December scramble!

21 Nov 2011: I had an email from Good Energy today to say that they will have staff in the office on Saturday 10th (10-4pm) and Sunday 11th (12-6pm) in December to super-streamline OfGem registrations in time for the midnight deadline of Dec 11th. If you get your installation registered by then, you are on the 43pence tariff for the next 25 years! Some utility companies are telling people that they need 3 or 4 weeks to register, so don't take that nonsense from them - switch!
    I don't normally want to promote one company only, but if they can do this for the customers, it's a benefit for all. Also. I hope they can lose George Monbiot his £100 bet - he bet someone that renewable energy companies can't maintain their prices till  2014... but GE have already maintained their prices without an increase for 4 years - due to the fact that their 'Wholesale Fuel' price is zero - the Wind for their windfarm and the Sun for their customers who are home generators!
     This underlines the fundamental benefit of renewable technology - it trumps all the arguments of people who say that Wind farms or Solar or Hydro is not 'economic'. The fossil/nuclear generators are helped by the many visible and invisible subsidies and economies of scale that the fossil/nuclear systems get - but every other one of these is trumped by the fact that the renewables come free, but the nuclear fossils have a Wholesale fuel purchase price, with competition from others to obtain those fuels, with risks of war or hostilities cutting off the supply.

Jeremy Leggett replies to Monbiot

I am glad to see that Jeremy Leggett has provided a spirited reply to George Monbiot's misleading article; you can read it at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/09/george-monbiot-bet-solar-pv
We do not regret our PV at all, it is pumping electricity into the grid very well. In March we have already equalled the whole of February's harvest by the 9th of March - more than 3 weeks to go yet!
In September, I am planning to add another 3 panels on my south wall.

Brignall takes the boot out!

Miles Brignall has a long report in the Guardian Money section, following the announcement of the Feed in tariffs and now the scheme of loans for householders. The cost of installation can be met from the future Feed in Tariff earnings. These, the responsibility and the loan, can be passed on to the inheritors/ buyers of the house if you move on.
  Read the article and give it some good thought. It makes huge sense, and is a good riposte to the destructive article by Monbiot.

Monbiot puts the boot in

I have never disagreed with Georges Monbiot before. But in an article in the Guardian, he has written a horrible diatribe against solar PV which of course throws comfort to the deniers, and conveniently ignores arguments which dent his. I will try to answer some of these, but to place a responding comment on the Guardian website you have to register and create a new password etc, which is so tiresome.
      His argument is typical of those who have come round to the idea of reviving Nuclear power, and is in favour of highly centralised power plants, or offshore windfarms. I cannot believe the naivety of one of his arguments which is similar to the right wing "if you give child benefit to the poor they will only spend it on drink" - in which he argues that you could be paying feed in tariff to families living in uninsulated houses, when they should be spending it on insulation. The reality (which he ignores) is that PV is something that highly conscientious people fit after they have already done the easy things like insulation and double glazing.
  I may add more.. but I am getting ready for an early start in the morning to go to EcoBuild.