Misleading news?

[Oldgreybeard]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62687064

I have some inside knowledge about this, as I was involved with a local cooperative group looking to install solar farms and a small hydro system. I've had long conversations with local farmers about the grid capacity issue, and that BBC article is plain misleading. It seems those Welsh farmers aren't prepared to pay for a grid connection upgrade.

The way the system works at the moment is that any request for a grid connection upgrade, either for supply or microgeneration, requires the cost of that upgrade work to be met by the applicant. That cost can be quite high, not at all unusual for it to run into the tens of thousands, may even run into the hundreds of thousands. The starting price for a simple local transformer change is around £24k, for example. The DNOs are not going to fork out to upgrade their networks unless they get paid for it!

[Oliver90owner]

Nothing unusual.

First thing I noted, on that report, was: (Quote) We've got 3.9kw of solar panels on site at the moment. (Unquote).

Many have more than 3.9kW on their house roof! Perhaps that farmer should be considering (battery?) storage as the first step?

Supplies to a premises is sufficient for the usage on those premises. Exceed that amount, going the other way will just not fit!

Even domestic users have to pay a fair whack if they wish to be ‘up-graded’ to a three phase supply. I get around that by using VFDs to get my three phase power from my existing single phase supply.

MW connections to the grid are not going to be cheap. The older, historical, reason for curtailment was of a similar nature - moving generated power to grid lines of suitable capacity. Bringing multi-MW of power to lines built for less than a MW will not work.

[Mr Gus]

We don't want to affect our profits let alone improve the system nor follow decarbonisation, ...they are saying then!?

Sounds like farmers will have to co-operative solar investment for now & all take a share whilst gunning for govt on a Welsh & national level.

Mind you absent govt dngaf.

[Oldgreybeard]

The key thing is that, under the way our electricity supply system is structured, someone always needs to pay for any changes they want. Locally I know of a farm that paid around £65k to get their supply upgraded when they fitted solar panels to a couple of their barns. Seems fair enough, as they get a significant benefit from the solar panels, in the form of reduced operating cost as we as some income from energy they export.

Same goes for any business that needs an upgraded supply for any reason. If someone wants to open a bakery, for example, they are going to have to pay for an upgraded supply to run the ovens in all probability. It's just a part of the cost of setting up a business, and putting up a solar farm is just a business at the end of the day.

[Mr Gus]

However, not upgrading infrastructure when they have had a decade of this trickling in is fecking stupid too, ..what excuses when / if rolling blackouts?
Power companies need to reorganize & maybe offset by taking a slice of production till it's paid for, e.g. 50% upgrade split 2 ways, via solar farm operator & the rest accrued via output? ..things need to change, they whine like female dogs but hoover up plenty of low/ non fits production that isn't used within the home, battery storage being few & far between..

power companies maybe need to meet in the middle to help a creaking infrastructure system along or sink & handle the fallout that comes with it, surely they get "all hands to the pumps" terminology?

[Oliver90owner]

A farm, I occasionally visit, needed a connection when solar panels were installed. The connection was made with the plan to instal further PV (which is now nearing time for installation).

At the time of the original connection, putting in cabling, etc, with twice the required capacity was not so very much more expensive than that for the original panels. That cost was still eye-wateringly expensive, but clearly financially worth the expense.

I’m not sure how much grid reinforcement will be/is/has been necessary for the local 350MW Mallard Pass development.

[Oldgreybeard]

However, not upgrading infrastructure when they have had a decade of this trickling in is fecking stupid too, ..what excuses when / if rolling blackouts?
Power companies need to reorganize & maybe offset by taking a slice of production till it's paid for, e.g. 50% upgrade split 2 ways, via solar farm operator & the rest accrued via output? ..things need to change, they whine like female dogs but hoover up plenty of low/ non fits production that isn't used within the home, battery storage being few & far between..

power companies maybe need to meet in the middle to help a creaking infrastructure system along or sink & handle the fallout that comes with it, surely they get "all hands to the pumps" terminology?

Who pays?

Upgrades cost money, often a great deal of money, and someone has to pay for that, no one is going to do upgrades as an act of charity, as the materials cost a lot of money and people have to be paid to do the work.

Seems perfectly fair to me that the people who gain an income from upgrade work should have to pay to have that work done. DNOs are businesses at the end of the day, not charitable bodies funded from the magic money tree.

It is worth looking at how the supply system is structured, perhaps. We have the grid company (National Grid ESO) that owns the high voltage network that connects all the distribution networks. In some cases (notably the interconnections from North to South) they need upgrades to allow wind energy from Scotland and the North to get to the South, but in the main they don't get involved with small scale upgrades like these. Then there are the Distribution Networks, owned by half a dozen or so different companies, they take the high voltage from the grid and distribute it as medium voltage and low voltage. The DNOs are responsible for the connections to farms and other business premises, as well as homes.

In this case, if the farms want a more capable connection then it's down to their DNO to offer to provide it, but that will be at a cost, as they are just another business at the end of the day. The cost is regulated, and all the non-electrical elements of the work (trenching, ground works etc) can be contracted separately by the farm wanting the upgraded supply (not at all unusual for farms to do their own ground works for upgraded supplies).

There is an issue that farms in rural areas often get asked to pay more for upgraded supplies than businesses in a conurbation. That's just down to it costing more money to run cables long distances, often across land owned by several land owners (all of who have to agree wayleaves etc). At the moment the regulatory structure is such that the price has to be fair to all for upgrade work, so someone that needs a couple of miles of new cable will pay more than someone that only needs a few metres. It would be unfair, for example, if I'd had to pay over the top for the ~100m of new cable I had run in here to subsidise the farmer up the road that needed a couple of miles of new cable.

[Mr Gus]

Understood OGB, however I didn't say they do it for free, these are exceptional times which requires "getting in the room & hammering it out" IF we are to get anything like a safety net in place for energy.

That's why I suggested 50% of cost up INITIALLY, from a group of farmers who wish to form an energy co-operative, & based on production a percentage until the cost is cleared, hopefully facilitating one field, done properly, multi use agriculture & energy production to the local grid where positioning is good & short & sweet connections & upgrades.

I'm merely saying that if folk are keen let's find fast & efficient solutions to get the green power on where possible without ducking around timewise, we have several years of energy uncertainty with nigh on all of europe grasping "power" to retain power in what for many is too many steps closer to the war recovery years & the anger (with govt, & authority) that will go with it.

Fingers need pulling out, NFU to give assistance & feed folk on several fronts, from the same field where possible.

[Oldgreybeard]

Understood OGB, however I didn't say they do it for free, these are exceptional times which requires "getting in the room & hammering it out" IF we are to get anything like a safety net in place for energy.

That's why I suggested 50% of cost up INITIALLY, from a group of farmers who wish to form an energy co-operative, & based on production a percentage until the cost is cleared, hopefully facilitating one field, done properly, multi use agriculture & energy production to the local grid where positioning is good & short & sweet connections & upgrades.

I'm merely saying that if folk are keen let's find fast & efficient solutions to get the green power on where possible without ducking around timewise, we have several years of energy uncertainty with nigh on all of europe grasping "power" to retain power in what for many is too many steps closer to the war recovery years & the anger (with govt, & authority) that will go with it.

Fingers need pulling out, NFU to give assistance & feed folk on several fronts, from the same field where possible.

What's happened locally is close to that. One farm wanted to add panels to their outbuildings, but the cost of the required network upgrades was too high to make it worthwhile. They got together with another farm (literally next door), worked with the DNO and managed to get the cost down by doing both at once.

I've worked with a coop locally for years, the biggest single problem (other than landowners being bloody awkward) is money. Raising money to fund projects is a massive problem, especially given the scale of the costs involved. There is no magic money tree - if the NFU were to provide grants then they would need to get that money from their members, who are the farmers.

This all comes down to the fact that all of our electricity generation, distribution and sales is in the hands of a few dozen commercial enterprises that cannot, and will not, do something for nothing. There's a valid social argument that energy supplies should not be subject to the whims of the markets, but that would mean re-nationalising the lot, something that I honestly can't see any government being prepared to do in my lifetime. Unravelling 40 years worth of private investment, much of it owned by companies based outside the UK now, and the government buying back what is a multi-billion pound industry is close to impossible.

The government could provide grants to farmers, perhaps, but how to do that fairly? Lots of people would, quite rightly, see more taxpayer funded grants to farmers, at a time when everyone is facing massive rises in their cost of living, as being unacceptable. I'm a farmer's son, so have sympathy for the plight of rural farms, but giving them money won't fix anything.

[Mr Gus]

Good to hear the "two-fer" ...& this is where the NFU as a body could help, not with grants but by logging interest, & how to cut costs by doubling up (or more) ..The point of the but is a resource to assist paperwork, easing the process via knowledge as to how to stick a scheme together that can be duplicated & tweaked along the way, it would also for in with wind farm potential for the but (who have the majority of farmers ears to offer a service with legal expertise & concise planning in both directions)

Hopefully less cluster-fudges would ensue & costs brought down across the board as a no nonsense blueprint takes form.

Makes sense for a family in possession of all that kit to do some of the groundwork.