unFIT solar

[Andy Burns]

solar farm with its own battery storage and no FITs ...

[Harry Bloomfield]

Andy Burns formulated on Tuesday :

'...10MW of solar PV co-located with 5 energy storage units totalling

6MW.'

That last bit quoted above makes no sense at all, the 6MW part, unless they mean it can discharge at the 6MW rate. In which case what is the capacity of the storage in watt/hours?

[Theo]

I think they mean 6MWh. A rough ballpark is 1MWh per 40' container, and their aerial photo shows five, so that's about right.

Theo

[Chris Hogg]

You may be right, but it doesn't inspire confidence if their publicity department doesn't have the technical savvy to use the correct units.

[Brian Gaff]

Why is it called a farm? Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Efficiency of electricity storage is what we want to know. Until we have efficient storage and a similarly efficient way to distribute the power then renewable are not really viable except possibly to the local community in hard to get at places.

I way thinking the other day about the current trend toward wireless charging of devices.This surely has to be very inefficient compared to a connection? its going to be inductive and even if the hz is raised to make it more efficient that has got to have losses. All so we do not have a plug in psu??

I notice you can now get sofas with built in USB ports so the next step is obviously wireless charging arms. Brian

[Tim Streater]

O-level education, you mean?

[Andy Burns]

That's their problem, not ours. They only get paid for the electricity that people want when it's sunny, or they've stored and can push through an inverter.

[Tim Streater]

AISB, these "providers" should be expected to provide a constant level of output 24 x 7. The level, that is, that they boast about. If they fall short then it should be *their* responsibility to make up the shortfall.

[Andy Burns]

The 6MW might be the total power rating of their inverters, fed from an undisclosed amount of MWh of batteries.

[Andy Burns]

Perhaps a constant output isn't best, how about having their output match the envelope of the daily demand curve (as shown by gridwatch)? Then we're not paying Peter over the odds to fill the gaps in Paul's output?

[harry]

True. Plus the statement. "10MW renewable energy generated."

[harry]

It means they don't know WTF they're talking about.

[harry]

It runs on sunlight?

[The Other John]

'Cos they harvest sunlight! :)

[damduck-egg]

Thinking about it Farm has been applied to a few things , Sewage Farm was a popular term for what is now more likely to be called a treatment works , I suppose as you can get fertilizer ,gas out of sewage you are harvesting it. But what about those old now rare aerial/ antenna arrangements like Rugby and Rampisham etc . They were often called aerial farms. What was being harvested there?

Are there any large ones left now? Rampisham was finally cleared last month apart from one tower to be left as a very large bird nest support.

Partly as a result of the Solar farm project on the site not going ahead to return to the topic.

G.Harman

[Chris Hogg]

In 'media studies' or some such.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I went for an eye test at the opticains and was dealt with by a young bespectacled lady in a hajib.

Noticing a non zero on the 'cyl' part of the notes I said 'Oh, so I have astigmatism?'

'How did you now that, are you a Trained Optician?'

'No, I replied 'O-level Physics'.

It contuinues to amaze me how much we learnt then for O levels, which isn't even studied at degree level these days.

[Dave W]

I'm not so sure that inductive charging is inefficient. Difficult to do yes, but I doubt much energy can be wasted in free air. Any losses would be in the windings and magnetic materials. The method does have the advantage of not wearing out connectors.

[alan_m]

Call it a farm and you can build it on land designated for farming or green belt.