Solar ... In the news

GreatApe · 26 May 2019 at 11:08PM

Martyn1981 wrote: »

France is planning a big growth in PV. They are aiming to double capacity to 20GW by 2023, then add a further 24GW by 2028. That second period is a seriously large annual growth. Nice.

The weekend read: Preparing for take-off

This shows the gross hypocrisy/ignorance (choose which one) of the green movement

France already covers in excess of 100% of its own electrical needs in the summer via clean nuclear/hydro. Building PV plants is just creating waste in the manufacture and process of these systems and in time in the decommissioning of them

For instance today in France was just 1% Fossil fuel for its grid. So what is the point in building mass PV farms in France just to waste time resources money and to generate waste in producing and building these systems??

But it will benefit the UK we will soon have 5.4 GW links to France and possibly another 2GW on top of that. So all this excess will help green the UK grid. Its a good thing the UK is going to build little to no additional solar we can just import the massive French surplus with the 7.4GW + Links we will have with them

michaels · 27 May 2019 at 4:53PM

GreatApe wrote: »

This shows the gross hypocrisy/ignorance (choose which one) of the green movement

France already covers in excess of 100% of its own electrical needs in the summer via clean nuclear/hydro. Building PV plants is just creating waste in the manufacture and process of these systems and in time in the decommissioning of them

For instance today in France was just 1% Fossil fuel for its grid. So what is the point in building mass PV farms in France just to waste time resources money and to generate waste in producing and building these systems??

But it will benefit the UK we will soon have 5.4 GW links to France and possibly another 2GW on top of that. So all this excess will help green the UK grid. Its a good thing the UK is going to build little to no additional solar we can just import the massive French surplus with the 7.4GW + Links we will have with them

Aren't any of their nuclear fleet reaching the end of their life? Have they had any success with building new ones?

Martyn1981 · 27 May 2019 at 5:27PM

michaels wrote: »

Aren't any of their nuclear fleet reaching the end of their life? Have they had any success with building new ones?

Loads reaching end of life.

Flamanville is successful if you support renewables, as it's billions over budget, a decade behind target, and will be switched on with a faulty reactor lid (then shut back down again) just to prevent a clause that would allow the UK to withdraw credit guarantees on HPC. It's failure, and that of the same design in Finland, and the huges cost and delays of the same design being deployed in Hinkley have helped enormously in proving that the sun is now setting on nuclear's day.

France is building out RE, because nuclear is too expensive. Given that France is the 'expert' on nuclear, having such a high percentage of generation from it (the US has more reactors), I think we should listen to them, when they conclude that nuclear is now a busted flush .... economically.

Martyn1981 · 27 May 2019 at 5:29PM

More news today on the massive potential of PV in France (quicker and cheaper than nuclear, and far lower FF emissions than nuclear (yes I did say that)).

French energy agency says ‘neglected’ areas offer 53 GW of PV potential

Martyn1981 · 28 May 2019 at 4:09PM

Some (more) testing of adding/gluing thin film PV to existing structures:

Heliatek and Lechwerke test PV facade on grain silo

The two companies have glued 230 square meters of solar film to the rough concrete surface of a grain silo in Donauwörth, Germany. The film is expected to generate approximately 6,700 kWh kilowatt-hours of solar power per year. Lechwerke and Heliatek want to open up new potential for the use of PV on other surfaces with the pilot project.

Includes a description that only a Brit could follow without getting a headache - "The 120 Heliatek solar films are six meters long and 32 inches wide. They were attached to the grain silo at a height of about 20 meters."

GreatApe · 28 May 2019 at 5:05PM

michaels wrote: »

Aren't any of their nuclear fleet reaching the end of their life? Have they had any success with building new ones?

They dont need any new nukes they just need to keep their old nukes going the cost of which will be significantly lower than building new nukes. They are going to close two reactors shortly but that will be offset by the EPR that starts up.

But the point is right now they have excess nuclear during the summer so any PV deployment just cuts into marginal nuclear generation which is by far the greenest power much more so than building and deploying PV farms in France

Economically and environmentally it makes no sense (unless you are the people being paid to do this) it is literally digging holes to fill them back up again

Wind power is not quite the same.
At least with wind power in France the majority is produced in the winter when it can displace some CCGT fired power

GreatApe · 28 May 2019 at 5:09PM

Martyn1981 wrote: »

More news today on the massive potential of PV in France (quicker and cheaper than nuclear, and far lower FF emissions than nuclear

The french are not making a choice for PV or new nuclear, they are making a choice for PV displacing existing nuclear output and just running a few more grams in an existing reactor is probably at least one, if not multiple orders of magnitude more green and less wasteful

Also like with CCGTs ramping up and down more means less thermal efficiency so there probably wont even be a uranium saving in these PV

It is truly digging holes to fill them back up again

GreatApe · 28 May 2019 at 5:19PM

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Loads reaching end of life.

Flamanville is successful if you support renewables, as it's billions over budget, a decade behind target, and will be switched on with a faulty reactor lid (then shut back down again) just to prevent a clause that would allow the UK to withdraw credit guarantees on HPC. It's failure, and that of the same design in Finland, and the huges cost and delays of the same design being deployed in Hinkley have helped enormously in proving that the sun is now setting on nuclear's day.

France is building out RE, because nuclear is too expensive. Given that France is the 'expert' on nuclear, having such a high percentage of generation from it (the US has more reactors), I think we should listen to them, when they conclude that nuclear is now a busted flush .... economically.

You are reporting fake news, the French will close 2 reactors and replace the output with the EPR that will come online

They will for at least the next 2 decades still be a major nuclear power producer and French retail electricity prices are Half the Price of German retail prices and significantly cleaner too

France did not have to build the EPR it was pointless they already have an excess of nuclear so much so that they could charge tens of millions of EVs without building more power stations just operating the nukes at higher CFs

The additional links being built to France (3.4GW UK to France also a 1.4?GW link to italy) will also help them export more nuclear power and green further their neighbors grids

GreatApe · 28 May 2019 at 5:32PM

Martyn1981 wrote: »

France is building out RE, because nuclear is too expensive. Given that France is the 'expert' on nuclear, having such a high percentage of generation from it (the US has more reactors), I think we should listen to them, when they conclude that nuclear is now a busted flush .... economically.

Errrr.....No

New nuclear has been a busted flush since the 1990s not just recently and not due to wind or PV but because of CCGTs and plentiful abundant cheap NG

New nuclear could not compete with CCGTs which are 1/10th the size, 1/20th the cost, come online in 1/5th the time and require 1/15th the workforce to run once built

And realistically it is even worse than that, it is not new nuclear vs new CCGTs but new nuclear vs EXISTING CCGTS which puts their economics into an even worse position

So should new nukes be built in the UK or Germany or the USA? No
No not on economic grounds and in the UK not on CO2 grounds either (since by 2023 we will be mostly non fossil anyway so there is no need for mass build out of nuclear or solar in the uk from today onward)

But existing nukes should be kept open where economic (and they should be offered at least the same offer as the lowest paid CFD to wind farms per year so if wind farms get cheaper the CFD for nuclear should go down to match that) and that probably means the French should keep their nukes for at least until 2040 and perhaps to 2060 if not more

GreatApe · 28 May 2019 at 5:45PM

michaels wrote: »

Aren't any of their nuclear fleet reaching the end of their life? Have they had any success with building new ones?

Also the French will/have realized that closing a nuke will mean they have to build and open a new CCGT just so they can meet winter peak demands. This is why the phase down of nuclear in France has already been pushed back from 2025 to 2035

The mindless environmentalists while anti nuclear probably wont want new CCGTs built in France

So the government will have a choice.
Close the nukes and open CCGTs and see higher emissions plus higher costs
Keep the nukes going, with no need to build new CCGTs and no increase in emissions

Now I would say the choice is obvious and easy but then again if the Germans are willing to close nukes and fire up lignite plants who knows maybe the french are willing to close nukes and fire up new CCGT capacity but I dont think so

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