OT Big increase in solar electricity anticipated

[harryagain]

All other electricity sources are subsidised. I don't hear you whinging about that.

[Chris Hogg]

Solar energy 'could provide 4% of UK electricity by 2020'

"The plummeting cost of solar panels has caused the government to revise upwards its forecast for solar energy use, Energy Secretary Ed Davey said. This had contributed to the government decision to end most subsidies for large-scale solar this month, he added."

Well, I suppose we should be grateful for that last comment. What amused and saddened me at the same time was the TV news item that piggybacked on that main story: a piece about 'the biggest battery in Europe', at Leighton Buzzard, a demonstration of the technology being developed to enable excess electricity to be stored when the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow.

See

for a BBC report on that battery, from the end of last year. It has a capacity of 6MW and can supply 10MWh of electricity. I checked the stats for Dinorwig: 1800MW providing

10800MWh of electricity . So Dinorwig is equivalent to about 1000 of these Leighton Buzzard batteries, and Dinorwig only holds a small amount of what we would need for storage to become a practicality for ironing out the peaks and troughs of renewables. And how long will the battery last before it has to be replaced, bearing in mind the lifetime of most rechargeable batteries these days?

Makes you want to weep!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Amen to that.

[CB]

Having read that article I'm still not clear of the predictions it says ============== He said he expected up to 14GW of solar by 2020 - up from 5GW at the end of 2014. That equates roughly to 1.5% of total UK annual electricity to just under 4%. He said he expected it to grow further in the next decade. ========

Are there some "h"s missing from there? ie 14GWh represents 4% of the UK annual electricity consumption, or does he mean 14GW installed capability, so for a few sunny days solar might produce 4% of instantaneous requirements, in the same way that wind currently produces something like (is it 15% ?) in the right conditions.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I suspect it's more like 14GW installed capacity might produce 4% of annual requirements,

[CB]

Ah thank you. A quick look at gridwatch shows an eyeball average annual requirement of a constant 30GW. 4% of that is 1.2GW, so an annual average of 1.2GW from an installed 14GW might make sense.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes. Solar is about 10% capacity factor, compared with wind at 21% or so. (and nuclear at 80% or so).

>

[bert]

In message , Chris Hogg writes

And how much CO2 produced in manufacturing them. And how will they be disposed of at EOL? Etc. Etc.

[Chris Hogg]

You have your answer, but I was going to ask why you thought either Ed Davey or the journalist would understand the question, let alone have an answer.

[Andrew Gabriel]

"Costing the Earth" on Radio 4 today was interesting, but I didn't catch it all. Renewables have been damaged by the drop in oil (and gas) price over the last year. The government's calcuations were based on oil doubling in price, but it's halved since then. The economists think it's at about the right price now, and will likely stay there for some time. There could be another drop in the middle of the year - currently we're extracting 2M barrels more than is being used, and that's going in to storage (old oil tankers permanently parked, or active ones moving very slowly). The spare storage space runs out around middle of the year, which will put the extra 2M barrels on the market for immediate use. Many US and most middle east oil fields are still economic down to $20/barrel, and some down to $10/barrel, given the infrastructure is all in place.

There are a few companies which turn up at ecobuild events, which sell batteries for home owners to store cheap rate electricity and either use it at peak time, or sell it back to the grid. I don't think there's any FIT for these in the UK.

[Chris Hogg]

It occurred to me a while back, that the only way to make batteries a relevant storage system for grid-scale fluctuations in renewable power supply, would be for every new house to have a garage-sized battery built as part of the planning permission or building regs, and to retro-fit a great deal more to older houses. So rather than try and build a few hundred enormous super-shed-sized batteries, there would be tens of thousands of smaller ones. Not attempted to do any numbers on feasibility though.

[Chris Hogg]

Because those subsidies that you say exist, are not pouring money down the drain, unlike subsidies for renewables. And anyway, you whinge about the subsidies that you claim are paid to the nuclear industry, so why shouldn't I whinge about subsidies for renewables. At least nuclear provides a steady supply of base-load electricity, which renewables never will. But don't worry; the subsidies are only being withdrawn from solar systems of greater than 5MW. You'll still get your thirty pieces of silver for your solar panels.

[Dave Liquorice]

Hum, considering the rabbit hutches that many modern houses are you end up with a choice between off street parking or a battery. There are other things to consider as well: Who owns the battery? Who maintains it? Who pays for its replacement? Not to mention the safety aspects of having a lot of stored energy that can be released very quickly, ever dropped a spanner across a tiddly little (by comparison) car battery?

Think it would be better to have the shed sized batteries at each wind mill, solar PV, etc to buffer their erratic generation from the grid. ie make them dispatchable. This also solves the ownership, maintenance, replacement etc etc.

[Dave Liquorice]

"The Solar Trades Association said as much new capacity has been installed in the first three months of this year as in the whole of

2014."

One assumes that it still takes X amount of man hours to install Y amount of Solar PV now as it did in 2014. So where have all these extra workers come from? Or is all this "new capacity" just a physical grid connection capable of Z kW but the PV panels aren't actually in place...

[The Natural Philosopher]

add about 100k to the house cost.

[John Rumm]

You would run out of lithium long before you had a usable capacity... and to quote harry, "what about the waste"

[Chris Hogg]

That would apply to any battery system, big-and-few or small-and-many, although lithium may be more plentiful than you imagine

, and batteries based on other metals are under consideration .

Harry's only worried about nuclear waste. He doesn't care about the rest, however toxic it might be.

[Chris Hogg]

Hmm...perhaps not a stroke of genius on my part then!

[Chris Hogg]

At least with your last suggestion, the true cost of renewables would be born by those proposing their installation, not by the rest of us having to pay the cost of coping with their variable output.

Should bring the renewables industry to a grinding halt, I would think. Gets my vote!

[harryagain]

Yes there is. You can buy battery conversion kits for "normal" FIT PVinstallations. It would be easy enought to rig up your own. And "solar switches". You can store energy as hot water.