What is the best way to use solar panels?

[basilio]

The British Government is introducing a Gross Feed in Tariff of 44 p for every kwh of electricity produced by domestic PV set ups or wind micro turbine. It will be coming in on 1st April.

At this stage the biggest complaints are from groups that think the government should do "more". But why in hell are the British considering supporting PV panels in an environment that just doesn't make best use of their capabilities and that in a micro scale is fundamentally less efficient than larger plants?

George Monbiot takes this proposal apart piece by piece and at the end there is very little left.

There are also some excellent comments in the public forum at the end.

Are we really going to let ourselves be duped into this solar panel rip-off?

Plans for the grid feed-in tariff suggest we live in southern California. And at £8.6bn, this is a pricey conceit with little benefit

George Monbiot


Those who hate environmentalism have spent years looking for the definitive example of a great green rip-off. Finally it arrives, and nobody notices. The government is about to shift £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes. It expects a loss on this scheme of £8.2bn, or 95%. Yet the media is silent. The opposition urges only that the scam should be expanded.

On 1 April the government introduces its feed-in tariffs. These oblige electricity companies to pay people for the power they produce at home. The money will come from their customers in the form of higher bills. It would make sense, if we didn't know that the technologies the scheme will reward are comically inefficient.

......So who is opposing this lunacy? Good question. The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have lined up to denounce the government for not being generous enough. The only body to have called this right so far is the loathsome TaxPayers' Alliance, but nobody listened because it has cried wolf too often.

There appears to be a cross-party agreement to squander the public's money. Why? It's partly because many Tory and Lib Dem voters hate big, efficient windfarms, and this scheme appears to offer an alternative. But it's mostly because solar panels accord with the aspirations of the middle classes. The solar panel is the ideal modern status symbol, which signifies both wealth and moral superiority, even if it's perfectly useless.

If people want to waste their money, let them. But you and I shouldn't be paying for it. Seldom has there been a bigger public rip-off; seldom has less fuss been made about it. Will we try to stop this scheme, or are we a nation of dupes?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/01/solar-panel-feed-in-tariff

 

[GumbyLearner]

The British Government is introducing a Gross Feed in Tariff of 44 p for every kwh of electricity produced by domestic PV set ups or wind micro turbine. It will be coming in on 1st April.

At this stage the biggest complaints are from groups that think the government should do "more". But why in hell are the British considering supporting PV panels in an environment that just doesn't make best use of their capabilities and that in a micro scale is fundamentally less efficient than larger plants?

George Monbiot takes this proposal apart piece by piece and at the end there is very little left.

There are also some excellent comments in the public forum at the end.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/01/solar-panel-feed-in-tariff

Thanks for starting the thread and cheers for the link basilio.

This is the fallacy of decomposition yet again.(what is good for the middle classes is good for everyone?) Not the case if you cannot afford the technology. Again we have a headline grabbing government scheme that does little to invite the majority to participate and of course based on a deontological ethical emphasis to science, that ignores the consequential school of ethics in light of a program that just means more will pay higher taxes because they don't have the financial means to upgrade to more expensive technologies. Also marketing technologies that provide little in the way of benefit.

It seems to be another bull**** rip-off joke that makes bureaucrats look good and does little to allow the taxpayer to participate for future benefits to themselves financially and for a cleaner environment! IMHO

 

[marklar]

outside?

 

[Smurf1976]

Here in Australia, the idea of a Feed In Tariff (FIT) has been outright rejected in Tasmania but generally is being implemented in the other states.

What it amounts to is a subsidy. In rough terms, bulk wholesale electricity is worth 4 - 5 cents per kWh with household retail rates of 15 - 20 cents per kWh (roughly - it varies between states and retailers). Most of your household power bill is for distribution (poles and wires in the suburbs) plus a bit for transmission and retail. Electricity itself, straight from the power station, is comparatively cheap to produce.

So why the high rate FIT in most states? In short, it's a politically motivated subsidy. It doesn't scale to mass adoption of the technology because at its' heart is a reliance on the majority (without solar panels) subsidising the minority (with solar panels). It falls in a heap financially if more than a small minority choose to install solar.

The concept has been rejected in Tasmania due to the above and on account of the reality that electricity generation is surely the most intensively studied policy area over the past 4 decades. Bottom line is that new bulk electricity generation at above 5 cents / kWh just doesn't have a a market since most electricty use (about 80%) in the state could either be relocated overseas (60% of total demand) or replaced with wood / gas / oil.

Indeed it is a fact that 30 years ago oil did have about half of the subsitutable energy market and wood held a similar share 20 years ago. So there's just no point economically in building new high cost generation since there's no market for the power produced, other than by means of a subsidy - itself a very hotly debated point over the past 40 years.

The other states have different situations with a greater share of non-subsitutable or relocateable load and as such the issues with rising costs are less. But solar still only works with a subsidy.

What many fail to grasp is the scale of the subsidy. The network and retail costs (distribution etc) that make up half your bill are not in proportion to the volume of electricity consumed. That is, they are much the same for an all-electric house with a $1000 bill as they are for an all-gas house with a $100 bill. The costs avoided by you installing solar panels on your roof are not much above the wholesale bulk electricity price, not the much higher retail rates.

At present, the high consumption users subsidise the smaller volume users. That is why the industry has always promoted higher levels of consumption - profit increases disproportionately to any increase in per-connection consumption.

There was an attempt to unravel the entire pricing structure in Tasmania in 1994 with full implementation in 1995. The end result was outrage from subsidised consumers (mostly shack owners and those at work all day) once the truth was laid bare for all to see (and pay). The scheme was actually implemented, then progressively rolled back between 1996 and 2010 when the last remnants disappeared completely. Politically it was an outright disaster and a significant issue at a state election so it won't likely be repeated anywhere in Australia anytime soon.

But all that said, I do have solar PV panels on my roof. Why? Because you, the taxpayer, paid 100% of their cost and I'm not one to knock back money headed my way. They are absolutely profitable for me as an individual consumer, since I paid none of the costs and take 100% of the profits, but they are not profitable for society as a whole in purely financial terms.

If you want renewable energy then large scale hydro or wind are really the only means that are even close to profitability in most cases. There are project-specific exceptions, but in general it's hydro and wind that are viable along with localised use of firewood etc. Hence hydro dominates global (and Australian) renewable electricity generation, followed by wind with everything else making a minor contribution.

 

[alphaman]

My father-in-law used to run a coal power station. He told me coal is actually not very efficient anyway and he won't be surprised if solar electricity eventually becomes cost competitive.

 

[basilio]

Thanks for the input Smurf. I think it reinforces argument that Monbiot makes that under the current pricing and subsidies widespread PV panels on suburban roofs is misguided and a waste of public and private money.

But the point is that this whole process of making, selling and fitting countless suburban PV systems is profitable. Which just shows how counter productive our economic system is in trying to deal with long term sustainability issues.

BUT in a another context one could see how widespread suburban PV could be worthwhile. Consider a new generation of (alleged) low cost thin film solar panels across thousands of square meters of factory roofs, farm buildings, school roofs, community buildings - in fact any large building with roof access and the right orientation.

Consider solar farms on land that may not be suitable for high value agriculture but has plenty of sun. I suggest that these are the places we should be directing our efforts.

 

[Happy]

...

Consider solar farms on land that may not be suitable for high value agriculture but has plenty of sun. I suggest that these are the places we should be directing our efforts.

Single level shopping centre car parks would be good place too.
Customers would have cool cars when they come back in the middle of summer and dry access to their car during heavy rain and possibly more pleasant during heavy wind.

Solar energy is under-utilised especially in Sun burned country like Australia

 

[basilio]

Single level shopping centre car parks would be good place too.
Customers would have cool cars when they come back in the middle of summer and dry access to their car during heavy rain and possibly more pleasant during heavy wind.

That's very clever Happy. Could be a nice little earner for the shopping centre as well. And it would also be a good promotion point.They could even collect the runoff water. (I could see problems with the construction. On the other hand an engineer might point out this was relatively simple regulation construction.)

 

[Smurf1976]

If you are going to do it on a large scale (that is, a solar power station) then solar thermal technologies would be a lot cheaper than putting panels on roofs.

Solar towers - in operation it's basically an upside down hydro scheme using air as the working fluid rather than water. Inflow (heat) and storage at the bottom goes through the turbines with discharge at the top - like hydro but upside down and it's hot air rather than water. It's a simple concept that should work very well in a location such as Australia. Having storage means it keeps working after the sun goes down, an important consideration when you realise that the second highest period of electricity use is on Winter evenings.

The other one is to use concentrating mirrors to produce steam to drive conventional steam turbines. That ends up being much the same as any coal or nuclear plant (and some gas or oil-fired plants) except for the heat source being the sun.

And if we are going to use PV panels, then again having concentrated light at a large centralised power station makes it cheaper.

Fundamentally, the economic problems with rooftop PV are two-fold. Firstly, PV isn't a financially cheap technology. Secondly, and this is a big one, lack of scale drives costs per unit of output up massively. You couldn't run a viable coal-fired plant in your backyard because it would be uneconomic per unit of output and it's the same with anything. Mass production lowers costs - economics 101.

 

[alphaman]

It's not about the current cost. No government would bother subsiding the solar industry if the cost is expected to stay the same.

 

[basilio]

George Monbiot has taken a real hiding from his analysis of the new Feed In Solar Tariffs scheme in England. He's written other piece responsing to the criticism and expanding on his arguments against the promotion of domestic PV as the dominant renewable energy source.

There is no 'green treachery' in questioning this solar panel rip-off

We do not have a moral obligation to blindly support inefficient, expensive renewable technologies

Once again I am a traitor to the cause, a corporate sell-out, a dangerous maverick who has gone over to the dark side. My column this week on feed-in tariffs provoked the same sort of charges that were levelled against me when I first came out against biofuels in 2004. We've now seen how that's panned out. When other greens wake up to the amazing waste of money and opportunities this scheme represents, I think the feed-in tariff scandal will go the same way.

......To the greens who accuse me of treachery I say this: we do not have a moral obligation to support all forms of renewable energy, however inefficient and expensive they may be. We do have a moral obligation not to be blinded by sentiment. We owe it to the public, and to our credibility, to support the schemes which work, fairly and cheaply, and reject the schemes which cost a fortune and make no difference.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/mar/05/solar-feed-in-tariff

 

[Purple XS2]

If you are going to do it on a large scale (that is, a solar power station) then solar thermal technologies would be a lot cheaper than putting panels on roofs.

Solar towers - in operation it's basically an upside down hydro scheme using air as the working fluid rather than water. Inflow (heat) and storage at the bottom goes through the turbines with discharge at the top - like hydro but upside down and it's hot air rather than water. It's a simple concept that should work very well in a location such as Australia...

At which point it's apropos to mention Enviromission - EVM, a listed company which 'promotes' the solar tower concept. They're yet to build anything, and while I suspect the company will never be anything more than hot air (sorry - ironic simile unavoidable), one never knows. I watch with interest, do not hold.

As for Photo-Voltaic panels, I used to live in a shack beyond the civilized pale of (Tassie hydro-) electricity, and relied on PVs charging into big batteries for lighting. I struggle to believe domestic PV panels will ever make a cost-effective contribution to an established grid.

But hey, if I could get a set for free? Memo to Smurf: are they still giving it away for free in Hobart?

 

[Smurf1976]

As for Photo-Voltaic panels, I used to live in a shack beyond the civilized pale of (Tassie hydro-) electricity, and relied on PVs charging into big batteries for lighting. I struggle to believe domestic PV panels will ever make a cost-effective contribution to an established grid.

But hey, if I could get a set for free? Memo to Smurf: are they still giving it away for free in Hobart?

Here's some figures...

Suppose that every single electricity consumer (household, business) installs a 1kW grid connected PV system. In Tasmania, that would cost just over $2 billion and would produce electricty worth about $12 million per year or 2.5% of the state's total electricity consumption. The panels have a realistic working life of around 40 years, with major maintenance (replacement inverter, at a cost of about $2500 each) after 20 years (assuming you're using high quality equipment).

Alternatives:

Wind - $300 million to build plus around $7 million a year to keep it going (though there's a lack of certainty over long term operating costs and lifespan - the industry hasn't been around long enough to be really sure of this). Lifespan around 30 years in theory with significant parts able to be reused for a replacement installation at the same site.

Hydro - Very site specific but for an average site $300 million for equivalent output. It has a lifespan of around 70 years prior to requiring significant maintenance and an overall lifespan of several centuries. Operation is unmanned and essentially zero cost on a day to day basis.

Coal - Around $90 million for a plant to produce that output, plus $11 million a year in fuel and operating costs. Cost based on a share of output from a larger scale plant. Lifespan 30 years after which major maintenance is required, 60 years life in total.

Gas - Around $60 million to build plus around $7.5 million a year to operate. Lifespan 30 years, after which it's scrap metal. It's not a long term option however, as fuel costs seem likely to rise substantially.

Those costs are for Tasmania where hydro and wind have a comparative advantage compared to those technologies applied in the other states. Gas and especially coal have a comparative disadvantage versus the other states due to local factors, primarily related to scale, site location and coal quality.

Now before anyone points out that solar panels ought to be better in the other states than in Tas... Solar panels need light but they don't like heat, hence the difference in output between Sydney (for example) and Hobart isn't anywhere near as large as you might expect. Less sun here maybe, but less heat too and that's an advantage.

In short, solar is not financially attractive for society as a whole at anywhere near present costs. It can however be profitable for individuals if they receive enough subsidies.

As for free panels - no, I'm not aware of anyone doing completely free PV system installations in Tas at the moment.

 

[tas devil]

I'm new to this forum, and would like to know if I can clear up a theory.
that is, that our politicians here in Tasmania all lie.
Recently I looked into getting PV panels to offset our rising power costs.
unlike the reports published recently in our local paper,
The claim is we have the third cheapest electricity in the country !
Now what I would like is an idea of what your costs are in comparison.
Our last bill consisted of
'fixed Charges' $65.79 (this is regardless of using any power)
Meter -Tariff 31 $0.20.8230 cents / KWH( Light and Power )
Meter - Tariff 42 $0.125580 cents / KWH (Hydroheat)
So in summary, we pay, calculated on our last account overall a rate of 64.25 cents / KWH -Now that's cheap !?
particularly when all we have to do to produce our power is to turn on a tap -Hydro... God must have put up the price on rain !
Can anyone top this? Or is there anyone who can tell us if the PV panels are going to be of benefit, the only thing I've discovered is that the 'smart meter' is installed free of charge, probably won't last as the government will find a way of charging for that too.

 

[Lantern]

Just put 3.7KW (20 x 185W Trinas in to a 3.8 KW Sunny Boy) on my roof in NSW. Expect about $3.5K per year income (legislated and tax free) untill 2017. Then just no more power bills.

Total cost to me was $8.5K. (I work for a solar company)

Absolute bargain. Probably the best investment I could ever make.

Lived on a stand alone solar power system for 20 years previously so know how to save power.

Also have solar hot water.

 

[Julia]

I'm new to this forum, and would like to know if I can clear up a theory.
that is, that our politicians here in Tasmania all lie.
Recently I looked into getting PV panels to offset our rising power costs.
unlike the reports published recently in our local paper,
The claim is we have the third cheapest electricity in the country !
Now what I would like is an idea of what your costs are in comparison.
Our last bill consisted of
'fixed Charges' $65.79 (this is regardless of using any power)
Meter -Tariff 31 $0.20.8230 cents / KWH( Light and Power )
Meter - Tariff 42 $0.125580 cents / KWH (Hydroheat)
So in summary, we pay, calculated on our last account overall a rate of 64.25 cents / KWH -Now that's cheap !?
particularly when all we have to do to produce our power is to turn on a tap -Hydro... God must have put up the price on rain !
Can anyone top this? Or is there anyone who can tell us if the PV panels are going to be of benefit, the only thing I've discovered is that the 'smart meter' is installed free of charge, probably won't last as the government will find a way of charging for that too.

I'm in regional Qld and the names of the tariffs appear to be different.
Tariff 31 is just for the hot water heating and is charged at 7.92 cents per kWh excluding GST.

Tariff 11 covers everything else and is charged at 19.41 cents per KWH excluding GST.

 

[Smurf1976]

I'm new to this forum, and would like to know if I can clear up a theory.
that is, that our politicians here in Tasmania all lie.
Recently I looked into getting PV panels to offset our rising power costs.
unlike the reports published recently in our local paper,
The claim is we have the third cheapest electricity in the country !
Now what I would like is an idea of what your costs are in comparison.
Our last bill consisted of
'fixed Charges' $65.79 (this is regardless of using any power)
Meter -Tariff 31 $0.20.8230 cents / KWH( Light and Power )
Meter - Tariff 42 $0.125580 cents / KWH (Hydroheat)
So in summary, we pay, calculated on our last account overall a rate of 64.25 cents / KWH -Now that's cheap !?
particularly when all we have to do to produce our power is to turn on a tap -Hydro... God must have put up the price on rain !
Can anyone top this? Or is there anyone who can tell us if the PV panels are going to be of benefit, the only thing I've discovered is that the 'smart meter' is installed free of charge, probably won't last as the government will find a way of charging for that too.

I'll avoid commenting too much on my frustration with what's going on with power prices in Tas at the moment. I'll just say that we should never, ever have come to this and it was totally avoidable. Eric Reece, Sir Allan Knight and the thousands of workers who developed the Hydro from the ground up amidst very harsh physical and other conditions would turn in their graves if they knew of the outright mess that's been made of the industry by politicians and other fools these days.

Smurf's solution is pretty simple. Combine the entire assets of the industry into a single entity which we'll call simply "the Hydro", the unofficial name in universal use from when it was formed in 1914 until the bureaucrats gave us Aurora and Transend as well. This will be a non-profit organisation, as the Hydro was for 80 or so years, during which time it employed more people both directly and indirectly, and was responsible for more economic development in general than anyone else.

I note that Labor, Liberal, Greens and, surprisingly, even the Chamer of Commerce and Industry seem willing to at least consider this move - one of those rare things where basically everyone is fed up with the status quo.

And then, most importantly, we need to put an engineer or other competent person in charge of it - not a career "CEO" or bureaucrat should remain anywhere in the organisation. And it doesn't need a "board" at all, at least not a board full of people who know very little about electricity. That will fix the problem and we can all go back to having hot dinners and stop this nonsense of pensioners shivering in the dark, critical production infrastructure not working for months on end whilst the bosses try to turn the power industry into a hedge fund and so on.

Comparing tariffs between states is somewhat difficult however. Tasmania is the only state where Tariff 41/42 exists at all - anywhere else those loads would simply be charged at the full normal supply rate (or more commonly, people just use off-peak (or gas) for heating water). So a direct comparison is not that simple - most people use 50%+ of their total consumption on Tariff 42, and for some households it goes to a very high percentage.

On a more practical point however, the solar panels. At the moment you can get a 1.5 kW system installed for just under $2500 from Nu Energy. Meanwhile Origin Energy will install a similar system, using higher quality "brand name" components, for just under $3000 and offer 12 months to pay as part of the deal. There are other companies offering similar deals too.

The 1.5 kW system will cut your bills by about $380 a year assuming the panels face somewhere close to north (anywhere between NW and NE will be fine) and aren't subject to shade by trees etc. However, there are strong rumors that some sort of feed-in tariff (FIT) will be introduced, noting that this is a Green policy and that the Greens are part of the present government. The original Green policy is for double the normal rate to be paid for solar-produced power with gross metering (ie the rate is paid on all power produced by the panels). If it happens then that would double your return to around $760 a year. Don't count on it though - politics. Worst case if it doesn't happen then you'll still get the $380 (and no doubt a lot more with yet another power price rise coming in December this year).

Those prices for systems include supply of all panels, inverter, mounting kit, wiring etc as well as installation by a licensed electrician. Installation takes a full day typically, subject to weather (due to OH&S rules the workers can't go on the roof in the rain, and for practical reasons you don't want to be handling solar panels in high winds).

The only thing not included is the new meter, but Aurora presently does this for free. Only catch, as with anything involving Aurora, is that they will take several weeks to turn up and actually do the work. Note that you can not have solar panels connected to a Pay As You Go meter. If you have PAYG, then you'll need to revert to standard metering and billing in order to install solar.

Personally, I'd go for it if you've got a suitable roof area and nothing preventing installation. Those prices are based on a tin roof - add $200 or so for installation on a tiled roof. If however you are one of the few who have an asbestos roof then forget it - for safety reasons you won't likely find any installer willing to put solar panels up there.

I got my system from Nu Energy. No hassles apart from the constant heavy rain on the day of installation. They still installed the inverter and did the wiring work, but had to come back another day to install the actual panels. There was no extra charge for the additional visit so it wasn't a major issue. System is working just fine.

Happy to help with any questions about solar power, hot water etc.

 

[pixel]

It's not about the current cost. No government would bother subsiding the solar industry if the cost is expected to stay the same.

That's the crux IMHO, and the reason why I jumped at the PV offer a year ago. Initially for the same reason that Smurf installed his; but also because no matter how high or low the FIT is: It will save the cost of about 1670 KWh per 1KW capacity per annum. At the moment, that cost saving may only be about $350 p.a. - a payback period of about 10 years on the (taxpayer-subsidized) installation cost. But the power rates are constantly going up, and up, which simply means the time to recover the initial outlay will come down.

As regards production costs, Synergy (the former "Western Power") quotes 7c, which is the FIT they will pay us for any excess we deliver into the grid. In come the Taxpayers - bless their largesse - and top it up by an extra 40c here in WA. Which now makes it still more viable to add, say, 2KW production capacity at around $4,000 because that will at least double the power we feed in, while we use the rest to reduce our consumption at the going retail rate. Average the additional 3340 units at only 30c/unit, and the additional $4K will be paid off within 4 years. How many shares give you a better than 20% yield for the next 10 years? Guaranteed!

PS for Tas Devil: We had to pay for our smart meter - it was about $300.

 

[Smurf1976]

How many shares give you a better than 20% yield for the next 10 years? Guaranteed!

Indeed.

It may well be taxpayer subsidised, but from an individual perspective it is a very good return (tax free...) on a relatively safe investment that requires no ongoing effort. It just sits there saving me money.

 

[pixel]

Indeed.

It may well be taxpayer subsidised, but from an individual perspective it is a very good return (tax free...) on a relatively safe investment that requires no ongoing effort. It just sits there saving me money.

"Tax-free" may have a little boomerang or sting in its tail.
According to latest noises from Centrelink, if you're a pensioner and receive more FIT credits than your consumption bill, you'll have to declare the "extra income" and have your pension reduced by 50% of that amount.

My neighbour, who recently installed a 1.5KW solar PV and spends much of the summer trekking around Australia, will definitely fall into that trap from time to time. And I'm pretty sure that the $9.44 or so per fortnight that Centrelink may squeeze out of his pension for 4 months of the year, will pay for all the admin and compliance cost to make it "fair for all".