'Pavement power' - The bad idea that never seems to die

Yes. They get none. Stop reading the Graun.

I live in a place that's much sunnier than the UK and most of the EU

And that's dandy. In parts of the world where sunshine is plentiful and reliable, then PV's a great idea. Even more so when peak solar output is closely correlated with peak demand. Throw in some battery storage and you can really be cooking on sun.

But in the context of the UK energy system that doesn't help. Our peak demand is the coldest winter days after dark. During winter capacity factor on solar is about 5% (less on cloudy days or if there's snow). So for the UK government to subsidise PV at the ridiculous rates that it did in recent years was madness. All that it achieved was to take demand away from thermal plant, without obviating the need for the thermal plant for those cold. windless winter days and nights. As a consequence the utilisation of thermal plant fell, efficiency fell as well (so offsetting a fair bit of the claimed benefits of the PV) and government had to introduce subsidies to keep thermal plant available.

UK energy policy has left nothing to chance in ensuring that the end user pays the highest possible price for energy. Networks have been required to spend billions on connecting new "renewable" plant with a guaranteed return, wind turbines have been subsidised and mandated, solar PV has been heavily subsidised, new nuclear is getting a big fat subsidy, new interconnectors will be subsidised by regulated returns, biomass plants have had big fat subsidies under various schemes, thermal plant, nuclear and interconnectors all get "capacity market" payments. To make up for a broken and disfunctional welfare system, government throw a £1.5bn at Winter Fuel Bribes for pensioners, energy companies are required to throw in about £500m to a similar scheme (Warm Homes Discount), and then a further £700m to energy efficiency measures for customers. And even that list is only the big ticket stuff - below that there's vast amounts of subsidies and transfers on all manner of other rubbish.

It is a huge, huge mess.

"We have a PV system running, at work. No subsidies whatsoever. It cut down the electricity bill by about 90%, so accounting are purring like kittens. And it's very economically viable, considering that a system with a projected lifespan of 25 years should have paid for itself in 3, even taking into account expected drops in efficiency."

How big was the grant (subsidy) you got to install it?

What value is the feedin tarriff you're getting?

I've seen feedin rates up to 45p/kWh being bandied about. As my electricity costs 14p/kWh, it's clear that your feedin is being paid for by consumers.

And if you honestly expect to get 25 years out of a solar PV installation I have a couple of bridges I'd like to sell you. It'll be down to 50% capacity in 8-9 and half that again by year 16, if the inverters haven't blown by then or some other silicon failure knocked it out.

"It's clear that a sustainable overall solution would have to be based primarily on nuclear and augmented, where possible, with renewables as the specific environment where the deployment is taking place allows"

LFTRs and other molten salt nukes can load follow and are _much_ cheaper than renewables once deployed. They can provide "peaking capacity" when renewables drop out, but that's also knowin as load following and because they're way cheaper than wind/solar, renewables are an expensive pain in the ass that will rapidly be kicked off the grid.

Conventional nukes can't load follow, so you need fast "peaking capacity" - inefficient open cycle generation - to fill the gaps when solar or wind drop out. Renewables suppliers get preferential power rates and are not required to pay for the upkeep or operation of these backup systems, or the grid overlays required to handle large unpredictable power flows that weren't in the original designs.

Either way, greenwashs system will end up as monuments to folly. They can't provide anywhere near close to enough electricity to allow us to replace carbon emissions (demand will rise by a factor of 6-8 over current baseload. Renewables - at best - could just match current baseload.)

I recall a story on here several years ago where the current head of greenpeace said that even if humanity finally cracks safe usable nuclear fusion, then we can't use it because mumble mumble nuclear!

So presumably, if all forms of power generation from a fusion reaction are a no go, then we have to rip down all the solar panels.

And it's very economically viable, considering that a system with a projected lifespan of 25 years should have paid for itself in 3, even taking into account expected drops in efficiency.

I'd love to see the numbers. When the Australian government were heavily subsidising solar PV I came up with 18 years to pay for the investment. Australian consumer magazine Choice came up with 16 years, but didn't specify the exact location. Where I live there's lots of sunshine hours. Only Perth in Western Australia have more. Likely Choice were basing their figures on Melbourne, or Sydney.

The seller's estimated cost savings required the array to supply 140% of its rated output. They never responded to my questions. The estimated costings were based on excess energy being paid for at better than retail price per KW/hr. Feed-in tariff is now at wholesale electricity prices so I wouldn't be surprised if the time to repay the investment now exceeds the anticipated life of the installation.

"We have a PV system running, at work. No subsidies whatsoever."

I find that very difficult to believe. Are you claiming that the company has forgone the FIT and is selling the electricity generated at the current unsubsidised wholesale price of 3.8p/kWH? I can't see your bean counters being very happy with that.

Don't forget that the 6 million+ tonnes of soil nutrient-depleting chomped up trees (2014 figures) need to be shipped over from the US to feed Drax alone.

The recent fall in the exchange rate will kill the economics of Drax. IIRC from their published data, they have a series of currency hedges that'll protect them for about a year to eighteen months, but after that they simply won't be paid enough for wholesale electricity to make a net profit.

In the real world they'd go bust, but because of the huge and ongoing fiasco that is UK energy policy, government will be forced to find some way of keeping Drax open. With no reserve margin to speak of, they need the capacity to stay available, and that will mean some cludge to give Drax plc more money. Or they'll hope for a jumbo sized pre-pack insolvency, where a mate of one of the senior creditors can buy the assets on the cheap, and with all the previous equity and junior debt wiped out, they'll in theory be able to run the plant profitably.

This is shocking stuff. How is all this not taken into consideration when the CO2 output of this method is calculated? Even on paper (recycled, don't you worry!) it sounds stupid. Cut down trees from across an ocean?! Madness. That's literally one of the most moronic things I've heard in a long time. Not being a native Brit I just had a nice little read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drax_power_station and boy the stats are troubling.

“The environmental effects of coal burning are well documented. Coal is considered to be "easily the most carbon-intensive and polluting form of energy generation available".[103] In 2007 the station produced 22,160,000 tonnes of CO2, making it the largest single source of CO2 in the UK.[47][104] Between 2000 and 2007, there has been a net increase in carbon dioxide CO2 of over 3,000,000 tonnes.[47] The station also has the highest estimated emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the European Union.[105]”

“Drax's annual report for 2013 reported that Drax's annual emissions were at 20,612,000 tonnes of CO2. This was a slight decrease from 2007 levels due to the burning of biomass.[107] Drax still remains the UK's largest single source of emissions.[citation needed][clarification needed]”

Both coal and biomass are largely imported! Close this thing down and build a nuke plant. If people were *really* that concerned about the environment this thing could never continue operating.

Currently 13 nuke plants are being built in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China#Nuclear_power_plants_under_construction

I know China is a lot bigger energy consumption-wise, ranking 1st in the world versus 12th for the UK but still: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2233rank.html

I'm no bleeding heart environmentalist and I get that the fuel of a power plant often has to be transported to it. The fuel source that Drax was built to consume is spent. The plant was started in '74, completed in '86, started co-firing biomass in 2010 -- I reckon it's had a good innings. Once you start burning trees felled an ocean-ride away you gotta rethink your existence I reckon. I honestly can't believe it, aren't we meant to be chopping trees down to pulp into paper, not to pelletize them for burning.

This is the US. People will drive 2 blocks to start with. I was once on holiday in Orlando and went into a restaurant to book a table for later that evening. They asked when I wanted the courtesy car to pick me up from the hotel. I pointed out that I was just over the road about 50m down and would walk.They looked at me as though I had suddenly grown an extra head.