Wind Farm Cancelled

[Ken]

I mean, not every house can take even four panels, but then I think of the rows of terraced housing that have an...azimuth? between -30 and +30 degrees south and each house can take 2 kW of panels and I figure the entire street can essentially reduce grid use by, I dunno, 80% in summer? And then how much does that help with maintenance windows etc that increases the viability of windpower.

It just feels like this sort of subsidy should be considered at the same time as wind and nuclear CfD costings. And there would be the consistent benefit of improved output week by week rather than year by year with the big jobs.

But this gives reources to the great unwashed so no government would consider it.

And what happens at night or in winter when in fact demand is higher?

We have had these discussions for yrs and the point is we cannot commit to a large % of any means of production, the Russian gas shows this.

The cheapest way forward is indeed RE but it is not 100% dependable but we can make it a little more dependable with overbuild, storage and demand management. Nevertheless we are going to need otherforms of generation if we are not going to have too many eggs in one basket and this inevitably means nuclear and hydro and.... for which we are going to have to pay more end of. You can have the cheapest which crashes at the extremes or something more expensive for reliability. In any case the Nat Grid is carrying excess production all the time for that just in case moment and coal and gas is still being used now just to provide an insurance policy for some possible but rare event.

I believe education and demand management with TOU tariffs and V2G is the underplayed card as yet.

[Krill]

I mean, not every house can take even four panels, but then I think of the rows of terraced housing that have an...azimuth? between -30 and +30 degrees south and each house can take 2 kW of panels and I figure the entire street can essentially reduce grid use by, I dunno, 80% in summer? And then how much does that help with maintenance windows etc that increases the viability of windpower.

It just feels like this sort of subsidy should be considered at the same time as wind and nuclear CfD costings. And there would be the consistent benefit of improved output week by week rather than year by year with the big jobs.

But this gives reources to the great unwashed so no government would consider it.

And what happens at night or in winter when in fact demand is higher?

We have had these discussions for yrs and the point is we cannot commit to a large % of any means of production, the Russian gas shows this.

The cheapest way forward is indeed RE but it is not 100% dependable but we can make it a little more dependable with overbuild, storage and demand management. Nevertheless we are going to need otherforms of generation if we are not going to have too many eggs in one basket and this inevitably means nuclear and hydro and.... for which we are going to have to pay more end of. You can have the cheapest which crashes at the extremes or something more expensive for reliability. In any case the Nat Grid is carrying excess production all the time for that just in case moment and coal and gas is still being used now just to provide an insurance policy for some possible but rare event.

I believe education and demand management with TOU tariffs and V2G is the underplayed card as yet.

Please don't think I'm putting this forward as a single solution to the problem, because it isn't. I'm just saying that it should be considered at a national and regional level, not just at single home level. This is why I am interested in any analyses that considers housing stock, roof types, apartment and industrial building designs etc. Look at Dan, and the effect one company can achieve, and then how does that affect need for other grid level power.

[Joeboy]

Such places do exist,
https://www.mynottinghamnews.co.uk/%EF% ... nce%202012.

We have many thousands of council properties around Aberdeenshire now fitted with PV. One contractors progress story below. if each home is a 4kWp set up (and many appear that way). I would estimate at least 5,000 properties converted to PV. Bear in mind the size of Aberdeenshire so its an absolute shot in the dark. Although we did also see massive application of PV on council property in Morayshire last week. I see about 72% conversion from my kWp to MWh on my less than optimal E/W array.

5.12kWp gives a consistent 3.7MWh average per year. Even at that poor conversion on 5,000 homes we'd be looking at 14.4GWh's generated pa.

https://www.mearsgroup.co.uk/our-storie ... rdeenshire

Just one more string in the RE bow, possibly grid storage sites to follow?

Nowty, As I was shutting down there I quickly ran the per house installation figure for Nottinghamshire. £6,668 average per home.

[Ken]

With wind and hydro being so effective and PV so poor i cannot see pv as a good use of resources in Scotland. For comparison nearly all PV on the south coast produces 1000 kwh/kwp and some up to 1200 kwh/kwp.

In fact taking that logic further perhaps we should leave PV to the sunnier Spain etc which produces twice what we do over winter and 150% over the yr.

[Mart]

I mean, not every house can take even four panels, but then I think of the rows of terraced housing that have an...azimuth? between -30 and +30 degrees south and each house can take 2 kW of panels and I figure the entire street can essentially reduce grid use by, I dunno, 80% in summer? And then how much does that help with maintenance windows etc that increases the viability of windpower.

It just feels like this sort of subsidy should be considered at the same time as wind and nuclear CfD costings. And there would be the consistent benefit of improved output week by week rather than year by year with the big jobs.

But this gives reources to the great unwashed so no government would consider it.

And what happens at night or in winter when in fact demand is higher?

We have had these discussions for yrs and the point is we cannot commit to a large % of any means of production, the Russian gas shows this.

The cheapest way forward is indeed RE but it is not 100% dependable but we can make it a little more dependable with overbuild, storage and demand management. Nevertheless we are going to need otherforms of generation if we are not going to have too many eggs in one basket and this inevitably means nuclear and hydro and.... for which we are going to have to pay more end of. You can have the cheapest which crashes at the extremes or something more expensive for reliability. In any case the Nat Grid is carrying excess production all the time for that just in case moment and coal and gas is still being used now just to provide an insurance policy for some possible but rare event.

I believe education and demand management with TOU tariffs and V2G is the underplayed card as yet.

Please don't think I'm putting this forward as a single solution to the problem, because it isn't. I'm just saying that it should be considered at a national and regional level, not just at single home level. This is why I am interested in any analyses that considers housing stock, roof types, apartment and industrial building designs etc. Look at Dan, and the effect one company can achieve, and then how does that affect need for other grid level power.

I get your point entirely. And when storage is included, you get time shifting of the PV generation into the evening and night. That domestic storage can also bring benefits through the winter by absorbing cheap RE excess, and again time shifting, and spreading the load more evenly.

And I'm really hopeful that trials of larger scale storage, perhaps several 100kWh to 1MWh, on the local substation level, could bring massive benefits to all parties. It can absorb excess gen from RE, help even out the load on the transmission and distribution networks, and also (I hope) allow for greater domestic PV generation and export, as it could store excess in the summer, rather than deny export limits, since these local substations can't pump excess back up the grid if the local households can't absorb it all.


Regarding your question about suitable housing stock for PV, I believe the old figure was about 20%. This may be wrong, but I think that was based on an estimate of the amount of roofs with moderate or less shading, large enough, and orientated between SE and SW. Again, I may have much of that wrong, I'm thinking back about 10yrs.

But ...... I never thought that was reasonable, since it excluded roofs that are roughly E/W. I appreciate that generation per kWp is lower, but E/W roofs often allow for twice as much kWp to be installed, and going bigger can drop install prices (per kWp) by a similar percentage to the lower PV output.

I would assume that much has changed now, especially given the rise in PV efficiency from ~15% to ~22%, an approx increase of 50% in output for the same area. This will open up the viability of far more roofs, particularly smaller ones, and ones with some shading. And bypass diodes have probably helped massively here too.

And of course, as per recent discussions, there are loads of places where PV can now be installed, not just roofs - walls, car ports, pergolas, ground mounts, even a porch roof!

[Mart]

With wind and hydro being so effective and PV so poor i cannot see pv as a good use of resources in Scotland. For comparison nearly all PV on the south coast produces 1000 kwh/kwp and some up to 1200 kwh/kwp.

In fact taking that logic further perhaps we should leave PV to the sunnier Spain etc which produces twice what we do over winter and 150% over the yr.

Hi Ken. But domestic PV in Scotland doesn't compete with wholesale UK leccy prices, nor Spanish PV, it competes with retail leccy prices.

[Joeboy]

With wind and hydro being so effective and PV so poor i cannot see pv as a good use of resources in Scotland. For comparison nearly all PV on the south coast produces 1000 kwh/kwp and some up to 1200 kwh/kwp.

In fact taking that logic further perhaps we should leave PV to the sunnier Spain etc which produces twice what we do over winter and 150% over the yr.

Hi Ken. But domestic PV in Scotland doesn't compete with wholesale UK leccy prices, nor Spanish PV, it competes with retail leccy prices.

I am not the best representative for efficient solar as I am E/W and also shaded more than I'd like. Hard to generate RE when the wind isn't there and no solar PV fitted. I guess at that point the per kWh value rises on the solar? Its a good point but not one I adhere to. I would rather have multiple sources operating at different efficiencies and critically a storage solution to flatten the supply/demand.

The dream would be 500ft alt South facing, unshaded. House covered in panels. Accessible WT and a hydroturbine in the burn along with a HUGE shed on batteries. Oh aye and a big old WBS with water jacket. Ah well, can but dream.

Edit- been out solar cutting the lawns (clippings on the veg) reflecting on the per kWh price that we pay beyond the financial. I don't want to depart much from the flow of the chat but a massive part of the reason that I do this stuff is manly freedom. The fact that I can take a grid drop out for extended periods of time is SO important to me. I guess its a control thing and I'm also not very good (read terrible) at being told what to do.
At the risk of descending into feelings, my personal background standing reading for happiness is quite high due to the 24/7 knowledge of our ability to manoeuvre and not just sit waiting. I don't think its just me? Although I'd happily acknowledge that I'm slightly extreme .?

[Mr Gus]

Apply a few economies of scale and the amount of tax payable by all the good jobs it would create and it looks do- able, it's probably only one and a half HS2s at current costs....

Desp

Hang on Desp, you mean Ackchually do something that benefits EVERYONE for a change, possibly bringing about a genuine bit of We can we will we did & did it together!? ..but, but, does not compute


I'm all for it, wonder what the outcome is for how much of a leeway this could potentially give us on coal powered generation, gas turbines etc, surely some university has modelled it recently?

[Swwils]

You can't do it on solar in the UK.

The energy source is just too diffuse and high entropy.

It's the same reason the sail boat was replaced by the steam engine, the energy source density and reliability is what's critical.

We literally do not have the society capital to pursue our energy requirements from such low density sources, even with favourable capacity factors and spending more effort to make it reliable with unproven storage technology is even less efficient overall.

Realistically, domestic energy use in the EU is small fries to where the energy requirements and most of the things you enjoy in civilisation are.

When the sun sets in Germany more than 1/4 of their energy comes from neighbours, mostly burning gas or lich.

I remain of the stance it's folly to have expensive energy and it's a imperative that energy is cheap, otherwise you end up with deindustrialization. On a more local scale people will just burn things, on a macro scale I don't know of any wind equipment OEM that's turned a profit.

[nowty]

You can't do it on solar in the UK.

The energy source is just too diffuse and high entropy.

It's the same reason the sail boat was replaced by the steam engine, the energy source density and reliability is what's critical.

Whilst I agree that solar energy is less dense than other energy sources, I don’t agree it has high entropy, except at night.

Sunlight must be low entropy as useful energy can be extracted from it, otherwise my solar panels would not work and I would have to pay for my energy. The energy source in my battery bank is also low entropy otherwise I could not power my house at night. No useful energy can be extracted by high entropy energy sources, if I lived on Pluto I might agree with you.