Solar Panel Megathread

[unbeliever]

You don't think its suspicious to do this right after they agree to open up more areas to fracking? It just screams of vested interests.

 

Its already been suggested that you can build giant batteries at substations to store excess energy, making renewables viable. But instead the government do this?

 

I don't know how it can be anything but for their own benefit, it sure isn't ours.

 

Just look at the costs involved.

It's not impossible to build huge banks of batteries, but they're very expensive.

People are already struggling to afford their electricity with only 15% coming from wind and solar. If it goes up to close 100%, you actually have to implement these storage ideas rather than just speculating about them.

The new round of tesla batteries are a step in the right direction. The big cost with battery storage is replacement as they used to need replacing every few hundred cycles. If tesla really can mass produce batteries that can do a few thousand cycles rather than a few hundred then it's starting to look other than insane to use them, but you need a very great many batteries to buffer a country's worth of electricity. This is especially true of solar because over a year the supply of solar electricity is inversely correlated with the demand. So you actually need enough batteries to hold weeks or even months of supply.

Fracking actually helps reduce CO2 production and real pollution in the short term. Natural gas only produces CO2, and extremely little by the way of other toxins (unlike coal) and it produces less CO2 per kWh than coal as well.

Natural gas is affordable and is a very sensible move right now until there is some genuinely affordable alternative available.

It's my opinion that developments in nuclear technology, which may well eliminate the long lived and difficult to manage waste as well as the risk of serious accidents, are more likely to be the most cost effective way to generate CO2 free electricity but we'll have to see.

There's lots of nuclear R&D and lots of battery R&D going on right now around the world. It's anybody's guess as to which will turn out to be better taking everything into account. We're rushing in with too many unknowns and if we've guessed wrong, it's going to be really nasty trying to correct course.

Renewables are being rolled out en-masse before we have an affordable solution to the intermittency problem and ordinary people are regressively paying for this on their energy bills. It could well be a serious policy mistake, done for political purposes (pretend to be green to get votes) and there are better ways.

Supporting solar makes some sense in sunnier countries because their demand for power is not so much at odds with their supply of sunlight. If we have to do renewables, wind is a better bet for the UK. Subsidising solar here is madness.

[Cyclone]

They still work though, which is the point.

No it isn't.

He commented on how they were more common in sunnier climes. It's hardly surprising is it, since they work BETTER in those locations.

If I were so inclined I'd ask him where specifically and then see if any real facts are available, if he's thinking of places like Greece or Cyprus then the solar units on the roof are for heating water I think, not electricity.

 

If nothing else, having solar panels can offset air conditioner use in hot weather. Its why I really wish I could have them myself but, you know, council house.

 

Don't even care about the FIT, it would be worth it to pull less from the grid. But obviously it will be more expensive to get them without a FIT.

 

The idea of getting rid of it entirely is disgusting, how is it fair to pump energy into the grid for free?

 

The FIT was always separate to being paid if you have a metre that measures contribution to the grid. The normal rate for that is around 1.5p/unit I think, compared to the original 40p/unit FIT and even now 12.5p FIT.

[unbeliever]

They still work though, which is the point.

 

If nothing else, having solar panels can offset air conditioner use in hot weather. Its why I really wish I could have them myself but, you know, council house.

 

Don't even care about the FIT, it would be worth it to pull less from the grid. But obviously it will be more expensive to get them without a FIT.

 

The idea of getting rid of it entirely is disgusting, how is it fair to pump energy into the grid for free?

 

I you have enough money spare, go ahead and do it. Nobody's stopping you.

[apelike]

 

I don't see how cutting the tariff can be considered illegal, the government created the tariff, they can cut it again if they like.

 

Thought so..

 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/mar/23/uk-government-solar-feed-in-tariff

Edited August 29, 2015 by apelike

[El Cid]

I you have enough money spare, go ahead and do it. Nobody's stopping you.

 

Costs are coming down all the time.

 

"New batteries could hold much more charge, last pretty much forever and not be liable to blowing up like existing technology, according to researchers."

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/batteries-could-soon-last-almost-forever-by-turning-liquid-batteries-into-solids-10471065.html

[unbeliever]

Costs are coming down all the time.

 

"New batteries could hold much more charge, last pretty much forever and not be liable to blowing up like existing technology, according to researchers."

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/batteries-could-soon-last-almost-forever-by-turning-liquid-batteries-into-solids-10471065.html

 

Where can I buy these magic batteries?

 

Nowhere. They don't exist. As always people have interesting ideas which may or may not be achievable at some point in the future. If it is achieved, it may or may not be economical. Let's also not forget that batteries require, and in some cases use up, limited supplies of key chemicals which may or may not be highly toxic. For decades standard rechargeable batteries were based on Cadmium which is just about the most poisonous element we know of.

It's been 80 years since we came to understand fusion. We still don't have a viable fusion power source.

The science behind Li-ION batteries was well understood decades before anybody managed to build one.

Edited August 30, 2015 by unbeliever

[blackydog]

Anyone understand what the government is up to with reduced FiT payments? Is it for new installs or will it be applied retrospectively?

Seems the Tories are pro-fracking and would rather support that for "some reason".

[unbeliever]

Anyone understand what the government is up to with reduced FiT payments? Is it for new installs or will it be applied retrospectively?

Seems the Tories are pro-fracking and would rather support that for "some reason".

 

Because natural gas provides power as and when it's needed at low cost and solar panels don't?

Because giving middle class people essentially free electricity for owning a house with a good size roof, at the expense of the poor is regressive and immoral?

Because subsidising solar panels that don't actually do anything about CO2 production is stupid?

 

Perhaps we finally have a government that wants to do something practical about CO2 production rather than exploiting it for their own political gain. Just a thought.

[apelike]

Anyone understand what the government is up to with reduced FiT payments? Is it for new installs or will it be applied retrospectively?

Seems the Tories are pro-fracking and would rather support that for "some reason".

 

From what I can understand the reduced FIT rates are only for new installs.

 

The rates were first proposed to help the householder offset the costs of installs. What was not known at the time was that private companies would use it as a source of income by fitting them free of charge and taking the FIT. Its a bit of a loophole and was a way of getting round the restrictions on solar farms where the FIT was at a reduced level.

[blackydog]

Because natural gas provides power as and when it's needed at low cost and solar panels don't?

Because giving middle class people essentially free electricity for owning a house with a good size roof, at the expense of the poor is regressive and immoral?

Because subsidising solar panels that don't actually do anything about CO2 production is stupid?

 

Perhaps we finally have a government that wants to do something practical about CO2 production rather than exploiting it for their own political gain. Just a thought.

 

How can solar panels not do anything to reduce CO2? If you are using sunlight to produce electricity you are using, then you are not using electricity from coal or oil powered power stations?