Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

euronews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 365 posts

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#11

Post by pjc50 »

dust42 wrote: post #6

I once read an article that in Berlin the sewage system is flushed with fresh water because too many people have installed water saving toilet flushers. So plenty of people bought these water savers and now the price of water has gone up because the water that is directly flushed needs to be paid too. The 'balcony power stations' are the same thing. They get subsidised, and you even get a fixed kWh price when pushing…

> They get subsidised, and you even get a fixed kWh price when pushing into the grid

Neither of these is going to be true for the UK balcony scheme (you can't get export generation pricing unless it's an MCS-certified install).

> drive up the truck tolls.

The price of diesel is going to do this anyway very soon.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#12

Post by vrganj »

dust42 wrote: post #6

I once read an article that in Berlin the sewage system is flushed with fresh water because too many people have installed water saving toilet flushers. So plenty of people bought these water savers and now the price of water has gone up because the water that is directly flushed needs to be paid too. The 'balcony power stations' are the same thing. They get subsidised, and you even get a fixed kWh price when pushing…

Thinking of this in terms of markets is the real ideologically driven inefficiency.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#13

Post by pjc50 »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #10
dust42 wrote: post #6

I once read an article that in Berlin the sewage system is flushed with fresh water because too many people have installed water saving toilet flushers. So plenty of people bought these water savers and now the price of water has gone up because the water that is directly flushed needs to be paid too. The 'balcony power stations' are the same thing. They get subsidised, and you even get a fixed kWh price when pushing…

I have the curse of having an mom who was a smart CPA. All this stuff root top solar, plug in solar costs at least twice what utility solar. And only makes sense when you have messed up rate setting schemes that enable arbitrage. But it's not what you want if you want to get the most GW connected as fast as possible. Like the requirements that new houses have roof top solar. You could get twice as much if you just in…

> Like the requirements that new houses have roof top solar.

As a CPA child, you should understand that the same money is very different when it comes out of a different account.

(everyone watches two critical numbers, income tax and government deficit, so the #1 priority is to hide capital spending somewhere else, in this case by moving it to buyers of new homes)

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#14

Post by mytailorisrich »

pjc50 wrote: post #8

Fairly boilerplate article, but the bit that is news is the UK balcony solar permitting. Better longread: https://solarenergyconcepts.co.uk/post/plug-in-solar-uk/ Government press release with a long list of pull quotes: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-make-plug-i... (I note that in the alternate universe where Ed Miliband became PM because he didn't eat a bacon sandwich, we could have had this a dec…

> I note that in the alternate universe where Ed Miliband became PM because he didn't eat a bacon sandwich, we could have had this a decade ago

I read what is happening in exactly the opposite way. To me it shows that Milliand and the government at large do very little with no strategic thinking and no plan (same as the guys before in fairness but this government was supposed to be soo different...) and, in this case, is only reacting in a panic after almost 2 years in office to the pressure of "doing something" because of the Iran war, while also being told (slight mitigating circumstances for Milliband) that it mustn't cost anything. I always picture scenes from The Thick of It/ In the Loop when I imagine how they come up with 'ideas'.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#15

Post by lazyasciiart »

cjrp wrote: post #4

The UK previously didn't allow small plug in solar panels (the kind that you just plug in to a mains socket) due to, I believe, safety reasons. This has changed within the last few days https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/solar-roadmap/

I believe it’s only legal in Utah so far in the US: they legislated it last year, and apparently half the country is expected to pass a copy-paste version in their next sessions

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#18

Post by tjansen »

dust42 wrote: post #6

I once read an article that in Berlin the sewage system is flushed with fresh water because too many people have installed water saving toilet flushers. So plenty of people bought these water savers and now the price of water has gone up because the water that is directly flushed needs to be paid too. The 'balcony power stations' are the same thing. They get subsidised, and you even get a fixed kWh price when pushing…

As soon as everybody is paying spot prices, balcony power stations are not economically viable anymore. Even today, on a sunny day, spot prices for electricity are either very low or even negative. The more solar power is available, the lower these prices will be. So your balcony power station is replacing electricity you could get for free anyway. At night, when you are not producing electricity, you still need to buy the expensive electricity from fossil plants.

The reason why personal solar installations are profitable is that you can buy electricity for fixed prices from your local power company. You pay the average of the vastly different low (or negative) prices during the day and the extremely expensive prices on windstill nights. Solar allows you to use your own electricity when the average is below spot prices, and get power for much less when the price you pay is cheaper than spot prices. It's like a state-approved scheme to play the market in the name of decarbonization while actually increasing everybody else's prices and possibly even CO2 emissions.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#19

Post by dust42 »

vrganj wrote: post #12
dust42 wrote: post #6

I once read an article that in Berlin the sewage system is flushed with fresh water because too many people have installed water saving toilet flushers. So plenty of people bought these water savers and now the price of water has gone up because the water that is directly flushed needs to be paid too. The 'balcony power stations' are the same thing. They get subsidised, and you even get a fixed kWh price when pushing…

Thinking of this in terms of markets is the real ideologically driven inefficiency.

You can spend every euro or dollar only once. If you consider CO2 emissions a critical problem, then you should spend every single dollar as efficiently as possible. Obviously independence of fossil fuels has a value too, as the current situation in the middle east shows.

It would make much more sense to import (renewable) electricity from Spain to Germany than strawberries.

Re: ‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

#20

Post by pjc50 »

tjansen wrote: post #18
dust42 wrote: post #6

I once read an article that in Berlin the sewage system is flushed with fresh water because too many people have installed water saving toilet flushers. So plenty of people bought these water savers and now the price of water has gone up because the water that is directly flushed needs to be paid too. The 'balcony power stations' are the same thing. They get subsidised, and you even get a fixed kWh price when pushing…

As soon as everybody is paying spot prices, balcony power stations are not economically viable anymore. Even today, on a sunny day, spot prices for electricity are either very low or even negative. The more solar power is available, the lower these prices will be. So your balcony power station is replacing electricity you could get for free anyway. At night, when you are not producing electricity, you still need to b…

> spot prices for electricity

There are various good websites for showing the UK generation mix, but pricing seems less public. A lot seems to be done on day-ahead, which is pricing for the whole day not minute by minute. Is there a minute-by-minute ticker? Tariff?

(the reason I'm asking is that I'm skeptical as to how true this is for places that aren't California)

Post reply on HN