A Shade Greener say they can't do an installtion

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

Now it is proven that solar generation contributes nothing to meeting the maximum demand on the grid, it appears - with the help of 'The Guru' that the discussion should be diverted to CO2 output.

It's always been about CO2, only the spin doctors think it's to do with nightime leccy demand.

Cardew wrote: »

Well if that is the issue, and solar is a necessity! wouldn't it have been sensible to have large solar farms getting lower subsidies than inefficient sub 4kWh installations dotted on houses all over UK. Surely that would be a better way of reducing CO2.

Except those sub 4kWh(sic) installations [why sub 4kWp?] are now cheaper than the large scale farms, and the subsidies are returned to consumers (or prosumers). So you appear to have got it backwards.

Cardew wrote: »

Also yet another dig at Nuclear, but their CO2 output isn't apparently relevant!

Why do you think it isn't relevant? Sounds like another made up fact to me. The issue is risk, popularity and cost. PV wins on all three. So CO2 reduction at a lower cost, today (not in 10 years time, if we're lucky).

If nuclear, despite 60 years of vast subsidies already, is to receive another 35yrs of subsidy, at a higher rate than PV and on-shore wind, and a higher rate than PV and wind with large scale storage, then why wouldn't one question it, and compare cost/CO2, this is after all a green and ethical board.

Once again, I have to suggest you start considering the big picture, rather than this ideologically led criticism of a perfectly 'pleasant' technology, that integrates perfectly with wind and hydro generation profiles.

Mart.

kevin6666

So average PV cost per kWh for Generation (forgetting export) in 2015 on the FIT scheme was around 25p. Now given FITs as good as dead (few installs will take place) that price will increase with RPI so in what way is our current PV costs cheap? I appreciate if FIT had continued to deliver PV Installations then PV could have offered cheap electric (if that could be substituted for real Generation is debatable) but it isn't going to happen.

Cardew

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Once again, I have to suggest you start considering the big picture, rather than this ideologically led criticism of a perfectly 'pleasant' technology, .

You preaching about 'The Big Picture' is quite unbelievable!


The level of your input is picking up on typos like kWh instead of kWp!

EricMears

Cardew wrote: »

However in your post #16 the sole subject was that kevin6666 had missed the point i.e. 'You're missing one rather significant point. etc'

So it appears it is a 'significant point' until your reasoning is shown to be incorrect!

Now it is proven that solar generation contributes nothing to meeting the maximum demand on the grid, it appears - with the help of 'The Guru' that the discussion should be diverted to CO2 output.

Well if that is the issue, and solar is a necessity! wouldn't it have been sensible to have large solar farms getting lower subsidies than inefficient sub 4kWh installations dotted on houses all over UK. Surely that would be a better way of reducing CO2.

Also yet another dig at Nuclear, but their CO2 output isn't apparently relevant!

It was indeed a significant point when he was only talking about 'peak loads' - which of course occur every day. If you want to narrow the discussion to 'peak loads on winter evenings' then it may be a different matter - but as I mentioned earlier, own-generation along with smart metering can be used to reduce peak loading at any time of the year (albeit that it will have only a small effect in the depths of winter).

The best way of all would of course have been for Government investment in renewable generation rather than hiving off responsibility to others (and from that point of view it makes no difference whether the 'others' are individual householders or multinational corporations) since it is indeed the Government who have signed up for climate change measures. Since they have hived it off, they alone are responsible for the costs they have committed us to.

I too am puzzled why the subject of 'peak demand' keeps cropping up. There are no international treaties which force us to reduce that. To comply with our undertakings, it makes no difference at all if the fossil fuels we still intend to use are spread over the whole year or all burnt in one week providing the total usage reduction is the same.

Martyn1981

kevin6666 wrote: »

So average PV cost per kWh for Generation (forgetting export) in 2015 on the FIT scheme was around 25p. Now given FITs as good as dead (few installs will take place) that price will increase with RPI so in what way is our current PV costs cheap?

Current PV is cheap, because it costs what it costs, not what it used to cost. You can't average in older subsidies, to artificially inflate todays costs. Will you add in the lower, but longer (earlier start) subsidies for wind, nuclear, externalities for coal? How about the initial cost of coal, when generated from steam engines (not steam turbines) at 1% efficiency, so 40 times more expensive.

kevin6666 wrote: »

I appreciate if FIT had continued to deliver PV Installations then PV could have offered cheap electric (if that could be substituted for real Generation is debatable) but it isn't going to happen.

Ignoring the proposed FiT, let's apply a figure that would work, I've suggested several times of 6p to 7p. There's no reason for FiT to be higher than 7p now.

At 7p, allowing for export payments, that's a cost of 9.5p/kWh, or £95/MWh. That's equal to new nuclear at £93 and cheaper than off-shore wind at £120. It's reasonably comparable to on-shore wind and large scale PV at £80 (later this year).

At 6p or £85/MWh it would still work, and still be deployed. Cheaper than nuclear and off-shore wind, and equal (roughly) to on-shore wind and large scale PV.

So your argument is that by the government's action of blocking new domestic PV, by having a 'just too harsh today' FiT rate, domestic PV won't be deployed. If cheap domestic PV can't be deployed, then it's therefore not comparably cheap?

Cut the subsidies for off-shore wind and nuclear to "too low" and see how much of that gets deployed.

Mart.

kevin6666

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Current PV is cheap, because it costs what it costs, not what it used to cost. You can't average in older subsidies, to artificially inflate todays costs. Will you add in the lower, but longer (earlier start) subsidies for wind, nuclear, externalities for coal? How about the initial cost of coal, when generated from steam engines (not steam turbines) at 1% efficiency, so 40 times more expensive.

I'm averaging in nothing. 25p per kWh is what it's costing for energy produced by PV under the FIT scheme currently (right now). That will remain very similar next year and probably for a good few years to come. Last I looked steam engines generated 0 kWh and cost 0p currently.

Anyways FIT has failed, the PV industry will crumble. Given the money that's been spent (and will continue to be spent) it's very much a case of look at what you could have had.

Martyn1981

kevin6666 wrote: »

I'm averaging in nothing. 25p per kWh is what it's costing for energy produced by PV under the FIT scheme currently (right now). That will remain very similar next year and probably for a good few years to come. Last I looked steam engines generated 0 kWh and cost 0p currently.

I'm afraid that is a truly absurd method of costing generation.

What you are doing is working out the average subsidy, not the cost of PV generation today.

Compare the cost of PV generation today, against any of its peers, and it is already one of the very cheapest. This has been achieved with an extremely small 'volume' of subsidy, compared to the subsidies paid out to wind, nuclear, coal (externalities) etc.

If FiT was set at a reasonable level (6 to 7p) then it would be a success, measured on comparable costs, popularity, contribution to UK intermittent generating profile etc etc.


Pricing current PV at 25p/kWh is nothing more than a maths trick. That is an average subsidy, not an average price, and reflects the front loaded costs of launching PV. Using your system, and the hypothetical deployement over the next 5 years of a similar amount of PV at a reducing rate of 7p to 2p, that would change your figure from 25p to 14.75p ...... an ever changing rate, that would still not represent costs, just historic subsidy support, and would then, as now, be useless in comparing the generation costs of various technologies.

Mart.