Feed in Tariff

Ectophile

Martyn1981 wrote: »

The way the govt have singled out PV since May is almost impossible to fathom!
Mart.

It's because they seriously miscalculated the FIT payments early on in the scheme. A pot of (bill-payers') money was allocated to FITs at the start.

However, they kept the FITs too high for too long in the early years. Ever since, they have been panicking because the pot of money is about to run out. The latest measures are stopping only just short of killing FITs entirely, because there's no money left.

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

It seems these days your sole justification for FIT is that electricity from new Nuclear power stations is also subsidised.

No, not my sole justification, as FiTs have brought the cost of PV down to levels competitive with, or even cheaper than most other forms of generation.

PV is viable on all scales, unlike most other types of generation.

PV is now viable in sun rich / cash poor countries who couldn't afford subsidies, thanks to the multitude of FiT and FiT style schemes around the world.

I only mention nuclear, because you support nuclear, yet for the first 5 years of your 6 year anti-PV campaign, kept that secret, whilst pretending you didn't like subsidies.

But now we are in the position where even domestic PV is cheaper than industrial scale nuclear, by a margin large enough to cover utility scale storage costs.

Cardew wrote: »

Conveniently ignoring the inescapable fact that Nuclear generation is dependable 24/7, 365 days a year,

No it's not;

Nuclear requires servicing/refueling. This can take a month a year or a month every 2 years.

Hinkley C is currently generating nothing 24hrs a day, 365 days a year, and will continue to generate these impressive amounts for another 10 years or so.

Cardew wrote: »

and the only thing dependable about solar is that it is guaranteed NOT to generate at night when the UK Grid has maximum demand.

Nobody (but you) said PV would generate at night. That is a totally unrelated fact. PV displaces FF generation during daylight. That's what it's designed to do, even if it is too confusing for you to grasp.

Cardew wrote: »

generate at night when the UK Grid has maximum demand.

Does it? Check out Gridwatch today, you'll see that demand at 1pm was approx 38GW, whilst at 6pm it was 40GW. Given that the 1pm figure will have been lowered by embedded PV generation, are you sure it was higher at 6pm?

Cardew wrote: »

generate at night when the UK Grid has maximum demand.

Actually, nightime demand is the lowest. Again, this can be seen quite clearly on Gridwatch at around 28GW last night.

Cardew wrote: »

All electrical customers gain by not having a levy on their bills to pay for FIT.

Only someone with your numerical, economic and accountancy 'skills' would prefer to pay £99/MWh to France and China for centralised nuclear generation, rather than £68/MWh to Ubique for distributed PV generation.


Cardew, it's over. Your 6 year anti-PV campaign has failed.

PV (and wind) is simply too cheap.

Nuclear is simply too expensive.

It's over.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Ectophile wrote: »

It's because they seriously miscalculated the FIT payments early on in the scheme. A pot of (bill-payers') money was allocated to FITs at the start.

However, they kept the FITs too high for too long in the early years. Ever since, they have been panicking because the pot of money is about to run out. The latest measures are stopping only just short of killing FITs entirely, because there's no money left.

But the same pot is to pay for off-shore wind and nuclear at much higher subsidy rates, and for far greater volumes?

It's not empty, it's simply being directed towards the much bigger players, and away from the smaller supply side businesses (on-shore wind) and demand side generators (PV).


Edit: In case you're interested there is also another side to the pot of money argument, relating to the LCF (levy control framework). The renewables hating Telegraph actually put it quite well:

Renewables 'cutting the wholesale cost of electricity'

This means that when wind or solar power is available, they are first in line to meet demand, reducing the amount of power that needs to be bought from more expensive generation sources, and bringing down costs.

The study calculates that wind and solar generators brought down the wholesale cost of electricity by £1.55 billion in 2014.

This means the “net” overall price tag for supporting the two renewable sources last year was £1.1 billion, 58% less than the cost reflected in the capped budget set for green subsidies, known as the levy control framework, the report said.

By 2020/21, the Government warns the levy control framework budget will have been breached by around £1.5 billion a year – but the research suggests it will not have been exceeded if the benefits of solar and wind in lowering prices are taken into account.

Mart.

Cardew

tunnel wrote: »

Here we go again....rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat

Yet it is apparently OK that this section of MSE is nothing but a biased source of propaganda for solar, and no counter argument allowed.


The question asked was 'who gains?' and the indisputably correct answer is all electricity customers gain.

jimjames

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Does it? Check out Gridwatch today, you'll see that demand at 1pm was approx 38GW, whilst at 6pm it was 40GW. Given that the 1pm figure will have been lowered by embedded PV generation, are you sure it was higher at 6pm?

Actually, nightime demand is the lowest. Again, this can be seen quite clearly on Gridwatch at around 28GW last night.

It would be interesting to know demand on a summer's day, offices with demand for air con, servers etc and how much of that is covered by PV as it would be peak generation too.

Martyn1981

jimjames wrote: »

It would be interesting to know demand on a summer's day, offices with demand for air con, servers etc and how much of that is covered by PV as it would be peak generation too.

Yep. The whole issue of peak demand is getting trickier. The oft reported evening peak is coming down as household items become more efficient, especially lights, tellies and fridge/freezer compressors.

Then there's the fact that PV is only one of many intermittent (and non-intermittent (eg biomass)) renewables. So wind is well suited to winter evenings and nights.

This report looks at leccy demand for Summer 2016

2016 Summer Outlook Report

Page 34 gives a nice demand graph, and looks to see where 'too much' PV will occur. But, you need to ponder a few things first. The demand already reflects embedded PV generation

Solar PV has an increasing impact on demand profiles, which is more pronounced in the summer months. The summer demand peak typically occurs in the late afternoon when solar PV output is greater. This reduces the levels of demand we see on the transmission system.

We have also seen a change in the shape of the daily demand profile. Maximum solar PV output often coincides with the post-lunch reduction in demand. This acts to further reduce demand, creating a new daytime minimum.

Embedded PV generation is a major contributor to the trend of decreasing transmission system demand. As a result, PV generation estimates are becoming an ever important component of our demand forecasts. As previously mentioned, we are assuming a 200 MW linear increase in installed capacity per month for the next 12 months. This equates to 12.0 GW by the beginning of British Summer Time (BST) 2017. This increase has been factored into our summer demand forecasts for 2016.

Another thing important to note, is that demand on a Sunday is quite a lot lower than the other 6 days. This is reflected in the graph by the large difference between high and low, with an average, slightly off center, and quite a lot higher than the minimum. So a 1pm demand in the low 30GW's Mon-Fri, and mid 20's on a Sunday.

As PV capacity grows, you can expect that average demand to keep coming down, especially the 4hr window straddling the 1pm PV generation peak.

Max PV is very hard to estimate. I'd suggest 30GWp of PV, generating perhaps 22GW at 1pm would be the most we could have before storage. This may be a bit too much on a sunny summers Sunday afternoon, but a little bit of capping on 13 days a year (if the weather is nice) sounds ok.

30GWp would generate approx 30TWh pa, or about 10% of UK leccy needs.

Mart.

tunnel

Mr_FeedinTariff wrote: »

Hi Ubique1134If happy to assist with any Feed in Tariff questions you have.

Regards

Nath

You could start by answering the OP.
Or are you only interested in drumming up a bit of business on these forums?

lstar337

Mr_FeedinTariff wrote: »

Hi Ubique1134If happy to assist with any Feed in Tariff questions you have.

Regards

Nath

Nath, you are going to have to remove all the advertising on your profile and post if you want to give advice here.

Martyn1981

lstar337 wrote: »

Nath, you are going to have to remove all the advertising on your profile and post if you want to give advice here.

He's been posting all day, but they're being deleted just as fast.

Mart.

ispookie666

Am I correct in assuming any extra addition in capacity to existing system would get the new FIT