Electric cars and the grid..... it has begun.

[minimutly]

Mmm me too then! and all the old grannies that will freeze to death this winter because they can't pay their bills...
Like EV cars are being subsidised by the rest of us when the often well to do owners save money.

Like tax on income to susidise the railways, pay farmers for not using fields, and on it goes...

 

[premmington]

That is an incredibly slow process but will have some effect. Ironically as the sun cools it gets bigger and so we get hotter as the surface gets closer to us. It will become a Red Giant. Of course in 5 billion years who will care? The earlier stages of this process will mean the sun getting hotter and hotter which will cause massive global warming so the planet will long be uninhabitable long before that.
The whole scale and time of the Universe is just mind boggling.

Don't dwell on it - it is unhealthy! Overthinking it!

 

[dobbslc]

Like tax on income to susidise the railways, pay farmers for not using fields, and on it goes...

I think I need a beer!

 

[GRW]

Sorry @GRW you are wrong. Sure the FIT made people want them, which made companies set up to fit them, filling the need etc. Sure, some were indeed cowboys, but not all. Are they all still doing it - not by a long chalk, but they do exist. My daughter had an accredited system two years ago, non fit, our rugby club put 9kW on the roof, non fit. All viable with 10 yr or so payback.
And all the FIT subsidised ones are heating water or feeding back into the grid as we speak - would you rather they pulled out of it? Would that satisfy your anti - establishment stance?
Personally mine make me £2k a year without me getting off my backside, and heat our water too, if the sun pops out for a couple of hours. The best thing is your paying for it....

Don't get too smug too fast MM - "in 10 years or so" is a long time away.

And yes I'm unashamedly "anti-establishment" - a lifetime of successive Govts (of any colour) of criminal ineptitude and wholesale squandering of public/the country's assets will do that to a person.

 

[DAPPH]

Viable systems? If you consider a system that provides 10-11% efficiency, with an installer who jumped ship as soon as the Bribe level dropped, with no warranty to replace failed inverters etc.... to be "viable".....

Given the return for the investment, then without the Bribes there would have been no market for them, and no Businesses interested in supplying and installing them. Why? Because they just don't deliver enough, that's why.

The proof is just where are all the Startup Solar Businesses today (for Domestic)? Scotch Mist for the most part. Arguably without Solar bring made compulsory on new builds, they might well be an endangered species (though new life is being breathed into them by the next scheme - "Storage").

Small Solar systems just don't stand up on their own merits (& the payback periods being claimed by the "Industry" (cue lots of Stetsons & 6-guns) were mostly Fantasy Island Creative Accounting - to try to hide their actual meagre performance.

Without FIT Bribes (using taxpayer money) the Solar Scheme was a dead duck.

That dead duck paid for itself in just over 4.5 years at our bungalow according the the checking program used by the Tessla agent who did the simple check of entering in on his computer programme each FIT payment we've had till the one just before his visit .

So for the last 5 years we've been enjoying the benefits of free electricity as well as being paid for generating it . You might not like the thinking behind the method but it definitely has paid us handsomely . That £ 3 k install would have earnt us next to sod all in a bank or building society .

 

[GRW]

That dead duck paid for itself in just over 4.5 years at our bungalow according the the checking program used by the Tessla agent who did the simple check of entering in on his computer programme each FIT payment we've had till the one just before his visit .

So for the last 5 years we've been enjoying the benefits of free electricity as well as being paid for generating it . You might not like the thinking behind the method but it definitely has paid us handsomely . That £ 3 k install would have earnt us next to sod all in a bank or building society .

You adopted early and benefited from the higher FIT levels I'm guessing?
But without the handsome taxpayer subsidy of your FIT - would the system have stood up anything like as well? Of course not.
Perhaps it's fairer to say that you've benefited well from other Taxpayers subsidising your system - rather than the system doing so on its own performance merit

So yes, you're right - I don't approve of the method.

 

[Wozzaaah]

I’ve fished in the lake, but that doesn’t alter anything I’ve said. It’s going to take many decades to complete and will cost stacks of money - there’s more people employed there now (or certainly there was for some time after it was shut down) than when it was a functioning power station.

Of course it’s not going to kill everyone within 5 miles, no one in their right mind thinks that. But that’s not the argument.

 

[fizzy]

That dead duck paid for itself in just over 4.5 years at our bungalow according the the checking program used by the Tessla agent who did the simple check of entering in on his computer programme each FIT payment we've had till the one just before his visit .

So for the last 5 years we've been enjoying the benefits of free electricity as well as being paid for generating it . You might not like the thinking behind the method but it definitely has paid us handsomely . That £ 3 k install would have earnt us next to sod all in a bank or building society .

I don't blame you or anyone else for doing it. However have you ever wondered if it had an impact on everyone else's bills?

 

[minimutly]

They do a good breakfast in the caff there.
Not had fish though...

 

[fizzy]

A few years ago we had a sudden influx of customers shipping solar panels to the UK. They just wanted to get them here as fast as possible before the FITs were reduced. So much for saving CO2.
We flew in several shipments - and air cargo is typically 4x the price of sea freight. And puts out far more CO2 of course.
We had one company who wanted the container ship to offload in Italy first and then bring the container to the UK by road to save a few days.
They were so desperate they paid for 3 drivers so the lorry could run constantly to get them back on time. A normal full load back at that time - pre Brexit of course was around £1200. They paid £3200 - didn't care about the cost

 

[minimutly]

I don't blame you or anyone else for doing it. However have you ever wondered if it had an impact on everyone else's bills?

Of course it has an impact, but tell me how does taking advantage of a government designed scheme to reduce the demand on ff compare with employing an accountant to avoid paying as much tax as you can get away with?

 

[fizzy]

Of course it has an impact, but tell me how does taking advantage of a government designed scheme to reduce the demand on ff compare with employing an accountant to avoid paying as much tax as you can get away with?

I did say I don't blame anyone for taking advantage of it!

 

[fizzy]

Today gas is producing 52% of Britain's electric.
Wind 2%
Nuclear only 13.85% - let all our capacity go.
Solar not bad at 13.5% but it will be zero tonight of course.
Gas is currently at a price of approx $400 barrel oil equivalent.

Electric is now around 52p per kw/h. Of course the government will support low income families etc but what about business? How will they cope?
Imagine the cost of running plasma cutters/laser cutters. Or even worse water jet cutters. Some of those are using 100kw/h.

 

[fizzy]

Just lit the woodburner today
Just to take the chill off though.
It was 6C here last night. Did a bit of stargazing with my telescope on it's new Dobsonian mount. Skies were amazing but by God it was cold.

 

[daleyd]

Today gas is producing 52% of Britain's electric.
Wind 2%
Nuclear only 13.85% - let all our capacity go.
Solar not bad at 13.5% but it will be zero tonight of course.
Gas is currently at a price of approx $400 barrel oil equivalent.

Electric is now around 52p per kw/h. Of course the government will support low income families etc but what about business? How will they cope?
Imagine the cost of running plasma cutters/laser cutters. Or even worse water jet cutters. Some of those are using 100kw/h.

Gas started displacing coal from around1990 onwards, long long before renewables became a thing.

Just chill and have a cup of tea before you do yourself a mischief, ranting on here every 5 minutes about stuff you don't like is not going to change much. You could also go a little bit slower in your car if you are that concerned about CO2, every little helps....

 

[fizzy]

Gas started displacing coal from around1990 onwards, long long before renewables became a thing.

Just chill and have a cup of tea before you do yourself a mischief, ranting on here every 5 minutes about stuff you don't like is not going to change much. You could also go a little bit slower in your car if you are that concerned about CO2, every little helps....

I have spent the last few weeks cutting up loads of scrap pallet wood. More than doing my bit.
Driving is one of the very few pleasures I get. Oh and using my lathes of course.
I am truly worried about the cost of energy - that is what is forcing us more than anything else into a very nasty recession. It is hard enough for business as it is. Paying 4x the usual amount for energy will cripple most businesses.

 

[Kayos]

Today gas is producing 52% of Britain's electric.
Wind 2%
Nuclear only 13.85% - let all our capacity go.
Solar not bad at 13.5% but it will be zero tonight of course.
Gas is currently at a price of approx $400 barrel oil equivalent.

Electric is now around 52p per kw/h. Of course the government will support low income families etc but what about business? How will they cope?
Imagine the cost of running plasma cutters/laser cutters. Or even worse water jet cutters. Some of those are using 100kw/h.

Solar production is an estimate, based on assumptions. It's probably higher than reported

 

[dobbslc]

I heard on the radio yesterday that the last uk plant making Co2 closed due to high cost of energy! If we can’t even produce the basics for industry here we are well and truly Donald Ducked!

Just lit the woodburner today
Just to take the chill off though.
It was 6C here last night. Did a bit of stargazing with my telescope on it's new Dobsonian mount. Skies were amazing but by God it was cold.

I really do wonder what country you live in Fizzy! Are you absolutely sure you’re not in Iceland?

 

[daleyd]

It's a few years old but if you look up from 1990 you can see gas growing rapidly and coal falling off, well before renewables were even on the radar. The past 10 years or so marked the start of renewables and has seen off the last of the coal, I'd expect as more renewables (Including new nuclear) come online the gas will start dropping off.

 

[fizzy]

Solar production is an estimate, based on assumptions. It's probably higher than reported

The percentages add up - they do know how much demand is - and how much is being produced by gas/nuclear/wind etc so not hard to work out fairly accurately.