Is it worth investing in solar panels when all you get is 8p per unit.
It's the money you save on not paying for your own electricity usage that's the return on investment.
Which is why batteries are important so you can store it for yourself rather than sell it at a ridiculous cheap rate, especially if you aren't home during the day when most solar is achieved.
battery technology is really lacking. Tesla changed the game but it's still very difficult to have efficient, reliable long term storage of renewable electricity.
The Times are reporting that “one of the first” acts of new Prime Minister Truss will be to grant more licenses for drilling and extracting North Sea oil and gas. Whilst recognising that this is an extremely good thing, what I can’t quite understand is why we need to wait for Liz Truss or if she loses Rishi Sunak to take office to rubber stamp what’s bleeding obvious. Of course one week or so makes little difference but this is more about presentation rather than getting the right thing done.
Is more fossil fuel burning a good thing? I get the desperate situation we are all in, I get that you can’t store wind power, but more North Sea oil? Isn’t that really about making rich people richer?
Its not more fossil fuel burning. Its replacing imports with home grown. [Depending on relative market prices] The share of our energy produced by renewable will continue to rise.
Meteoric growth in new solar farm planning in UK sees pipeline reach a staggering 37GW
UK solar activity during 2021 can be seen as transformational on many levels: the emergence of a sustainable subsidy-free rooftop segment; overall deployment levels that saw almost equal contribution from ground-mount and rooftop segments; and a scale of new utility-scale solar farm project planning that almost beggars belief.
This month, I will be posting a number of articles on Solar Power Portal, explaining what’s been happening in the UK solar industry over the past 12 months, and what this means for 2022 and the current decade out to 2030. This will cover both rooftop (residential and commercial) and ground-mount (from solar arrays in back gardens to utility plants the size of which was unimaginable in the past).
Is it worth investing in solar panels when all you get is 8p per unit.
It's the money you save on not paying for your own electricity usage that's the return on investment.
Which is why batteries are important so you can store it for yourself rather than sell it at a ridiculous cheap rate, especially if you aren't home during the day when most solar is achieved.
battery technology is really lacking. Tesla changed the game but it's still very difficult to have efficient, reliable long term storage of renewable electricity.
i'm reliably informed that hydrogen is the solution and once they can get it safe enough, is going to stop the electric car revolution in its tracks
Clever bloke MsAA was talking says he turned his heating right down last year and used an electric blanket to keep himself warm. Had a tiny bill compared to years before. Probably doesn’t make sense for a family of three or more.
Is more fossil fuel burning a good thing? I get the desperate situation we are all in, I get that you can’t store wind power, but more North Sea oil? Isn’t that really about making rich people richer?
It’s a good point but the extra output will only look to replace lost supplies. With the best will in the world the U.K. will still need both oil and gas for the foreseeable future. Having that supply as “home grown” is I think going forward a very sensible plan.
Is it worth investing in solar panels when all you get is 8p per unit.
It's the money you save on not paying for your own electricity usage that's the return on investment.
Which is why batteries are important so you can store it for yourself rather than sell it at a ridiculous cheap rate, especially if you aren't home during the day when most solar is achieved.
battery technology is really lacking. Tesla changed the game but it's still very difficult to have efficient, reliable long term storage of renewable electricity.
i'm reliably informed that hydrogen is the solution and once they can get it safe enough, is going to stop the electric car revolution in its tracks
Is it worth investing in solar panels when all you get is 8p per unit.
It's the money you save on not paying for your own electricity usage that's the return on investment.
Which is why batteries are important so you can store it for yourself rather than sell it at a ridiculous cheap rate, especially if you aren't home during the day when most solar is achieved.
battery technology is really lacking. Tesla changed the game but it's still very difficult to have efficient, reliable long term storage of renewable electricity.
i'm reliably informed that hydrogen is the solution and once they can get it safe enough, is going to stop the electric car revolution in its tracks
Reliably informed by who?
a bloke down the pub (although tbf he was reliably informed by his best mate who is a city trader and has lumped on it in a big way)
Is it worth investing in solar panels when all you get is 8p per unit.
It's the money you save on not paying for your own electricity usage that's the return on investment.
Which is why batteries are important so you can store it for yourself rather than sell it at a ridiculous cheap rate, especially if you aren't home during the day when most solar is achieved.
battery technology is really lacking. Tesla changed the game but it's still very difficult to have efficient, reliable long term storage of renewable electricity.
i'm reliably informed that hydrogen is the solution and once they can get it safe enough, is going to stop the electric car revolution in its tracks
Hydrogen for planes and sports cars. Electric for everything else.
Is more fossil fuel burning a good thing? I get the desperate situation we are all in, I get that you can’t store wind power, but more North Sea oil? Isn’t that really about making rich people richer?
It’s a good point but the extra output will only look to replace lost supplies. With the best will in the world the U.K. will still need both oil and gas for the foreseeable future. Having that supply as “home grown” is I think going forward a very sensible plan.
It's a good plan but from issuing the license to actually producing any gas or oil normally takes 28 YEARS.
Rather than be dragged kicking and screaming by planners and the government, perhaps some of these developers should be showing us the way and be adding green initiatives as a standard.
Where did I suggest we feel sorry for them? That article suggests a profit margin of 19.5% which might be less than some think.
My point was that means developers won’t squeeze their own profits further without government intervention.
Property is too expensive for many so pushing up price by insisting green initiatives won’t on its own help.
Rather than be dragged kicking and screaming by planners and the government, perhaps some of these developers should be showing us the way and be adding green initiatives as a standard.
Where did I suggest we feel sorry for them? That article suggests a profit margin of 19.5% which might be less than some think.
My point was that means developers won’t squeeze their own profits further without government intervention.
Property is too expensive for many so pushing up price by insisting green initiatives won’t on its own help.
Yup.
Why won't these scumbag developers make more cheap housing?
Why won't these scumbag developers put solar panels on everything?
I know we are writing the Communist manifesto in here and that's brilliant because it hopefully keeps it off the rest of the forum, but it's largely, to quote Chris Morris, ill informed and pig ignorant. .
Something does need to be done, but expecting developers to just magic up the solution without increasing the cost is a typical example, of which there are many, where those on the left have no concept of money, which is probably no coincidental thing.
Rather than be dragged kicking and screaming by planners and the government, perhaps some of these developers should be showing us the way and be adding green initiatives as a standard.
Where did I suggest we feel sorry for them? That article suggests a profit margin of 19.5% which might be less than some think.
My point was that means developers won’t squeeze their own profits further without government intervention.
Property is too expensive for many so pushing up price by insisting green initiatives won’t on its own help.
Yup.
Why won't these scumbag developers make more cheap housing?
Why won't these scumbag developers put solar panels on everything?
I know we are writing the Communist manifesto in here and that's brilliant because it hopefully keeps it off the rest of the forum, but it's largely, to quote Chris Morris, ill informed and pig ignorant. .
Something does need to be done, but expecting developers to just magic up the solution without increasing the cost is a typical example, of which there are many, where those on the left have no concept of money, which is probably no coincidental thing.
Recent events have proved that money grows on trees. With that as the concept of money, it should be easy to fix things!
Not directly linked to the subject matter of this thread but the absolutely horrific images coming out of Pakistan are food for thought about what’s heading down the tracks in terms of climate change. It will take something along the lines we’re seeing in Pakistan to happen in the USA before things start to move forward at the necessary pace. Even now I think disaster on a cataclysmic scale is now virtually unavoidable.
Article from 2015 when the Government decided to scrap the zero carbon homes plan. How much better off the owners of new houses built since 2015 would be now, if all of them had been built with greener forms of energy.
Not too far from where I currently live there is an enormous housing development called City Fields. It’s a 375 hectare space with developments by all the usual housing builders including Redrow, Miller, Bellway, Avant. Some phases are built and have people living in them and others are still under construction. I pass by it when I’m going to work and it occurred to me that I can’t see one house anywhere that’s got solar panels fitted. Not one. That’s not to say there are not some somewhere but I’m betting if there are, which I doubt if I’m honest there are not many. This development has over 1000 homes and I think it’s a disgrace that newly built homes are not being made to be constructed with at least solar energy. This crisis has reached boiling point but the need for new developments to have built in solar should have been mandatory for at least five years.
This is because new build properties have to meet certain SAP ratings in energy efficiency. If they can get away with it the big developers wont put renewables in. They build down to a price not to a specification. In Wales any new development can now only be built if the have heat pumps and solar
Consider the above in the context of your last (quite hollow) post
Adding e.g. solar panels to a new build will indeed push up prices slightly - for both builder and purchaser. The idea, though, is that it saves money dor the home owner in the short to medium term and - critically - reduces carbon emissions at a time when that really needs to happen asap.
Are the Welsh govt who legislated to make all properties have solar and heat pumps a bunch of lefty communists with no clue about money?
Out of interest, do you see human lead climate change as an immediate threat to continuation of humanity on Earth? That seems as good a place as any to find harmonious common ground (you like that idea, right?) about why new build building regs should specify the use of renewables (rather than a bunch of hollow ad hominem attacks)
Not directly linked to the subject matter of this thread but the absolutely horrific images coming out of Pakistan are food for thought about what’s heading down the tracks in terms of climate change. It will take something along the lines we’re seeing in Pakistan to happen in the USA before things start to move forward at the necessary pace. Even now I think disaster on a cataclysmic scale is now virtually unavoidable.
Agree. I read an article yesterday about the Greenland ice sheet. Regardless of what is done now, we’re past the point of people able to stop that having an impact on rising sea levels.
The west and east Antarctic ice sheets are now the ones to watch. Unfortunately, I believe that we’re already seeing disasters on a cataclysmic scale, but no outside of Pakistan and those affected by the flash floods cares enough. All that’s going to happen is that as a race, we’ll do more to look after ourselves to the point that the rich and the powerful will simply take what they need and to hell with the rest of it.
As land gets subsumed by rising tides, those that can will do what they can with dwindling resources in terms of food, energy and water to save themselves, and wider society will break down as we know it. I also understand that the rate at which the planet is heating up will speed all of this up, so I expect to see this breakdown sooner rather than later.
Short of some sort of alien race magically appearing and taking control of the planet and governing us, this is the beginning of the end of our race imo - Might come across as too gloomy and hyper exaggeration, but we’re done for
Article from 2015 when the Government decided to scrap the zero carbon homes plan. How much better off the owners of new houses built since 2015 would be now, if all of them had been built with greener forms of energy.
Not too far from where I currently live there is an enormous housing development called City Fields. It’s a 375 hectare space with developments by all the usual housing builders including Redrow, Miller, Bellway, Avant. Some phases are built and have people living in them and others are still under construction. I pass by it when I’m going to work and it occurred to me that I can’t see one house anywhere that’s got solar panels fitted. Not one. That’s not to say there are not some somewhere but I’m betting if there are, which I doubt if I’m honest there are not many. This development has over 1000 homes and I think it’s a disgrace that newly built homes are not being made to be constructed with at least solar energy. This crisis has reached boiling point but the need for new developments to have built in solar should have been mandatory for at least five years.
This is because new build properties have to meet certain SAP ratings in energy efficiency. If they can get away with it the big developers wont put renewables in. They build down to a price not to a specification. In Wales any new development can now only be built if the have heat pumps and solar
Consider the above in the context of your last (quite hollow) post
Adding e.g. solar panels to a new build will indeed push up prices slightly - for both builder and purchaser. The idea, though, is that it saves money dor the home owner in the short to medium term and - critically - reduces carbon emissions at a time when that really needs to happen asap.
Are the Welsh govt who legislated to make all properties have solar and heat pumps a bunch of lefty communists with no clue about money?
Out of interest, do you see human lead climate change as an immediate threat to continuation of humanity on Earth? That seems as good a place as any to find harmonious common ground (you like that idea, right?) about why new build building regs should specify the use of renewables (rather than a bunch of hollow ad hominem attacks)
I agree with your sentiment totally. Although your on thin ground with you Welsh Government question as tbh they are lol
Article from 2015 when the Government decided to scrap the zero carbon homes plan. How much better off the owners of new houses built since 2015 would be now, if all of them had been built with greener forms of energy.
Not too far from where I currently live there is an enormous housing development called City Fields. It’s a 375 hectare space with developments by all the usual housing builders including Redrow, Miller, Bellway, Avant. Some phases are built and have people living in them and others are still under construction. I pass by it when I’m going to work and it occurred to me that I can’t see one house anywhere that’s got solar panels fitted. Not one. That’s not to say there are not some somewhere but I’m betting if there are, which I doubt if I’m honest there are not many. This development has over 1000 homes and I think it’s a disgrace that newly built homes are not being made to be constructed with at least solar energy. This crisis has reached boiling point but the need for new developments to have built in solar should have been mandatory for at least five years.
This is because new build properties have to meet certain SAP ratings in energy efficiency. If they can get away with it the big developers wont put renewables in. They build down to a price not to a specification. In Wales any new development can now only be built if the have heat pumps and solar
Consider the above in the context of your last (quite hollow) post
Adding e.g. solar panels to a new build will indeed push up prices slightly - for both builder and purchaser. The idea, though, is that it saves money dor the home owner in the short to medium term and - critically - reduces carbon emissions at a time when that really needs to happen asap.
Are the Welsh govt who legislated to make all properties have solar and heat pumps a bunch of lefty communists with no clue about money?
Out of interest, do you see human lead climate change as an immediate threat to continuation of humanity on Earth? That seems as good a place as any to find harmonious common ground (you like that idea, right?) about why new build building regs should specify the use of renewables (rather than a bunch of hollow ad hominem attacks)
Before I had a new gas boiler installed I looked at heat pumps and spoke to 3 people who had them (air source), put me off totally. It may be more efficient/better for the environment but they don't work particularly well, especially in deepest darkest winter when you really need them, 2 of the three said they hadn't saved much cost either, one thought it may be dearer!
Is more fossil fuel burning a good thing? I get the desperate situation we are all in, I get that you can’t store wind power, but more North Sea oil? Isn’t that really about making rich people richer?
It’s a good point but the extra output will only look to replace lost supplies. With the best will in the world the U.K. will still need both oil and gas for the foreseeable future. Having that supply as “home grown” is I think going forward a very sensible plan.
drill all you like, you won't get to anything within a year, and it all gets sold on the global market, not directly to the UK, so at the prices still stay high.
You need to decouple gas from the electric prices, and allow on shore wind and invest in insulating homes, as that's the quickest way to get supply and manage demand.
Not directly linked to the subject matter of this thread but the absolutely horrific images coming out of Pakistan are food for thought about what’s heading down the tracks in terms of climate change. It will take something along the lines we’re seeing in Pakistan to happen in the USA before things start to move forward at the necessary pace. Even now I think disaster on a cataclysmic scale is now virtually unavoidable.
Agree. I read an article yesterday about the Greenland ice sheet. Regardless of what is done now, we’re past the point of people able to stop that having an impact on rising sea levels.
The west and east Antarctic ice sheets are now the ones to watch. Unfortunately, I believe that we’re already seeing disasters on a cataclysmic scale, but no outside of Pakistan and those affected by the flash floods cares enough. All that’s going to happen is that as a race, we’ll do more to look after ourselves to the point that the rich and the powerful will simply take what they need and to hell with the rest of it.
As land gets subsumed by rising tides, those that can will do what they can with dwindling resources in terms of food, energy and water to save themselves, and wider society will break down as we know it. I also understand that the rate at which the planet is heating up will speed all of this up, so I expect to see this breakdown sooner rather than later.
Short of some sort of alien race magically appearing and taking control of the planet and governing us, this is the beginning of the end of our race imo - Might come across as too gloomy and hyper exaggeration, but we’re done for
Pessimistic, but at least you are facing the scale of the challenge ahead of humanity
BTW, Insulate Britain were right, moan about the tactics all you like, but we have a serious insulation problem in this country, and this winter, whilst bad would be better if we lived in houses that didn't bleed energy out of every wall
Article from 2015 when the Government decided to scrap the zero carbon homes plan. How much better off the owners of new houses built since 2015 would be now, if all of them had been built with greener forms of energy.
Not too far from where I currently live there is an enormous housing development called City Fields. It’s a 375 hectare space with developments by all the usual housing builders including Redrow, Miller, Bellway, Avant. Some phases are built and have people living in them and others are still under construction. I pass by it when I’m going to work and it occurred to me that I can’t see one house anywhere that’s got solar panels fitted. Not one. That’s not to say there are not some somewhere but I’m betting if there are, which I doubt if I’m honest there are not many. This development has over 1000 homes and I think it’s a disgrace that newly built homes are not being made to be constructed with at least solar energy. This crisis has reached boiling point but the need for new developments to have built in solar should have been mandatory for at least five years.
This is because new build properties have to meet certain SAP ratings in energy efficiency. If they can get away with it the big developers wont put renewables in. They build down to a price not to a specification. In Wales any new development can now only be built if the have heat pumps and solar
Consider the above in the context of your last (quite hollow) post
Adding e.g. solar panels to a new build will indeed push up prices slightly - for both builder and purchaser. The idea, though, is that it saves money dor the home owner in the short to medium term and - critically - reduces carbon emissions at a time when that really needs to happen asap.
Are the Welsh govt who legislated to make all properties have solar and heat pumps a bunch of lefty communists with no clue about money?
Out of interest, do you see human lead climate change as an immediate threat to continuation of humanity on Earth? That seems as good a place as any to find harmonious common ground (you like that idea, right?) about why new build building regs should specify the use of renewables (rather than a bunch of hollow ad hominem attacks)
Hey mate, I'm glad your obsession with me isn't abating at all. You make me feel special.
I'm just talking about pricing and expectations. Re-read what I wrote and it should go into even the densest of heads.
We aren't disagreeing at all, well, you are choosing to, but apart from that, we aren't.
As long as you are happy with people that currently can't get on the housing ladder, having even higher cash requirements to be able to get on the housing ladder, I'm all cool with that, I'm guessing you aren't on the ladder already otherwise your argument around pricing would come across as ignorant to the extent of being an evil Tory.
And as a side note, yes, the Welsh government are a bunch of lefties with no clue about money.
Not directly linked to the subject matter of this thread but the absolutely horrific images coming out of Pakistan are food for thought about what’s heading down the tracks in terms of climate change. It will take something along the lines we’re seeing in Pakistan to happen in the USA before things start to move forward at the necessary pace. Even now I think disaster on a cataclysmic scale is now virtually unavoidable.
blimey - and there was me concerned there wasn't enough focus on bringing a striker through the door
BTW, Insulate Britain were right, moan about the tactics all you like, but we have a serious insulation problem in this country, and this winter, whilst bad would be better if we lived in houses that didn't bleed energy out of every wall
BTW, Insulate Britain were right, moan about the tactics all you like, but we have a serious insulation problem in this country, and this winter, whilst bad would be better if we lived in houses that didn't bleed energy out of every wall
I don't remember anyone saying they were wrong.
I didn't say anyone did, people were happy to complain about the tactics
Is more fossil fuel burning a good thing? I get the desperate situation we are all in, I get that you can’t store wind power, but more North Sea oil? Isn’t that really about making rich people richer?
It’s a good point but the extra output will only look to replace lost supplies. With the best will in the world the U.K. will still need both oil and gas for the foreseeable future. Having that supply as “home grown” is I think going forward a very sensible plan.
drill all you like, you won't get to anything within a year, and it all gets sold on the global market, not directly to the UK, so at the prices still stay high.
You need to decouple gas from the electric prices, and allow on shore wind and invest in insulating homes, as that's the quickest way to get supply and manage demand.
Completely agree with this. Gas and oil are fungible commodity. It's price is set worldwide so as Rothko says it won't make a difference to prices but conceivably may make a marginal difference to supply resiliance.
I wonder at what percentage point electricity prices are decoupled from gas (I think about 40% of electricity is currently generated from gas) and who decides. Anyone know?
Comments
I get the desperate situation we are all in, I get that you can’t store wind power, but more North Sea oil?
Isn’t that really about making rich people richer?
Its replacing imports with home grown. [Depending on relative market prices]
The share of our energy produced by renewable will continue to rise.
Stymied by nimbies will always be a drag on progress
Jan 2022
Meteoric growth in new solar farm planning in UK sees pipeline reach a staggering 37GW
UK solar activity during 2021 can be seen as transformational on many levels: the emergence of a sustainable subsidy-free rooftop segment; overall deployment levels that saw almost equal contribution from ground-mount and rooftop segments; and a scale of new utility-scale solar farm project planning that almost beggars belief.
This month, I will be posting a number of articles on Solar Power Portal, explaining what’s been happening in the UK solar industry over the past 12 months, and what this means for 2022 and the current decade out to 2030. This will cover both rooftop (residential and commercial) and ground-mount (from solar arrays in back gardens to utility plants the size of which was unimaginable in the past).
Just got my portfolio manager to sell Shell and lump on Siemens Green Energy.
Cheers
Why won't these scumbag developers make more cheap housing?
Why won't these scumbag developers put solar panels on everything?
I know we are writing the Communist manifesto in here and that's brilliant because it hopefully keeps it off the rest of the forum, but it's largely, to quote Chris Morris, ill informed and pig ignorant. .
Something does need to be done, but expecting developers to just magic up the solution without increasing the cost is a typical example, of which there are many, where those on the left have no concept of money, which is probably no coincidental thing.
Consider the above in the context of your last (quite hollow) post
Adding e.g. solar panels to a new build will indeed push up prices slightly - for both builder and purchaser. The idea, though, is that it saves money dor the home owner in the short to medium term and - critically - reduces carbon emissions at a time when that really needs to happen asap.
Are the Welsh govt who legislated to make all properties have solar and heat pumps a bunch of lefty communists with no clue about money?
Out of interest, do you see human lead climate change as an immediate threat to continuation of humanity on Earth? That seems as good a place as any to find harmonious common ground (you like that idea, right?) about why new build building regs should specify the use of renewables (rather than a bunch of hollow ad hominem attacks)
The west and east Antarctic ice sheets are now the ones to watch. Unfortunately, I believe that we’re already seeing disasters on a cataclysmic scale, but no outside of Pakistan and those affected by the flash floods cares enough. All that’s going to happen is that as a race, we’ll do more to look after ourselves to the point that the rich and the powerful will simply take what they need and to hell with the rest of it.
Short of some sort of alien race magically appearing and taking control of the planet and governing us, this is the beginning of the end of our race imo - Might come across as too gloomy and hyper exaggeration, but we’re done for
You need to decouple gas from the electric prices, and allow on shore wind and invest in insulating homes, as that's the quickest way to get supply and manage demand.
I'm just talking about pricing and expectations. Re-read what I wrote and it should go into even the densest of heads.
We aren't disagreeing at all, well, you are choosing to, but apart from that, we aren't.
As long as you are happy with people that currently can't get on the housing ladder, having even higher cash requirements to be able to get on the housing ladder, I'm all cool with that, I'm guessing you aren't on the ladder already otherwise your argument around pricing would come across as ignorant to the extent of being an evil Tory.
And as a side note, yes, the Welsh government are a bunch of lefties with no clue about money.
I wonder at what percentage point electricity prices are decoupled from gas (I think about 40% of electricity is currently generated from gas) and who decides. Anyone know?