OT Solar energy generated in the UK.overtook coal last Summer.

[harry]

Plus:- How to get paid twice for electricity in the future. Already happening in Germany. Possible new source of income?

[Brian-Gaff]

Is this why all those people who had panels installed are now being pestered to have local storage installed as well. My friends say the way its being explained makes no sense to them, how can inefficient batteries, for this is what they are one assumes, actually make you more subsidy and or save money more than feeding excess back into the grid? It sounds bonkers to me. Brian

[philipuk]

I thought you got paid for the energy that your panels generated regardless of whether it got fed back into the grid or you used it. That might explain it.

[Steve Jones]

[harry]

Only because you don't understand it. Your friends must be pretty thick. FIT payments are for power generated, not power exported. So, even if you use the power generated yourself, you still get paid for it. So if you can store some of the power generated in batteries, you can use it later. So cutting back on your (imported) electricity bill.

Looked at it myself. For the money saved,the outlay is far too great. However who knows at some time in the future?

In Germany when there is a surplus of power, they pay you to use (or store) it. You can then export power into the grid from the batteries later and get paid. Thus you get paid twice. Once for importing, and once for exporting. Now that should encourage people to install batteries thus solving the intermittancy problem!

[Chris Hogg]

You wouldn't care to put some numbers to that would you, bearing in mind that the market leader, the Tesla Powerwall, has a miserable

6.4kWh capacity?

[Bob Eager]

Real partial statistics. What about gas and nuclear?

[T i m]

Or maybe they are simply question the morality of such a system and can't believe they have it right?

Or 'My cash cow as I spit on other electricity users' (as you call it).

Brilliant. Was it some offspring of the person who first though selling the idea that sucking cigarette smoke into your lungs would be a 'good earner' by any chance?

Win win (and even more spit for the rest of us). ;-(

What about the money earned ... after all, I'm sure *we* can all manage a bit more for you?

Well, hopefully this whole FIT BS was an EU thing and once we are out it will be scrapped for the immoral thief it is and you will be forced to pay us our money back! Hurrah!

Who is 'they' in their case OOI? Is it other electricity consumers (who were never asked if it would be acceptable (for good reason obviously)) like it is over here?

That's fine. Being paid for any energy you supply TO the grid and at std commercial rates makes some sense (assuming we aren't standing down other generation to compensate that).

That sounds sensible (not).

But not any of the moral or environmental problems? Not that any of that bothers you of course, too busy counting our money .... (for now anyway)

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

A how much did this 'solar electricity' *cost* us (where us is not including those with no ethics or morals etc). ;-)

And winter is coming. Anyone spouting the benefits of solar as a real-world solution to anything (especially one that is creating a cutback in anything more reliable) should be made to 1) rely on it

100% 24/7 and 2) not be subsidised by other electricity users.

PV has it's uses ... like trickle charging a battery or running a wireless shed light but till the sun stops disappearing for quite a percentage of every 24 hours or we find a realistic / efficient way of storing the energy ... it's not a practical solution to anything and is never likely to be positive environmentally (even if / when we run out of fossil fuels). ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[Brian Gaff]

But who checks it? Surely this sort of idea is very easy to fiddle by simply feeding the same power through it twice thenm once from the cells then again from the battery. Brian

[harry]

It means less crap in the atmosphere. And less dependency of foreign fuel. It's all happening whether you like it or not/capable of understanding it shit-fer-brains

[T i m]

No it doesn't, unless you think all the materials they are made of just occur naturally?

Only when the sun is shining! Like I said when you have the balls to go off grid and stop ponsing off others then maybe, just maybe you will have earned the right to even speak of any of it.

Yes, for now, but you wait till the revolution brother and I'm afraid you will be one of the first against the wall. ;-(

The irony here of course is I *am* more than capable of understanding it by the fact I'm not parasiteing off others in some subsidised bubble.

I have had an EV and using solar panels for as long or possibly longer than you (and still have a Sinclair C5) but I am yet to see any evidence that either solve any real energy or pollution issues, in fact both are probably the reverse. *When* we have abundant and

*truly* green energy available 24/7 and we have carbon neutral chemistry (or 100% recyclable) in batteries or energy storage then we might be getting close. A compressed air powered car, charged by your own wind powered pump for example (and not necessarily a serious one).

Less reliance on 'foreign fuel' will only happen when we build more nukes or the sun starts shining or the wind keeps blowing 24/7.

Now, if we could only harness all your BS and hot air we would be sorted! ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Jethro_uk]

For various reasons I dip in and out of a newsgroup for dedicated cannabis growers.

While there is a surprising spread of political views, there's defintely a more left-leaning, green bias. Loads of claptrap spouted about how we all need to be using renewables ya-di-dah.

When it gets too much, you can shut them up by pointing out that no-one in the history of every has gone off-grid to grow cannabis ...

I saw the excellent Marcus Brigstocke recently, who suggested that since Michael Gove is so down with experts, the next time he needs dental treatment, he practice what he preaches and ditches the expert dentist, and go to Eric from the tyre fitters ... who is raring for his first case.

[tabbypurr]

It hasn't a hope of solving that problem, or even making a noticeable difference. A little basic maths will show you how unrealistic such an idea is.

NT

[tabbypurr]

Quite the opposite. Look at how much 'crap in the atmosphere' wuold result if we lived on solar PV electricity only, it would far exceed today's 'crap in the atmosphere.'

Nuclear fuel is a trivial part of total costs. Solar PV cost would massively exceed total nuclear cost if we based our electricity generation on that instead.

It is.

Some of us can do maths, and thus see through the politics.

NT

[tim...]

Except that it isn't mathematically unrealistic.

There is enough power in the sun for each person to collect enough power to satisfy their own personal needs (including charging up their electric car) if we have a means to store it across the "dark" periods of the day/year.

Ditto for the majority of companies who don't use electricity as a "raw material" in their production.

The fact that the storage costs aren't economic, doesn't make it mathematically impossible.

tim

[Tim Streater]

harry has never shown any ability to do sums.

But we don't, except in trivial amounts.

The storage costs are worse than uneconomic.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Except we don't. Which is where the mathematics shows it to be completely unrealistic. And the mathematics doesn't just show its uneconomic, it shows that for a broad range of 'possible' its not in fact *possible* either.

Renewable energy *storage* is just cat belling.

???

I think you are mad. If someone says to me 'this burger costs £5' and I say 'I only have £2 in my pocket' the mathematics is telling me I can't have that burger unless I steal it.

(Of course as a reneawable energy person the concept of stealing from others disguised as an altruistic act, comes naturally...)

[tim...]

I know that we don't

the premise is that someone has invented a method and the response was "he can't have, because it can't work"

I'm quite prepared to accept genuine engineering reasons why this "new" storage proposal doesn't work, but the OP's claimed reason is just false

Rubbish.

We have the basic technology now. Just fill your garage and garden shed up with car batteries.

Oh people don't have garages anymore, Oh dear, what a sensible move that was.

That this costs more in batteries than just buying the electricity from the grid doesn't make this mathematically impossible.

But that isn't the premise.

No-one mentioned that it was impossible because you only have 2 pounds, the original claim was the equivalent of "you can't buy the burger because there are enough cows".

Nothing in my post suggest that I support the concept that this technology should be subsidised

tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

Correct. It cant.

There are no 'new' storage proposals. All are easily calculated and all are well known, well tried, and discarded technology.

Wont do the job. Do the maths. There probably isn't enough lead in the whole world.

Well it does, if it bankrupts them so they starve instead of freeze.

Like I said, ALL the sums have to add up, not just one.

For example,. simple potential energy calculations show that I have very similar potential energy in Cape town, as I do here, therefore I ought to be able to get there wihout using any energy.

The problem is that I also have to visit every place in between and elbow out of te way w2hatever was there first......and that is an additional element that is not incorporated into the simplistic orginal sum.

All I need for a mobile phone battery to get me to Cap town is viable teleportation.....

All we need for renewable energy to be only half as useless as it is, is viable storage.

But who will bell the cat?