Far from boosting installation of solar pv on new buildings, new building standards that the UK Government will say they will bring in for England are likely to reduce solar installation rates.
The government's position is broadly right; set a target reduction for carbon reduction and let builders decide how they are going to meet it.
Solar is not appropriate for every roof.
Reducing winter energy use when the grid is under stress is far more important than reducing energy use on sunny days when grid load is light.
Householders will install solar panels for economic reasons if they can generate solar energy cheaper than the cost of taking electricity from the grid which itself is going to have a big solar element in summer months.
I agree. It had to be financially worthwhile to install solar. Before the last bout of inflation the playback time for solar was about 8-10 years. Now it's about 15 and despite the cost of the panels falling dramatically (that cost is almost negligible now) it's the cost of the labour for the physical installation and the electrical work that kills any 'business case' for a quick return. On top of that, given the megabuild solar farms coming up the SEG rate is likely to fall over the next few years. Octopus have not been renewing fixed rate SEG but have offered Time of Use rates for future contracts. You get less during peak solar production. This means midday and summer. You get more for early morning, late evening and better rates for spring, autumn and winter. This will favour E-W panels in the summer and those who have a battery to feed into the evening peak. South facing arrays will do better in the winter. ToU or declining rates will extend the payback time even more.
Unfortunately we will always be reliant on at least some natural gas or some kind of chemical energy store (natural gas being the cheapest) for the days when there is no wind and no sun and the energy demand for heating is the greatest. You simply cannot economically build enough long term storage with currently available technology because how much are you going to build? If you build more than you need for the very worst possible case that you can imagine, either that case will be exceeded or you will be paying for something to be built and maintained that will never be used. That will not bring fuel bills down for the people least able to afford them. There will have to be a trade off between renewables and natural gas and it will probably be voters who decide where that is. Yes, I know that is unpalatable but we have limits to what is possible with technolgy and financing. If you can't fix the supply then you need to fix the demand and the nature of the demand.
The wind not blowing and the Sun not shining does not stop the moon going round. Investments in tidal is dealt with in “ paltry” £ millions whilst nuclear is talked about in £ billions? A recent article shows that whilst relative to time 1 million seconds = 11.6 days. Whilst 1 billion seconds is a massive 31.7 years. ? It’s simply a case of they can’t make a bomb with tidal energy !
I’m not sure what policy you prefer exactly, but in my latest post, I argue that renewables will reduce current electricity prices by over 20%. See ‘How cheaper batteries and renewables will slash electricity bills’ https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/how-cheaper-batteries-and-renewables
It wasn't so much about solar cells as such because being on Agile Octopus solar power is already massively reducing my afternoon rate like today and tomorrow with almost zero rates.
It was more about your comment about removing gas which you can't do because of periods of zero renewable generation as in the early part of January this year, we had a shortage of power when there were no renewables across Europe for about a week. We have no choice but to use gas for the foreseeable future until we build our fleet of nuclear or fusion comes along to save the day. Perhaps by 2070 but not in the next decade or two. There is no money to build the storage we need for say two weeks of zero renewables and then we need a lot of excess renewable capacity to charge it back up again quickly in case it happens again. It's a difficult situation we find ourselves in but gas is still required.
well it’s possible to have 100% renewables - I’ve written a lot about the subject myself in various guises - and certainly waiting for nuclear or fusion to do the job will have us waiting forever. The politics of the sitation suggest that there will still be a residue of natural gas being used for some time to come, yes, that seems likeley
I do agree that you can have 100% renewables so long as a percentage of those renewables have 'inertia' in the same way that rotating turbines have intertia as this provides stabiltity to the grid under transient conditions. At the moment wind and solar power are not built with the capabilty of inertia. However, you can add synchronous condensers to provide that function but that will add CAPEX and OPEX to the cost of renewables. These can be built in mechanical and electronic forms but not in widespread use at the moment. Hinckley C will add to inertia when it's completed.
The government's position is broadly right; set a target reduction for carbon reduction and let builders decide how they are going to meet it.
Solar is not appropriate for every roof.
Reducing winter energy use when the grid is under stress is far more important than reducing energy use on sunny days when grid load is light.
Householders will install solar panels for economic reasons if they can generate solar energy cheaper than the cost of taking electricity from the grid which itself is going to have a big solar element in summer months.
I agree. It had to be financially worthwhile to install solar. Before the last bout of inflation the playback time for solar was about 8-10 years. Now it's about 15 and despite the cost of the panels falling dramatically (that cost is almost negligible now) it's the cost of the labour for the physical installation and the electrical work that kills any 'business case' for a quick return. On top of that, given the megabuild solar farms coming up the SEG rate is likely to fall over the next few years. Octopus have not been renewing fixed rate SEG but have offered Time of Use rates for future contracts. You get less during peak solar production. This means midday and summer. You get more for early morning, late evening and better rates for spring, autumn and winter. This will favour E-W panels in the summer and those who have a battery to feed into the evening peak. South facing arrays will do better in the winter. ToU or declining rates will extend the payback time even more.
Unfortunately we will always be reliant on at least some natural gas or some kind of chemical energy store (natural gas being the cheapest) for the days when there is no wind and no sun and the energy demand for heating is the greatest. You simply cannot economically build enough long term storage with currently available technology because how much are you going to build? If you build more than you need for the very worst possible case that you can imagine, either that case will be exceeded or you will be paying for something to be built and maintained that will never be used. That will not bring fuel bills down for the people least able to afford them. There will have to be a trade off between renewables and natural gas and it will probably be voters who decide where that is. Yes, I know that is unpalatable but we have limits to what is possible with technolgy and financing. If you can't fix the supply then you need to fix the demand and the nature of the demand.
The wind not blowing and the Sun not shining does not stop the moon going round. Investments in tidal is dealt with in “ paltry” £ millions whilst nuclear is talked about in £ billions? A recent article shows that whilst relative to time 1 million seconds = 11.6 days. Whilst 1 billion seconds is a massive 31.7 years. ? It’s simply a case of they can’t make a bomb with tidal energy !
I’m not sure what policy you prefer exactly, but in my latest post, I argue that renewables will reduce current electricity prices by over 20%. See ‘How cheaper batteries and renewables will slash electricity bills’ https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/how-cheaper-batteries-and-renewables
It wasn't so much about solar cells as such because being on Agile Octopus solar power is already massively reducing my afternoon rate like today and tomorrow with almost zero rates.
It was more about your comment about removing gas which you can't do because of periods of zero renewable generation as in the early part of January this year, we had a shortage of power when there were no renewables across Europe for about a week. We have no choice but to use gas for the foreseeable future until we build our fleet of nuclear or fusion comes along to save the day. Perhaps by 2070 but not in the next decade or two. There is no money to build the storage we need for say two weeks of zero renewables and then we need a lot of excess renewable capacity to charge it back up again quickly in case it happens again. It's a difficult situation we find ourselves in but gas is still required.
well it’s possible to have 100% renewables - I’ve written a lot about the subject myself in various guises - and certainly waiting for nuclear or fusion to do the job will have us waiting forever. The politics of the sitation suggest that there will still be a residue of natural gas being used for some time to come, yes, that seems likeley
I do agree that you can have 100% renewables so long as a percentage of those renewables have 'inertia' in the same way that rotating turbines have intertia as this provides stabiltity to the grid under transient conditions. At the moment wind and solar power are not built with the capabilty of inertia. However, you can add synchronous condensers to provide that function but that will add CAPEX and OPEX to the cost of renewables. These can be built in mechanical and electronic forms but not in widespread use at the moment. Hinckley C will add to inertia when it's completed.