Should solar users in receipt of FIT be encouraged onto Green Tarrifs?

silverwhistle

"Christ", as was once said at The Glasgow Empire, "There's two of them!".

Both worried about the less well-off and accusing others of hypocrisy.
I rather suspect they both voted for a party who are doing far more to make the less well-off suffer.

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

It would appear that MFW_ASAP has taken over from me as the 'bogeyman'!


Whilst my views on solar subsidies have been well aired, I have kept out of this thread because I believe the OP is misguided in aiming his arrows at those taking advantage of a stupid system of subsidies, particularly for sub 4kWp systems on roofs. - cue yet another retort about the advantages of 'supply side'! or subsidies for nuclear justifying solar!


Most of us take advantage of legal tax breaks, allowances, capital gains tax, inheritance tax etc etc, so I have never had any criticism of people(including RAR companies) taking advantage of solar subsidies. My criticism was aimed at the Government who allowed this stupid system of subsidies, and allowed it to be funded not from general taxation but consumers - many of whom are considerably less well off from the recipients of the subsidy.


Now the government appear to have come to its senses and are(hopefully) getting rid of what our Prime Minister in his infinite wisdom calls the 'Green Crap' we have an outcry from the solar industry that their gravy train is to be derailed.


My objection to some on this thread is their disingenuous posts. It would appear that their green credentials are the primary reason for installing PV. Or that those accepting the FIT payments in UK have been instrumental in driving down PV costs. We are bombarded with links to solar industry propaganda extolling the virtues of solar in Africa, USA, India etc as if this is some justification for solar subsidies to be continued in UK.


So good luck to those who feel they have made a 'killing' on solar PV, but spare us from the hypocrisy!

I was going to stay quiet about your little rant, but it gave me such a chuckle, I simply had to respond.

So, in order to criticise PV and FiTs, you first want to exclude:

• the benefits of demand side generation,
• you want to avoid any comparisons to your support of nuclear - despite your posting hundreds of times that all consumers pay for PV, but not all can receive the FiT, and the fact that PV is now starting to undercut nuclear subsidies, which will also be paid by all, but with none going back to households (see the last word of your post!),
• presumably you also want to avoid comparisons to nuclear, as it is now coming back to the table for 35 more years of support, despite already having been subsidised for 60 years,
• the benefits of cheaper PV to those parts of the world that need new generation, are sun rich, but too poor to afford subsidies,
• the rapid and successful expansion of PV deployment around the world,
• and MWF wants to exclude the costs (now that PV is becoming one of the cheapest forms of renewable generation in the UK).

I'm chuckling away, because this seems like a (rather poor) parody of the "what have the Romans ever done for us" scene from The Life of Brian:

Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Mart.

MFW_ASAP

silverwhistle wrote: »

"Christ", as was once said at The Glasgow Empire, "There's two of them!".

Both worried about the less well-off and accusing others of hypocrisy.
I rather suspect they both voted for a party who are doing far more to make the less well-off suffer.

Usual 'bully boy' tactic on this board. Play the man and not the topic. For the record, I voted Green and I'm a life member of that party (having the paid the £400+ to do so).

MFW_ASAP

Martyn, tell us how much solar generates at night and in winter (when we need the energy) compared with wind, wave or, dare I say it, nuclear?

EricMears

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

Martyn, tell us how much solar generates at night and in winter (when we need the energy) compared with wind, wave or, dare I say it, nuclear?

You don't have to be Brain of Britain to work that out !

It's exactly the same output as a wind turbine generates on a still day (or indeed on an excessively windy day) and very similar to that any tidal power installation would generate for the periods immediately before or after High Tide and Low Tide.

No one power source is ideal for every situation - although a Nuclear Power station would come close to being ideal if it wasn't for the unfortunate fact that at end of life it needs to be quarantined for around ten times as long as its active life lasted.

MFW_ASAP

EricMears wrote: »

You don't have to be Brain of Britain to work that out !

It's exactly the same output as a wind turbine generates on a still day (or indeed on an excessively windy day) and very similar to that any tidal power installation would generate for the periods immediately before or after High Tide and Low Tide.

No one power source is ideal for every situation - although a Nuclear Power station would come close to being ideal if it wasn't for the unfortunate fact that at end of life it needs to be quarantined for around ten times as long as its active life lasted.

Except the solution to lack of wind in one area is to have wind farms in other areas. The wind always blows somewhere, but the sun never shines anywhere in the UK at night. The solar bullies love to compare the cost of solar vs other renewables, but they neglect to add in all of the costs that would be incurred if solar was as flexible as wind or wave.

24 hr solar energy production would require storage, I wonder how the costs stack up when batteries sufficient to provide cover at night and over the long winter months are factored into the equation?

Wind, wave, and dare I say it, nuclear, suddenly starts to look rather inexpensive....

Martyn1981

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

Martyn, tell us how much solar generates at night and in winter (when we need the energy) compared with wind, wave or, dare I say it, nuclear?

Eric has answered.

But I see you now want to pick apart renewable generation on an individual basis, pointing out what they can't do, rather than what they can.

And there was you pretending to support renewables!

It's also an eye opener how cost is no longer an issue. When PV cost more, that's all we heard from the anti-PV brigade, but now it's one of the cheapest ......... it some how stops being relevant.


BTW, I've just done some mental costings for your bike generation, based on 100W, for 10hours and about 200miles of wear and tear. Using my costings from when I used to cycle 4,000 miles per annum.

The main cost is minimum wage, but add on food (3,000+ calories), water (2l/hr), 2.5p/mile wear and tear (£100pa replacement front and rear gears and chain) etc etc. I'd estimate the cost of generating 1kWh at approx £100. What costings did you do? Still think your solution is better?

Mart.

MFW_ASAP

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Eric has answered.

But I see you now want to pick apart renewable generation on an individual basis, pointing out what they can't do, rather than what they can.

And there was you pretending to support renewables!

It's also an eye opener how cost is no longer an issue. When PV cost more, that's all we heard from the anti-PV brigade, but now it's one of the cheapest ......... it some how stops being relevant.


BTW, I've just done some mental costings for your bike generation, based on 100W, for 10hours and about 200miles of wear and tear. Using my costings from when I used to cycle 4,000 miles per annum.

The main cost is minimum wage, but add on food (3,000+ calories), water (2l/hr), 2.5p/mile wear and tear (£100pa replacement front and rear gears and chain) etc etc. I'd estimate the cost of generating 1kWh at approx £100. What costings did you do? Still think your solution is better?

Mart.

Still dodging the question. This might work with other people Mart, but I'm going to keep picking you up on it.

You cannot play your discussion deflection games with me. Answer the question: compare like for like with wind and other more flexible renewables.

Add in the battery technology costs to the solar panels, lets see how it shapes up!!

haha, Roger the Dodger solar bully. :rotfl:

Cardew

Martyn1981 wrote: »

presumably you also want to avoid comparisons to nuclear, as it is now coming back to the table for 35 more years of support, despite already having been subsidised for 60 years

Do you not appreciate that Nuclear generates 24/7 for 365 days a year and forms part of the UK's generating capacity to meet the maximum load on the Grid?


Solar PV generation is unreliable during the day and totally predictable at night in that it produces nothing!


Thus it wouldn't matter if every rooftop and field in UK was covered in PV panels, it would not reduce by a single Watt the need to have conventional(incl nuclear) generating capacity to meet maximum load - which occurs at a time when solar produces Zilch.

Martyn1981

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

24 hr solar energy production would require storage, I wonder how the costs stack up when batteries sufficient to provide cover at night and over the long winter months are factored into the equation?

Wind, wave, and dare I say it, nuclear, suddenly starts to look rather inexpensive....

Oh dear! Another issue I suspect you know absolutely nothing about.

So nuclear would look inexpensive would it, well let's do some comparisons then.

The latest strike prices for PV (and on-shore wind) are £80/MWh (and still falling). Nuclear is to get £92.50/MWh when it finally starts generating sometime north of 2025.

Here's an old article including large scale storage (old in the sense that costs are still falling). You'll see that on the large scale costs of storage are as low as £12/MWh.

£80+£12 = £92!

But wait, there's more.

We don't need to store all generation, most of it will be consumed at the time of generation, but let's assume 50% is stored. that means the £12/MWh cost (of the stored leccy) can be spread across the whole generation, raising it by £6/MWh.

Are you still confident about nuclear being cheap?

Here's an even cheaper solution on a larger scale, costing around £10/MWh across it's lifetime, so an extra £5/MWh on all intermittent generation.

Plans sent for Welsh storage giant

Mart.