou tberry6686 - agreed, the real 2 important fact for myself are that whilst global warming is happening (1) there's no evidence that its caused by mankind and (2) the half of science that blames mankind is the very vocal paid bribes to flaky scientists that form opinion on behalf of heavily vested financial interests. Know nothing populism from politicians and artificial non science from Kyoto to the present continue to drive an artificial world market forward filling the pockets of big business.

The big vested interests are in the fossil fuel industry whose profits and subsidies dwarf the renewables sector.

Martyn1981

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

50 wasted years doing it your way, at some point we must all look in the right place and confront facts, an ideology latched onto and slavishly followed for decades has made us all poorer, made the rich even richer and led us no where.

I'm afraid I simply don't understand what you mean by that. I'm not sure why you are blaming me for the old system, since I'm opposed to it, and clearly in favour of a new and cleaner one?

All I've been doing is pointing out that your argument seems extremely strange:

• You complain about the subsidy costs for wind and solar,
• criticise the CfD mechanism,
• and at the same time support nuclear.

But, as I keep pointing out, nuclear will be subsidised under the CfD scheme (even after 50 years of subsidy support already), and will cost more than wind and solar. Hence my confusion regarding your apparently self contradicting argument.

At some point we have to put fears and ideology aside, and simply accept that renewables will play an important part in our future, more so if there are significant developments in storage.

Mart.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I'm afraid I simply don't understand what you mean by that. I'm not sure why you are blaming me for the old system, since I'm opposed to it, and clearly in favour of a new and cleaner one?

All I've been doing is pointing out that your argument seems extremely strange:

• You complain about the subsidy costs for wind and solar,
• criticise the CfD mechanism,
• and at the same time support nuclear.

But, as I keep pointing out, nuclear will be subsidised under the CfD scheme (even after 50 years of subsidy support already), and will cost more than wind and solar. Hence my confusion regarding your apparently self contradicting argument.

At some point we have to put fears and ideology aside, and simply accept that renewable's will play an important part in our future, more so if there are significant developments in storage.

Mart.

If any move forward is ever going to happen, storage technology needs developing, why would any investor put money into a difficult research area when it can get money for old rope building windy mills - they won't do it - no incentive. If any GOV took 50% of the money away from windy mills and attached 150% funding to windy mills with storage, then change will happen and solutions will be found at a cost neutral base level. Photovoltaic system generation is already at a domestic economic level without subsidy, but with depth of discharge, capital storage, cycles to redundant costs domestic storage remains locked as uneconomic at domestic level. Commercial photovoltaic systems are beginning to make much more commercial sense particularly when done locally without the need for expensive grid power even with depth of discharge, capital storage, cycles to redundant costs domestic storage taken into account - yes a lot of work and investment in storage is needed - but again there's no financial incentive for local commercial photovoltaic storage systems to have R&D investment. An alternative funding model would be to take 50% from windy mills and 50% from commercial solar including 'footy field sized' ASDA & LiDL type roof schemes and put that money into local photovoltaic storage and distribution be it domestic or commercial.

Martyn1981

Yes, storage is fascinating. There is a lot of work going into large scale storage, such as compressed air, or P2G (power to gas) but all at early stages. The other problem is that until we have too much generation, we don't need the storage, as gas can be used to demand follow. Even when that gets constantly low, it's probably going to be picking up 'work' from coal as that generation is steadily reduced.

Hopefully serious levels of R & D and investment will take place before it's needed, rather than afterwards.

Domestic storage is actually quite promising, though horrendously expensive at the moment. One problem though is that only PV is really viable on the small scale, which means single use for the batteries/storage whereas large scale storage could find multiple users (wind, PV, tidal, nuclear etc) through the day or seasons, improving its economics.

One plus though for domestic storage, is that the electricity suppliers may be willing to subsidise the cost, something they are currently doing in Germany. The maths/logic is quite simple, without time of day charging, we get charged an average price for our leccy, but the suppliers pay spot prices which can be very (very) high at times. So subsidising domestic storage (almost certainly in conjunction with PV, and even E7) means a reduction in the amount of expensive leccy they have to buy at peak times.

Obviously PV can provide support during BST evening peaks, my WNW can (on a good day) provide 1kW even at 8pm. But in the GMT months peak demand is also at the point when the batteries will have their most charge [note: not necessarily a good charge, depending on the weather, but at the point when potential generation has just ended].

Hopefully we'll see a significant increase in domestic storage being rolled out now. Tesla has shaken things up a bit, and in some sun rich, high price leccy areas, like Hawaii and Australia, storage is just about economic now. But prices will need to keep falling.

Sadly, whilst America is very excited about PV and storage, their subsidy scheme works against it, since a lot of systems operate on a net metering basis, where export simply wipes off import (or more correctly, credits accounts). So why bother storing leccy, when you can just 'store money' via net metering.

Personally, I'd love to have some sort of storage system. I've been given ideas and costs by some clever folk on Navitron, some of whom are off-gridders with decades of experience. But, and this will sound like a fib, but I promise it's not, I'm happy to take a financial loss for the sheer fun/experience, but since all PV generation can currently be absorbed quite easily by our grid (perhaps 8GWp peaking at 6GW?) I'd feel guilty using storage, since there would be losses of 10%+ and that seems wasteful.

Storage - certainly one to watch, and I suspect there will be massive developments over the next decade.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Photovoltaic system generation is already at a domestic economic level without subsidy, but with depth of discharge, capital storage, cycles to redundant costs domestic storage remains locked as uneconomic at domestic level. Commercial photovoltaic systems are beginning to make much more commercial sense particularly when done locally without the need for expensive grid power even with depth of discharge, capital storage, cycles to redundant costs domestic storage taken into account

Interesting that you mention this. Commercial rooftop PV is probably the most economically viable of all PV, since it benefits from cheaper install costs, but in the right situation (supermarkets, fast food etc) could use 100% of generation, meaning it has an income stream of about twice that of supply side PV.

But, it's struggling, the government is trying to help, but with so much of our commercial property being leased, and PV possibly having a longer payback term than, said lease, it's not going well. One suggestion by the government is that they will allow a lift and shift approach, where you can take the PV with you - this differs to domestic PV, where you'd lose the FiT if you moved the system.

Regarding domestic systems being viable now, it's getting closer, but only in the very perfect situations. However, I did do some recent calcs, and found that the cost of generating a kWh could be as low as 7.3p/kWh.

This is based on a new build install of 4kWp, costing £4k (a grand cheaper than a retro-fit, due to on-site savings, such as scaffolding etc) and generating 4,000kWh per year. The 7.3p is based on a 25yr 4% repayment mortgage (with an extra £1k added midway for a an inverter replacement).

Why work this out? Well, if the income (savings) can cover costs then it might be possible to make PV mandatory on all new builds, though the issue of increased mortgage (balanced by increased income) would need to be addressed to ensure folk can still get a mortgage.

Income - if 1/4 is consumed at 14p, and 3/4 is exported at 5p, then that gives an average income/saving of 7.25p. So, questionable, but in the ballpark.

Interestingly (well, to me) using the same mortgage principle to prevent arguments about loss of capital, and cost of capital (lost interest), a retrofit install at £5k but charged at 2% (using your own cash) also works out at about 7.3p.

But I have to stress, these are highly marginal and even questionable calculations. But it shows what might be achievable in the best circumstances - good price, good generation area (southern) and good generation (south facing). This should only improve, and if domestic storage becomes viable, would be greatly enhanced by more units shifting from 5p to 14p.

Mart.

tberry6686

MEVW62 wrote: »

The big vested interests are in the fossil fuel industry whose profits and subsidies dwarf the renewables sector.

As fossil fuels pretty much consist of Oil, Gas and Coal perhaps you could point out the subsidies to me. I am aware of none (possibly some in the case of coal but certainly not in oil and gas).

Profit wise, yes fossil fuels are profitable, as are wind turbines, solar farms etc but only due to massive subsidies.

silverwhistle

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

All of these things are predicated on Kyoto and other arbitrary political targets based on 50% of eminent science saying greenhouse gas is the cause and the other 50% of of eminent science saying its cyclical

Er.. you what? The figures I've seen are about 98/99% consensus.