Energy Bills

[ricky2tricky4city]

I've never once heard of anything like that. If you want to post some articles how the UK grid can't take feed in electricity I'll read them. Even if that was the case the solution is to fix the grid to handle it. It works everywhere else. And as I mentioned you'll use almost all the electricity you create anyway. You are tilting at windmills here.

And of course solar panels alleviate costs. Why else would you be putting them on your factory ? A reasonably small 2kw system would get you about half your domestic electricity in ideal conditions. And again a 2kw battery adds say an additional 1k or so to the cost of an installation. It is not a massive amount.

If you want to argue that the current cost of a solar pv system is still beyond a lot of households then yes I would agree. This is where the government should come in. Batteries and panels are well on the learning curve and the prices has been dropping rapidly for years, but if you can't afford a 5k energy bill I assume you won't be able to afford a 5k pv installation either. Lower-income families should be helped with the upfront cost rather than throwing a few hundred quid at them every now and then which goes back to the energy companies anyway.

Scara comes across as a heel digger. There is so much tech around there will be solutions if they right people are involved.

Some will be on stream now and some in development.

It's a case of joined-up thinking (which granted, is not that encouraging if that thinking has to pass through the government), it's not just harnessing the power but how we use it and distribute it. Use becoming more localised is the first target. Storage solutions are numerous and they don't necessarily have to be all owned privately or individually....some co-operative solution could work, all with paybacks when feeding in. (Let's take scaras trading estate as an example)

 

[Bullet]

Sounds like Scara needs to buy a company Electric Monster Truck and charge that up via solar, so he can drive around Portsmouth crushing the unfortunate poor people.

In all seriousness though, there must be a way for Scara to use the extra electricity generated via solar panels to hoist his ego ever higher above the ground to create potential energy. Then when his factory needs extra energy they could tap into that potential energy by unleashing the ego, unit by unit?

 

[scaramanga]

Is it not possible for this unused energy to go back into the grid?

No. Our installers went through a long application process with us - initially we planned to get a feed in tariff - not available. Then we agreed to feed in for free - not available.

Eventually they had to show that the system would disperse excess energy as heat before we got permission for the installation. This is apparently reasonably common for large installations.

 

[Baleforce]

No. Our installers went through a long application process with us - initially we planned to get a feed in tariff - not available. Then we agreed to feed in for free - not available.

Eventually they had to show that the system would disperse excess energy as heat before we got permission for the installation. This is apparently reasonably common for large installations.

can you not feed to other buildings nearby, rather than letting it go to waste?

 

[Rorschach]

can you not feed to other buildings nearby, rather than letting it go to waste?

The obvious solution is to make the factory workers stay there working until dark. I can't believe he hasn't thought of that already.

 

[scaramanga]

Scara comes across as a heel digger. There is so much tech around there will be solutions if they right people are involved.

Some will be on stream now and some in development.

It's a case of joined-up thinking (which granted, is not that encouraging if that thinking has to pass through the government), it's not just harnessing the power but how we use it and distribute it. Use becoming more localised is the first target. Storage solutions are numerous and they don't necessarily have to be all owned privately or individually....some co-operative solution could work, all with paybacks when feeding in. (Let's take scaras trading estate as an example)

On the contrary - I'm happy to move to whichever system provides me with the most profit. I've bought an EV for that precise reason - despite it being hugely inferior to cars.

The problem this country has is that it completely destroyed its ability to generate gas before it had replaced that ability with renewable energy. At some point, that capacity will have been replaced - as long as it's at no extra cost to taxpayers or consumers then I'm happy with that. But we can't diminish our ability to produce the energy sources we need until that point.

 

[scaramanga]

can you not feed to other buildings nearby, rather than letting it go to waste?

I'd imagine the liability should something go wrong would be huge.

Our energy usage is pretty high, it's only evenings and weekend that we would be over producing.

 

[scaramanga]

The obvious solution is to make the factory workers stay there working until dark. I can't believe he hasn't thought of that already.

I have.

Any extra electricity usage comes with significantly higher gas usage. It would cost more than it saves.

 

[scaramanga]

Sounds like Scara needs to buy a company Electric Monster Truck and charge that up via solar, so he can drive around Portsmouth crushing the unfortunate poor people.

In all seriousness though, there must be a way for Scara to use the extra electricity generated via solar panels to hoist his ego ever higher above the ground to create potential energy. Then when his factory needs extra energy they could tap into that potential energy by unleashing the ego, unit by unit?

Any higher and it would burn up on re-entry.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

On the contrary - I'm happy to move to whichever system provides me with the most profit. I've bought an EV for that precise reason - despite it being hugely inferior to cars.

The problem this country has is that it completely destroyed its ability to generate gas before it had replaced that ability with renewable energy. At some point, that capacity will have been replaced - as long as it's at no extra cost to taxpayers or consumers then I'm happy with that. But we can't diminish our ability to produce the energy sources we need until that point.

Hindsight is always 20/20 ...OUR ability to produce gas wasn't an issue 6 months ago.

 

[scaramanga]

Long term we won't need to store it. Just constantly generate 115% of maximum recorded usage, and release the excess.

We'll need to move towards something like tidal energy for that to work. There will always be times without much sun or wind during a high demand spike.

So far, pumping water up mountain and letting it run back down is the best we have on a large scale but it's less than 60% efficient last time I read.

 

[scaramanga]

Hindsight is always 20/20 ...OUR ability to produce gas wasn't an issue 6 months ago.

I've already mentioned in this thread that almost nobody was against the policy - no govt of any colour would have done anything differently.

But now we know, we have to act.

 

[Rorschach]

We'll need to move towards something like tidal energy for that to work. There will always be times without much sun or wind during a high demand spike.

So far, pumping water up mountain and letting it run back down is the best we have on a large scale but it's less than 60% efficient last time I read.

Tidal is not at the races and won't be until it is too late to make a difference. It is too far back the learning curve. The 4 horsemen of energy are PV, wind, battery, and electrolyzers. These 4 will more than cover our energy needs with nuclear helping the transition. If you are looking for a dark horse it might be geothermal. Repurposing coal power stations and using drilling techniques developed by fracking is getting a little traction.

 

[scaramanga]

Tidal is not at the races and won't be until it is too late to make a difference. It is too far back the learning curve. The 4 horsemen of energy are PV, wind, battery, and electrolyzers. These 4 will more than cover our energy needs with nuclear helping the transition. If you are looking for a dark horse it might be geothermal. Repurposing coal power stations and using drilling techniques developed by fracking is getting a little traction.

Can batteries be considered on the kind of scale we need?

My (layman's) understanding is that source material is scarce as it is and also quite damaging to mine

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

I've already mentioned in this thread that almost nobody was against the policy - no govt of any colour would have done anything differently.

But now we know, we have to act.

You were clearly criticising them in that post.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

So far, pumping water up mountain and letting it run back down is the best we have on a large scale but it's less than 60% efficient last time I read.

Even if we use the excess energy we'd have to 'burn off' and waste to do it. ?

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Can batteries be considered on the kind of scale we need?

My (layman's) understanding is that source material is scarce as it is and also quite damaging to mine

There are many types of battery tech....watch the YouTube channel I referenced and you'll lose the layman's tag.

The presenter is excellent.

 

[metalgear]

Can batteries be considered on the kind of scale we need?

My (layman's) understanding is that source material is scarce as it is and also quite damaging to mine

No, batteries are currently too expensive to build and don't last long enough. And they've really haven't figured out the recycling bit at the end yet.

That's why the Japs are not rushing into electric cars yet. They're still figuring out battery technologies and going for the big win.

Cheap batteries can have profound and widespread impact on green tech. Solar energy will gain a lot from it.

Sent from my SM-S908E using Fapatalk

 

[Rorschach]

Can batteries be considered on the kind of scale we need?

My (layman's) understanding is that source material is scarce as it is and also quite damaging to mine

Absolutely. It is already an unstoppable juggernaut. Money is pouring into these 4 so I have no worries at all about any of these. The speed of change in these industries is staggering.

The commentary on minerals shortages etc is a little overegged in my opinion. There are plenty of vested interests against all of this, needless to say, and there is an amplification of what is basically fossil fuel company talking points. That is not to say there are no problems and bottlenecks but they are relatively minor obstacles in the overall scheme of things. For example, the lithium in the ubiquitous lithium batteries have stores of more than a century of current demand. There's enough cobalt out there for 1,000 million cars. And these minerals are already being engineered out.

 

[Rorschach]

No, batteries are currently too expensive to build and don't last long enough. And they've really haven't figured out the recycling bit at the end yet.

That's why the Japs are not rushing into electric cars yet. They're still figuring out battery technologies and going for the big win.

Cheap batteries can have profound and widespread impact on green tech. Solar energy will gain a lot from it.

Sent from my SM-S908E using Fapatalk

In fact, the batteries are lasting way longer than anticipated. The batteries will outlast the car in most cases and even then only degrade to about 70% of their original capacity. And then the cells can be retasked for something else. I've seen vids of guys turning a small number of cells from old Nissan Leaf batteries into DIY power walls. That is the germ of a new industry right there.