Solar Subsidy to be cut by 90% in January

ed110220

Cardew wrote: »

Many of the proponents of solar - at least on this thread - still haven't grasped the fact that as solar doesn't generate at night(and is unreliable during the day) it contributes nothing toward the UK's reliance on conventional/nuclear power generating stations to meet peak demand - which occurs on a winter evening.


With oil prices dramatically reduced - it now costs approx. 3p/kWh even for domestic users - and in the future plentiful supplies of gas from fracking a certainty, the whole picture on energy supplies is rapidly changing.


I would agree with Martyn that if there is some dramatic breakthrough in costs of battery storage, there could be scope for some resurgence in renewable energy.

It seems you're suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect and imagine you've discovered something that grid engineers and policy makers around the world have overlooked Don't forget too that the USA, China China, India and many others are rushing ahead with solar whatever poor decisions the UK makes, so imagining this as some sort of victory is hollow.

I sometimes wonder whether the 'solar doesn't produce at night' brigade imagine that all the conventional power stations run flat out 24/7 to meet the highest possible peak demand, and therefore reducing demand at any other time (which is what the grid perceives the feed in of Pv) doesn't make any difference to them burning fossil fuels at some fixed and frantic rate.

The reality is that for practical purposes every kWh of Pv electricity fed into the grid (or every kWh of electricity not used -it's the same to the grid) a kWh of fossil fuel electricity is not generated, with the associated saving of greenhouse gases and fuel costs.

That's because the output of solar pv on a national scale is predictable in advance enough for the grids other generators to react to, just as they can react to any other change in demand caused by human behaviour.

Ed

ed110220

Also I think the storage thing is a bit of a red herring at a grid level at the moment. Today for example according to grid watch we had about 11 GW of combined cycle gas generation during the day, which solar could have displaced with the associated GHG savings.... That's a lot of panels before we get to that point, then we can start thinking of grid storage. Domestic storage is another matter though.

Storage seems to be an excuse for not doing anything at the moment. In fact a U.S. study recently found that large scale economic grid storage in the USA would increase rather than decrease GHG emissions because cheap but relatively inflexible coal generation would be used to charge it, then when discharged it would displace more expensive peaking gas generation, so a dirtier fuel would displace a less dirty one.

See http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/study-indicates-bulk-energy-storage-would-increase-total-u-s-electricity-system-emissions/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20150817

Ed

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

Many of the proponents of solar - at least on this thread - still haven't grasped the fact that as solar doesn't generate at night(and is unreliable during the day) it contributes nothing toward the UK's reliance on conventional/nuclear power generating stations to meet peak demand - which occurs on a winter evening.

It's sad to see you still spinning this line.

PV's role is not to generate at night.
PV's role is not to help with winter peak demand.
PV didn't cause the peak, and PV doesn't worsen the peak.

I've remained stumped for years as to why you think 2hrs of demand during 6 months of the year are the only leccy hours we should be concerned with, rather than the approx 10hrs a day of demand that PV can contribute to.

PV reduces FF demand during daylight, that's its role, and it does it extremely well.

As explained before, your desire to judge a hammer on its ability to saw wood is both ridiculous and irrelevant.

However, I hope you will be pleased to see less subsidies being distributed to households, who will continue to pay for all the subsidies that go to nuclear, as they have already done for 50 years.

Mart.

Martyn1981

ed110220 wrote: »

Also I think the storage thing is a bit of a red herring at a grid level at the moment. Today for example according to grid watch we had about 11 GW of combined cycle gas generation during the day, which solar could have displaced with the associated GHG savings.... That's a lot of panels before we get to that point, then we can start thinking of grid storage. Domestic storage is another matter though.

Ed

Yes, you are spot on. The earliest suggestion of grid issues is that 22GWp of PV may provide too much generation on a sunny sunday afternoon in mid summer, so long as there is some wind generation too.

However, I'm not sure that estimate took account of off-south panels, very steep panels (50d), or electrical diversion, as these would spread generation out a little flatter.

One of the simplest forms of storage is already available and that is compressed air storage, where the compressed air can then be used to increase the efficiency of a gas plant. I'm sure large scale storage can be resolved, and based on the latest govt moves, I doubt we'll now need to worry about having 20GWp of solar in the UK by 2020 (presumably defunct govt target) anyways ........:(

Mart.

Cardew

ed110220 wrote: »

Don't forget too that the USA, China China, India and many others are rushing ahead with solar whatever poor decisions the UK makes, so imagining this as some sort of victory is hollow.

Do you not appreciate that in the sunshine states of USA that the peak load on the grid is on a summer afternoon. e.g between 2pm-3pm in California and 4pm to 5pm in Texas. Also in case you were not aware they have more sun in these States and India, China Australia etc.


In India and China a huge percentage of people are without any mains electricity so it obviously makes sense to utilize solar.


However we are talking about UK and the stupid subsidies that were on offer for solar.


Despite the protestations of the solar proponents in this thread, you simply cannot dismiss the fact that solar in UK is unreliable and doesn't contribute to UK's peak demand.


If these proposals are adopted, far from it being a 'hollow victory' it is a victory for common sense.

EricMears

Cardew wrote: »

Despite the protestations of the solar proponents in this thread, you simply cannot dismiss the fact that solar in UK is unreliable and doesn't contribute to UK's peak demand.

If I decide to use my free power to cook lunch then have a lighter meal in the evening, I would indeed reduce grid demand at 6pm.

ed110220

EricMears wrote: »

If I decide to use my free power to cook lunch then have a lighter meal in the evening, I would indeed reduce grid demand at 6pm.

Also fails to justify the whole assumption that reduction of absolute peak demand is the only or most important thing. It's like arguing that because opening the curtains in the morning to make use of the sunlight won't reduce the number of light fixtures necessary to provide illumination in the home at night (true) there is no point in opening the curtains and one might as well keep the curtains drawn with the lights on (false). Pure and elementary logical fallacy.

Ed

Cardew

EricMears wrote: »

If I decide to use my free power to cook lunch then have a lighter meal in the evening, I would indeed reduce grid demand at 6pm.

Why is it that simply because you have taken advantage of a stupid system of subsidies(for which nobody blames you) you feel honour bound to defend to defend solar using such flimsy logic.


Surely most people appreciate that it was a huge mistake IN UK to encourage solar with such huge subsidies and because the government appear to, belatedly, want to rectify the mistake; this forum is full of criticism.


How can you defend a system that allows the early adopters to receive around 50p for every kWh they generate, without any requirement to export anything to the grid, and this will be index linked for the next 20 years. A subsidy paid for directly by all consumers.


Above all that, is the inescapable fact that solar generation in UK is unreliable and doesn't work at night. It seems that your only defence against that deficiency is to quote subsidies to nuclear(which can be relied upon to generate 24/7 in all weathers) or use invalid comparisons with other countries.

ed110220

Cardew wrote: »

Why is it that simply because you have taken advantage of a stupid system of subsidies(for which nobody blames you) you feel honour bound to defend to defend solar using such flimsy logic.


Surely most people appreciate that it was a huge mistake IN UK to encourage solar with such huge subsidies and because the government appear to, belatedly, want to rectify the mistake; this forum is full of criticism.


How can you defend a system that allows the early adopters to receive around 50p for every kWh they generate, without any requirement to export anything to the grid, and this will be index linked for the next 20 years. A subsidy paid for directly by all consumers.


Above all that, is the inescapable fact that solar generation in UK is unreliable and doesn't work at night. It seems that your only defence against that deficiency is to quote subsidies to nuclear(which can be relied upon to generate 24/7 in all weathers) or use invalid comparisons with other countries.

The fixed output of nuclear presents a similar 'problem' to the variability of renewables in that it it produces just as much at 3am when demand is lowest (and electricity least valuable) as when demand is highest (and electricity is most valuable). When demand peaks they can't call up Sizewell and say "hey can you crank up the power a bit?". Solar PV might not produce on a winter evening, but neither does it produce at 3am, and all of it's yield is when electricity demand is considerably above base demand.

I'm not against nuclear in itself, I'm relatively close to Hinkley Point and safety doesn't worry me, but think it's grossly unfair to pay a giant French/Chinese consortium more per kWh (by the time it is built), for a 60+ year old mature technology, and for 35 years rather than 20, than potentially millions of people using a technology whose price is dropping rapidly.

You make it sound as though there some countries where the sun shines 24/7 It should also be pointed out that the amount of generation per kW of solar PV doesn't vary between the UK and sunnier climates by nearly as much as many assume. For example
Brighton gives 1160 kWh/kWp/year compared with Malaga's 1630 kWh. The extreme sunniest parts of Africa in the Sahara and Namib deserts produce about 2000 kWh.

This gives some counter-intuitive results. For example according to Deutsche Bank solar PV has reached grid parity in Germany but not yet in South Africa which has some of the best solar resources in the world, because grid electricity price differences are bigger than sunshine differences.

We can turn things around and say that given the world average PV module price fell from 72 US cents/W in 2013 to 62c/W in 2014, that Brighton is about two years behind Malaga in terms of amount of electricity that a dollar's worth of module will produce.

So much for simplistic and "common sense" assumptions!

Ed

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

Why is it that simply because you have taken advantage of a stupid system of subsidies(for which nobody blames you) you feel honour bound to defend to defend solar using such flimsy logic.

Surely most people appreciate that it was a huge mistake IN UK to encourage solar with such huge subsidies and because the government appear to, belatedly, want to rectify the mistake; this forum is full of criticism.

How can you defend a system that allows the early adopters to receive around 50p for every kWh they generate, without any requirement to export anything to the grid, and this will be index linked for the next 20 years. A subsidy paid for directly by all consumers.

Above all that, is the inescapable fact that solar generation in UK is unreliable and doesn't work at night. It seems that your only defence against that deficiency is to quote subsidies to nuclear(which can be relied upon to generate 24/7 in all weathers) or use invalid comparisons with other countries.

All you are doing is repeating false and hypocritical arguments, as you have done for years.

False argument 1. You keep judging PV performance against the winter evening peak. PV is designed, rolled out and expected to produce electricity from daylight. As such PV reduces our need for FF generation during daylight. PV does its job perfectly, in fact better than most expected. To judge PV on its inability to generate leccy without daylight is childish, it's simply a means to create false criticism.

False argument 2. You have been complaining for years about generation consumed on site, and stating that it is 'not exported to the grid'. Only last week you repeated this another 3 times:

So by my calculations you have been paid approx. 47.5p for every kWh you have generated, and you need not have exported a single kWh.

At least Nuclear generates 24/7 in all weathers and the electricity it generates is exported to the grid.

So he has been paid that subsidy for every kWh he generates and he doesn't even need to export a single kWh if he can find a way to use it 'in house'.

Yet you are well aware that all grid tied generation (other than deliberate waste or diversion) is felt instantaneously by the grid, be it as export or offset. So you repeat your false claim simply to confuse or create false criticism.

False argument 3. You treat with contempt the UK's contribution to the reduction in PV costs. Recently stating our contribution was a very small fraction of 1%, despite the UK having 3% of installed PV. However, the reason for rolling out renewables is to tackle the CO2 problem that we are now facing, and the international achievement of bringing PV costs down to an affordable level for the sun rich cash poor counties of the world will probably bring the greatest, and most cost effective returns on CO2 reduction investment we will ever see. So you dismiss this argument as irrelevant.

IEA - How solar energy could be the largest source of electricity by mid-century

False argument 4. You have spent around 6 years claiming the FiT subsidy is unfair as it is paid by all, but not all receive it. Yet all energy generation is subsidised in one way or another, yet only the FiT is returned to the demand side (the subsidy payers) especially to households.

False argument 4.1. You support nuclear, a technology that has already received 50 years of support paid for by the UK populace, and which is about to receive another 35yrs of support. All of this money will be levied on householders in one way or another, yet not a penny will be returned, as the subsidies will all go to the supply side (generators), and in the case of your preferred technology/subsidy to a huge Chinese/French consortium. So you are content for all householders to pay for nuclear, and receive no subsidies (for a second half century), but rail against a subsidy that is returned to households, and has diminished at an astonishing rate.

If you had a real argument against PV, then you would have used it by now, rather than simply regurgitating the same old false ones.

Mart.