[OT] Local Electricity Bill

[Spike]

Anyone see any snags here?

Full story at:

"The Local Electricity Bill, if made law, would give electricity generators the right to become local suppliers – i.e. sell their energy directly to local people – and make it financially viable to do so. The Bill would give a huge boost to community renewable energy and local economies."

"Power for People’s Director, Steve Shaw, said “The biggest threat to human civilisation and the natural world is climate breakdown. Global emissions have increased by over 400% since 1950, with levels of CO2 at their highest concentration in the past 2 million years. It is not too late to turn things around. The enormous emissions reductions the Local Electricity Bill aims to bring must be a key pillar in our mission to avert climate catastrophe whilst making our energy system more robust and boosting local jobs and the economies of communities across the country."

[Andy Burns]

Spike quoted:

It looks somewhat slim

How often do private members' bills succeed? (actually a few more than I thought, avg 10/year since 1983)

[Jack Harry Teesdale]

Well in addition to the prime generation costs, no doubt distribution network operator costs and 'green' levies would need to be added in arriving at the kWh selling cost, unless these 'local operators' develop their own network cable systems.

Selling excess solar or wind energy to neighbours will be fraught with dangers.

[Colin Bignell]

The reason the national grid was created in the 1920s was because local generation wasn't particularly efficient. It proved to be better to have a smaller number of big generating stations than having each of the 600 odd local suppliers making their own.

[Robin]

This has been around for a long while and has a lot of MPs supporting it (on the face of it at least). I suggest:

a. ignore the Bill: it's just a marker and a means to try to get attention and has no useful details?

b. note it's not the same as local suppliers like Nottingham and Bristol[1] - which don't mean the end won't be the same ;)

c. look at the promoters website [2] for what is involved.

In summary I suspect it a bit of a heads we win/tails you lose deal: they sell power cheap when the sun shines or wind blows, then hand over to the big generators to fill in the gaps. Am I cynical? Yep - trained to be. But I've been trying to keep an open mind unless and until I get around to seeing just how it works in Germany.

[1] [2]

[Tim Streater]

1) Global emissions of *what* ? 2) 2 million years is nothing in the context.

[SteveW]

That still makes sense for nuclear stations and remaining gas stations (although SMRs could change that a little, but they are likely to be clustered on ex-nuclear sites anyway), but PV, wind, small hydro and tidal are naturally far more spread out and it does make sense to have widely distributed generation for those types.

[Tim Streater]

There is no tidal, and for good reasons that have been discussed here previously.

[SteveW]

Small scale, village sponsored tidal could well be possible. It would not produce the power that large scale tidal would offer, but then neither do PVs on individual homes.

[Owain Lastname]

What about an extension lead to the neighbour's generator when the solar and wind goes out?

Owain

[alan_m]

Have you any evidence that such a scheme is viable? If so in which locations are they going to be built?

An established small scale river generation that I'm aware of can provide the needs for 100 houses in the "GOOD" months but in the summer months when river levels fall due to lower rainfall or greater extraction for drinking water the outputs drops by 90%. The facility was also out of commission for months when flood waters damaged the equipment.

Where I'm visiting at this time the local river regularly bursts its banks in the winter months but during the summer children often wade in the ankle deep water!

[Colin Bignell]

They can still feed into the national grid, no mater how widely distributed they are. However, local generation using those technologies alone is not viable. The big stations are still needed to provide for when the wind doesn't blow or the sun isn't shining enough, or the tides are at the wrong state.

[Theo]

It has been done historically:

It doesn't seem like it would need much: a sluice across a tidal creek, passing through a generator. It would likely only offer order of kW so not a power station, but enough to power a few houses perhaps?

River generation != tidal generation

Theo

[Tim Lamb]

There is also this one.

[Tim Streater]

a) PV on individualk homes is a waste of time, generally. b) small scale tidal would hardly be economic. And it would still produce zero power four times a day.

[Theo]

PV on homes can make a lot of sense, if the conditions are right:

1. easy access to the roof (eg at time of construction, roof replacement, or flat roof) to minimise install costs
2. consumption aligned with generation (eg electric car charging, air conditioning)
3. keeping installer costs under control

It is not going to be cheaper to install than a solar farm, but #2 wins some of that back: displacing local consumption has a much more attractive payback than selling to the grid.

Batteries are getting cheap enough that you can achieve #2 as long as you can consume in the evening/overnight what you generated that day, which is the pattern of a lot of people.

Probably not economic, although people in estuarine areas might be able to do something. Batteries would fix the second problem (given we're talking kW not MW). It is not going to set the world on fire, but a useful complement to PV (tidal works all year round, and on calm days).

Theo

[SteveW]

Number 3 needs all (or at least most of it) to be self-installable.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, it makes sense to put them all in museums.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Possibility is not the issue. economic viability is.

How much fossil fuel is burnt to make and maintain all these wind turbines and solar panels?

[Theo]

I think it mostly is, electrically speaking. Obviously the roof stuff depends on your situation and scaffolding-wrangling etc. You can self-install and submit a G98 request to your DNO. I'm not sure about DIYing a G99, but maybe that's doable too if your DNO is happy.

You don't get any payback in terms of export credits for a DIY install, but those are peanuts anyway - much better to consume locally.

Of course that assumes you're electrically competent - those who aren't will have to pay someone to install. But there's no absolute reason why that should be crazily priced: say max a day's work for the non-roof wiring.

At present seems it's simply people charging what the market will bear rather than their actual costs + labour. But that's not a failure of PV as such.

Theo