Gedling press ahead with Solar

15 March 2012: It is very gladdening to see that Gedling Borough Council had the courage to press on with their plan for solar PV installations. Rushcliffe Solar did a report for Gedling BC last summer (2011), and the council agreed to go ahead with a £430,000 investment.
  As we all know, and regret, the Coalition government changed the tariff in November, and had two cut-off dates in December 2011 and March 2012, both of which have passed.
   Gedling BC have managed to get £90,000 of their proposed investment installed in time for the March 2012 deadline. See the report in the Nottingham Post. 

Wadebridge Solar

13 Mar 2012: I recently discovered the inspiring example of WADEBRIDGE, a town in Cornwall that is making a big effort to provide enough power from Renewables to meet its requirements, through their WREN project. There is more sun down there (2 or 3 degrees more south), admittedly, but the real task is the human one, that of persuading people to take part - and countering the downbeat message from the current government that seems to be going against renewables. The town uses a combination of PV solar and wind, but the striking thing about this experiment (and the other movies they have made) is the cultural and social advancement that they have all enjoyed - it's brought people together in a common endeavour. They also look to other solutions like better insulation, electric vehicles etc.
 I look forward to the next edition of Googlemaps, so I can see how dense the roofscape is with PV panels!
You can follow @WrenUK on Twitter.

1000 megawatt milestone achieved

26 Feb 2012: Here's a link to a Guardian report that the growth of solar panel installations in the UK has pass the 1000MW mark last week. This has been due to the 'explosive' growth of the rate of installation since the Feed in Tariff was announced in 2009. This is 41 times the amount of PV panels previously installed. I call that a success.

    Looking at it from the higher plane, it should not be about Tariff, which is a short term incentive - but the tariff has been miraculously successful. As a species we are motivated by economic forces.
    It should be about widespread generation of totally Clean Energy with zero infrastructure cost (we provide the roof and pay for the installation), and zero wholesale fuel purchase cost (the Sun), and zero running cost (apart from the FIT which is cheaper than the costs of salaries and maintenance of a power station).
   A good economic justification for the tariff is that energy delivered to houses from distant power stations is only about 1/3 of that generated at source, whereas the energy we supply to our neighbours is 1/1 - 3 times as efficient!

There is still uncertainty in the industry about the status of the FiT, although there is no worry about the 21p tariff - the confusion is about the 43p one. If you have a decent size of roof with good orientation, it is still an excellent investment at the 21p rate.
   It is most unfortunate that at the same time as this confusion is occurring, there is also much discontent in the Wind industry. Although the government is nominally backing it, the confusion in the PV industry and the damage caused by the 100 tory MPs letter has caused the big players in the Wind industry to freeze some projects which would have created thousands of jobs. Whatever you think of wind towers in the landscape, there is still an overwhelming need for electricity in our modern life. The MPs think that electricity flows from a socket, not being aware that it has to be generated somewhere. They would be woken up to reality if there were more brown-outs. In the high winds of last autumn, a nuclear power station in Scotland was out of action for more than 2 days, so it isn't just windmills that have problems sometime.
   The government has a target of 22mW installation by the end of the decade, but their tampering with the FiT and their linking with EPCs has made this target near impossible unless a future government support the FiT more earnestly. Germany has 25MW already.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/23/feed-in-tariff-solar-breakthrough?intcmp=122

Beyond the 4kW limit

27 Feb 2012: DNC writes: "It seems such a pity we are limited to 4kW on houses in the UK. This is partially to do with having too much delivery to the Grid on a domestic installation from a single house, something that doesn't seem to be a problem in Germany where its common to see entire roofs covered in PV. The feed in tariff strongly discourages people having larger than 4kW in a single house installation.  I would gladly have 6kW if I had enough roof. Although we could not be 'off-grid' I would like my house to generate more, so that it could meet the entire annual demand, including lighting and cooking.

I don't think this is a house, it seems to be a small office. But, this one seems to be taking it a bit too seriously!! It is also valuable to make the PV work most efficiently, and vertical panels are not ideal."

Concentrated PV efficiency

19 Feb 2012: Hope for those with small roofs is on the way - Concentrated PV (CPV). These Semprius panels are based on Gallium arsenide not Silicon, and each cell is a tiny unit that has a lens in front of it to concentrate solar rays. The tiny units are only 0.1% of the surface area, the lenses bring the light down to them. They are claimed to achieve 30.9% efficiency compared with the 8-15% that we are used to from the current generation of panels. See also the Semprius website. This isn't a far off technology in a lab, these will be coming onto the market, and the commercial production starts in late 2012.
http://www.semprius.com/pdf/press_releases/press_release_19.pdf

Update from DECC and EST on the FIT

14 Feb 2012: Oh dear, so many acronyms!! But the DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change), have lost Chris Huhne, but at least they have made their minds up over the Feed in Tariff.

  Heres a page on the Energy Saving Trust that summarises and explains the updates. The less digestible reading from the DECC is here. It is still worth doing PV, and a very good investment, but you should plan on the expectation of the 21p rate, and the 'better than very good' 43pence rate may be short lived unless you installed before December 12th of last year.

This EPC would require some work to improve it
but I gather that the proposed PV is part of the
calculation, so this 'F' rated house could be level 'C' with
added Insulation and the Photovoltaic.

     The good news is that the link to Insulation is less severe, now that they have settled on an insulation level of 'D'. The previous idea that it should be based on an Energy Performance rating for the house of 'C' was enough to kill the scheme altogether - it is estimated that only 9% of the country's houses would be eligible, and if ten percent of those house holders decided on PV, that would be less than one percent - that would make the UK impossible to catch up with Germany on renewables, would end the solar industry, continue our high carbon emissions, and guaranteed the future of only one industry, the giant nuclear power stations of the big generators.
  Insulation is incredibly important, but it's completely wrong to force them to be linked. They are both important but different.

Update on the FIT scheme

20 Jan 2012: Good Energy have come out with a bulletin explaining some of the options, in a PlanA / Plan B style. The FIT scheme and the appeal are still awaiting judgement.
http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/what-we-are-doing/good-energy-republic/2012/01/19/fit-update-government-acts-to-quell-uncertainty-around-the-feed-in-tariff
There is still uncertainty. Let's get this right, it is still worth doing, even with the new tariff if you have a large roof. But the uncertainty from DECC and the Govt is causing the industry to stop in its tracks. The proposal to link the tariff to households who must first raise their house to a level 'C' EPC of energy efficiency will stop many perfectly good roofs from being converted to electricity generating. A decentralised supply of clean energy is a powerful requirement - even if it is fitted to uninsulated barns, garages, or mounted on racks in the garden. Insulation, through schemes such as the Green Deal and other incentives is important, but it is wrong to make one dependent on the other, and it only favours the very well off.

Good Energy’s Ed Gill wrote recently,

"Real progress would be for the government to set out a long term future for FIT that recognises that it’s the best vehicle we have for delivering the decentralised energy market we need. This has to include a new structure that takes into account the popularity of a scheme that allows people, households and businesses to have greater control of their energy bills. It has to avoid introducing emergency consultations and measures like the proposed energy efficiency standard."

As I (DNC) wrote earlier, If the government said that 'you cannot insulate a building until it has PV', it would be demonstrably crazy. So it is equally crazy to say that 'you cannot have PV until you have insulated the building'. Each are important, but some architectural conditions are too complex to meet either of those statements. Society needs clean energy, whatever it is mounted on.

PV for commercial greenhouse

16 Jan 2012: Report here on a project in Spain to use PV on commercial greenhouses to have a modified roof to get electrical power in the summer, without reducing the quality of environment for the peppers and other vegetables. When the sun is high in the summer, this PV is reducing over heating.
http://www.gizmag.com/umla-solar-greenhouse/21090/
With transparent prismatic add-ons to the roof, the capture in winter is good enough for growing.

43pence FIT might return

12th Jan 2012: Rumours abound that the 43pence FIT payment rate may return this month, or even this week. This may only extend the period for people to instal (at this high FIT rate) to the end of March 2012. But that would be better than the artificially caused frantic rush in November and Dec 2011.
See Which Report 13 Jan.

13 Jan 2012 Evening Postscript:
Email from DECC, 1728 13th Jan 2012:
 Statement by DECC spokesperson on FITs case 13 January 2012 
"The Court of Appeal has not yet decided whether to give permission for an appeal or made a judgement on the FITs case. The Court will wrap up the decision on permission for an appeal and a possible judgement if an appeal is allowed in the next few weeks. Once the outcome is known we will consider our options and make an announcement on the way forward to provide clarity to consumers and industry."
At the time of writing, the DECC website is unavailable, but when it is, it should be: http://www.decc.gov.uk/

Green Technologies

10 Jan 2012:  The need for the economy to make a transition to green technologies is eloquently explained in this Guardian article by Andrew Simms. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/green-economy-boost-2012

There's a story here of lost opportunities, governments going back on promises, ideals which get dumped if they are not 'good for business'.... The green movement needs to keep plugging away, it ain't going to come easy.

Renewables in Germany

5 Jan 2012: DNC writes: I was pleasing to read that in Germany, the power generated from Renewables has now become the largest part. Nuclear is in decline, as a policy change since Fukushima.
http://www.ecogeek.org/preventing-pollution/3664
The downside of the story is that the second largest part of German power production is from Lignite, which is brown coal, a more polluting kind of coal.
  For this illustration, I just looked at Germany with googlemaps, and zoomed in on a random part of a randomly picked town, which happened to be Konigsbrunn in Bavaria. In the photo taken from the west, South is off to the right. It is amazing how many people are home-generating, some with larger arrays than the 4kW limit of the UK.
   They are further south than the UK, so will be generating more power, but Rushcliffe and most areas south of here are still getting enough sun for it to be worthwhile.

Power UP and Power Down

  This shows that if we keep plugging away, we can make a difference, one house at a time.

  Converse to energy generation, we also need (as a country) to pay attention to house insulation, so that we achieve a good balance. I don't believe that one should be conditional on the other, as the British government is trying to do after April 2012.
  If you get the two right, it can be a fantastically good balance. My house generates 3,350 kWh/year from the PV roof, but only needs 2,700-3,300 kWh for all heating and hot water (depending on weather variations). So the combination of Powering Up (generate) and Powering Down (insulate) can be effective in reducing carbon emission. 

Register on the BDPV website!

27 Dec 2011: I recently discovered the website http://www.bdpv.com/  which is a French site, providing a geographical database of PV systems installed all over Europe.  Each user is trusted to supply their own data for each month, and have that compared with others near them, and with the classic PVGIS calculation for that same Lat, Long, Orientation and Roofpitch.


Above is the display for my PV system for the most recent year (2011) with an estimate for the final figure for December 2011 (which is already well ahead of the previous year. The chart shows comparisons with the previous two years.
 It is easy to register with BDPV and there seems no charge for using it. I am surprised at how many are using it already, including quite a lot within a short distance of my home. It is easy to make charts like the above, comparing systems with each other or between yours and others.
  One indication of the effect of the british government's changes to the Feed in Tariff was that many of the UK systems that I browsed when first visiting this site all seemed to have been installed in November or December of 2011.

High Court ruling on FIT changes

24 Dec 2011: It seems that the High Court found that the government were wrongful in pressing ahead with major changes to the Feed in Tariff without considering that the consultation process was not completed, and that the deadlines given have caused untold chaos in the solar installation industry.... and we should not forget some of the inevitable job losses or company closures.

[See the Guardian Report for details. ]

Most people assume that Cameron and Osborne (who seems from his actions and saying to have little regard for the 'Green' revolution) will just carry on regardless of the Court ruling, or of the effects on the Solar industry and customers. 

Why link to Insulation?

When this was first mooted, it was proposed that the higher tariff should apply to houses which meet an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) of level "C". Although this sounds at first sight like a good incentive, it reveals, at closer inspection to be just another form of discouragement, and favouring the well off house owner.

   Energy Generation is a different matter from Energy Conservation, and both are excellent, but there is No Reason for them to be so tightly linked, or for one to exclude the other. Should we also make a law that "Only houses with PV panels should be Insulated"? Of course not. That demonstrates the absurdity of the current proposal that "Only houses with Insulation should have PV panels". There are other ways to incentivise insulation, and these are being done.

  Society needs Energy, so why should we not encourage panels to be fixed on garages, barns and old houses that are not easy to insulate? In the same way, there are many buildings than can and should be insulated, but because of chimneys, dormers, trees or hips, they cannot be adapted for photovoltaic. 

    It can cost more to insulate a house up to level C than to fix solar panels. This new requirement becomes a charter favouring the rich or the owner occupier, because it requires an expensive operation on the house first, and perhaps a season's delay. 

   What does it do for social housing (especially of older dwellings)? A quick one or two day installation of panels can reduce future fuel poverty for a whole street, but a programme of insulation of a whole street would mean a complex and expensive process of decanting tenants etc. with funds that the local authorities or housing associations do not have.

'Satisfied' of Radcliffe

27 Nov 2011: Geoff S. of Radcliffe on Trent writes:
 "I am pleased to report that my intended 16-panel system has now been installed by Team UK Renewables and was commissioned on 22 November. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that the necessary paper-work will be completed in time to beat the Government's 10th December deadline. There is untold satisfaction in being able to get one up on the Chancellor! I have now also had my two birch trees suitably lopped and am already getting some interesting daily readings. Can I take this opportunity to thank you again for your visit in September and your much-valued independent advice regarding shading problems."

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.

Caution, and Which report

20 Nov 2011: DNC writes: I did another email to some of our past 'Solar Enquirers' to see how many installed, and it's nice to hear how many have actually managed to instal before the December 2011 deadline. The idea was to move them out of the mailing list, so I don't have to bother them with future emails.

Paul Cosgriff writes, with some ideas on being cautious about products and installers :
"We have been very pleased with the performance to date. We waited for a Which report before proceeding. The report highlighted the problem of companies making unrealistic promises about the payback period and also mentioned that inverters can fail and are expensive to replace (this was something that no one had ever mentioned to us!).
   We also agreed with the report's recommendation that the Government should fund a pool of independent advisors, so that householders can check all the facts before proceeding. For example, all companies claim that their panels are the best, but without expert independent advice, it is difficult for the householder to make a sound judgement.
   We obtained 3 quotations and found that the level of professionalism varied - one just looked at the roof from the garden, another went up a ladder and measured the roof, and the third both measured the roof accurately and inspected inside the loft. The company which we chose also had an electrician on the staff who was able to give us assurances regarding our preferred positioning of the meter.
   The installation was carried out in a professional manner, but the supervisor told us that he had decided to work for just 3 companies as he had found that some other companies gave quotes without any on-site survey, just relying on Google Earth, so that when the installation team turned up on site, they found that there were major problems, e.g. the roof was not strong enough to support the panels! I can see that this practice could quickly tarnish the industry with a bad reputation.
    As I said, in our case, we feel we made all the right decisions, and that fact that the sun is still shining in November makes us pretty optimistic."

Editor's Note : this idea of Which is rather like what Rushcliffe Solar have been doing, providing an independent source of advice without any commercial motive at all.

EPC - you need to insulate!

5 Nov 2011: After April 12th 2012, it's likely that householders will have to get an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) for their house to be eligible for the 21pence tariff. The EPC should be grade 'C' or better. Without this, you may only be eligible for 9 pence/unit.
   This is going to need clarifying, because it seems to be bad news for people in historic buildings who are unable to bring the buildings up to grade C, or those who have to erect panels in the orchard, garage or uninsulated outbuildings because the house is historic, listed or is encrusted with chimneys and dormers. You need EPCs in order to sell a house, so there is now a small industry of EPC assessors. Google EPC and you will find loads, including some companies based in West Bridgford/ Rushcliffe. If your house does not yet meet grade C, then you will get advice from the assessor on how far it can be taken.

How do you get an EPC?
• EPCs are explained further on the DECC website,
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/HomeAndCommunity/BuyingAndSellingYourHome/Energyperformancecertificates/index.htm
• It costs between £30 and £70 to get an EPC evaluation, there are many companies offering to do one. See this page:
https://www.epcregister.com/searchAssessor.html
• Here's an example of a EPC for a house in 'AnyTown'
http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/319282.pdf
DNC writes: I have recently had my house EPC'd and the assessors say it's the highest they have seen, at 91. It would have been 96 if I hadn't had a gas fire in the living room as an emergency measure if the heat pump breaks down. Also, we have a brick detached house which loses us some points. The software used for the assessment doesn't know about solar panel assisted heat pumps, so although our actual energy consumption is 27 kWh/sqm/yr, the software assumes we use 45 kWh/sqm/yr. (The house is A-rated on 'environmental impact')

Tariff for early adopters

2nd November 2011: I was asked recently if there might be changes for people who adopted PV prior to July 2009. It really has been very unfair that they were not included in the FIT, albeit at half or third rate. They seem to have been forced to accept a share of the tiny 3.1pence/unit rate, despite having installed at a time when PV was twice the cost it is now. Well. there is a scheme, although it is not as good as the FIT, it is better than nothing.
  My electricity utility, Good Energy, have a reasonable deal for such people. Prior to the FIT they were offering me 15p/unit, so I wrote to them to ask if they had anything similar for early adopters of PV.

Click to view the details of the
review of the FIT 2nd Nov 2011

  One of the Home Generation team replied to me: "Prior to the FIT we did run our own HomeGen scheme which offered a higher payment for installations, however this is now reduced to 9.4p/kWh for every unit generated and a 3.1p/kWh for 50% which is deemed exported. This is the payment existing generators who transferred from the RO scheme are now paid.
   In regards to the recent announcement - Good Energy is disappointed with the Government’s proposals on the FIT review. We believe that the cause of the problem lies with the artificial cap imposed on the scheme by the Treasury and will be working hard to improve the proposals put forward by the Department of Energy & Climate Change."

Displacing solar power to store

1 Nov 2011: In the last year, I have been asked many times about whether one could cream off peak power in summer for storage. Well my reply has usually been that I thought it was unethical, as the public are subsidising us with a generous Feed in Tariff, and we have a duty to deliver some clean energy. With the change of FIT rate to something less generous, it is time to consider some of these storage ideas.

Carl of Prescient Power told me of a smart controller which is capable of reading the curve of the daily power generation, comparing it with the amount that is being used in the house. When the roof is peaking, the controller can direct power to something else - the best example would be an immersion heater which is a form of storage. If you were baking and ironing that day, it would decide that there would be no need to cream off spare energy. Another place to dump power would be to run to a battery charger, from which one can run night functions like lighting (using an inverter). The disadvantage of this is the same old one, that one has less spare power when you most need it, in the Winter when one needs longer hours of lighting, and more hot water. But it's worth thinking about.

FIT change is not as bad as feared

1st Nov 2011: I did a Rushcliffe Solar estimation for one client and was pleased to find that the situation is not as bad as I feared. She does happen to have a perfect south facing unshaded roof, which helps. The new rules on FIT will discourage people who can only fit 6-10 panels, because of the higher cost per kilowatt. However, for a 16 panel installation of nearly 4 kW the payback is still quite good, and would be equivalent to about £1000/year - about 8-9%. The return from the tariff is still enough to justify installation. The assumed earnings from saving on your current bill, and the income from direct sale to the grid assume a larger proportion of the calculation - the 3.1pence per unit being worth £50.

People will be more choosy (not doing a roof unless it has good orientation), and they will be taking the long view - that over the years, the costs of energy for everyone else will rise and their virtual income from the savings will increase proportionately. There will be an increasing tendency to adapt lifestyle, like baking cakes or running the washing machine at midday.

     Under the 43pence rule, the payback was getting up into the teens, like 14-16% which must be far more than the original creators of the FIT intended - caused mainly by the much reduced cost of panels.
See Full details of the review at Good Energy's website.