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

euronews.com

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

#141

Post by gib444 »

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…

British governments have a terrible record with all eco schemes (mostly handouts to conmen). I don't expect this to be different

And it is of course home-counties obsessed thinking. They can both afford these toys and also have more sun

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

#142

Post by petre »

tim333 wrote: post #79
mytailorisrich wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time they are banning wind turbines leaders (Chinese companies) from opening factories in the UK... [1][2] [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c995xjxk97mo [2] https://www.energyvoice.com/insights/energy-opinion/594763/m...

That seems rather dumb. I wonder why they blocked the Ming Yang thing in Scotland? The UK seems to make quite a lot of dumb energy decisions like blocking UK North Sea gas and then buying North Sea gas from Norway.

China bad. In case of supply chain attack perhaps. It doesn't matter anyway because the Chinese have basically won by moving forward while others were bikeshedding, focusing on diesel emissions cheat devices, closing down nuclear power stations, burning Russian gas on a windy day, not having a proper grid capacity to move electrons South, delivering brexit and so on.

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

#143

Post by laurencerowe »

tim333 wrote: post #79
mytailorisrich wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time they are banning wind turbines leaders (Chinese companies) from opening factories in the UK... [1][2] [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c995xjxk97mo [2] https://www.energyvoice.com/insights/energy-opinion/594763/m...

That seems rather dumb. I wonder why they blocked the Ming Yang thing in Scotland? The UK seems to make quite a lot of dumb energy decisions like blocking UK North Sea gas and then buying North Sea gas from Norway.

There's just not much gas left in the UK North Sea.

> Industry body Offshore Energy UK (OEUK) claims that more oil and gas could be extracted by 2050. However, the ‘High Case’ scenario for future production in a report for OEUK would still mean that 92% of production has already occurred.

...

> Compared to the maximum oil production that occurred in 1999, UK output in 2025 was 77% (over three-quarters) lower.

https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/around-90-of-uk-north-...

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

#144

Post by [deleted] »

bokohut wrote: post #105

Several recent HN posts about "time" and these correlate superbly in relation to the now obvious, to nearly all, global energy issues. Those proactive in a reactive world are often mocked and laughed at until as such passage of time is achieved for those only reactive to learn of the proactive's hindsight choices. For those in the United States aware of the 'behind the scenes' energy grid issues this insight reflects…

[deleted]

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

#145

Post by hamdingers »

labcomputer wrote: post #114
oliwarner wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

British industry and standards bodies think this is an unsafe plan. Of course they would because it's work being taken away from them but it would be allowing people to plug generators into ring finals with unidirectional breakers. It's not even guaranteed that the circuit is protected by anything newer than fuse wire or an MCB. No guaranteed earth leakage detection. No guaranteed surge protection. Relying on the che…

“Unidirectional breakers” aren’t a thing for AC circuits.

Not in the US, but in parts of Europe they effectively use AFCI/GFCI breakers for everything.

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

#146

Post by tencentshill »

zowie_howie wrote: post #56
metalman wrote: post #5

to answer the first question in the article "Many consumers want to know how long it will take them to make back the upfront costs of solar" my answer is that the payback is imediate, right from the first moment watching as energy is generated out of thin air, and the sudden relief from getting off the energy angst missery-go-round, and the sheer borring inertness of solar pv as it does the thing with zero detectable…

Is it immediate? Sure, there is satisfaction that you are using 'free' electricity. But it does have an upfront cost. I calculated that it would take over 11 years to recoup the investment based on our current usage. Given we already get cheap night-time rates to charge the car and run appliances, it is hard to justify. Like many UK houses, we have gas central heating too. I guess if we had a battery too (more invest…

Ideally, the problem will solve itself. People will get angry with increased energy prices, and elect politicians who promise to bring them down (The most effective and visible way being home solar subsidies, while reducing gas/coal).

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

#147

Post by leonidasrup »

theshrike79 wrote: post #133
friendzis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Yes there are times when solar doesn't produce energy, but there are also times where it OVERproduces. When solar OVERproduces you have to literally pay someone to consume that energy, most probably wind farms, which could be producing energy instead. So you pay actually twice. When the solar underproduces, you need to bring in alternative sources, but those now have to c…

Here in Finland electricity prices can drop to under 1c/kWh due to renewables, basically every time it's sunny and/or windy electricity is practically free (the transfer costs are static though). A few times the price has actually been negative, people got paid for using electricity due to overproduction =)

In Finland you produce more electricity from nuclear energy, than from hydropower, wind, or solar.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s...

The amounts for year 2025: Nuclear 32 TWh, Wind 22 TWh, Hydro 12 TWh, Solar 1TWh.

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

#148

Post by username135 »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #129
izacus wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the same kind of problem solving that thought making self driving Teslas is the solution for infrastructure problems.

I'm fairly certain securing one's household's access to energy independent of rate increases triggered by a combination of aging infrastructure and data center power demand doesn't have a lot in common with tech bros attempts at reinventing trains badly from first principles but I'm open to hear the argument. Care to unpack that?

Im eager to hear rhis one...

_grabbing popcorn_

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

#149

Post by formerly_proven »

jonatron wrote: post #117
labcomputer wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Unidirectional breakers” aren’t a thing for AC circuits.

https://www.bgelectrical.uk/uk/circuit-protection/devices/rc... Right there, both bidirectional and unidirectional breakers.

It would be really interesting to know what's so special about these UK units that they can be "damaged" by being fed from the "wrong" side (as per some other article), considering that the only place where these behave like that is an island north of France.

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

#150

Post by laurencerowe »

theshrike79 wrote: post #128
horsawlarway wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home installations just cut it off. In both of these cases. I did my own battery backed installation. When I'm underproducing I can shed load (I turn off my AC - almost always that's enough, and it's automated by relay). When I'm overproducing (ex - my battery is full and my load is still not enough to consume input) I just don't let the panels generate more current than I can consume. Managing grid scale power is di…

My current EV has a 38kW battery. When it's too worn out for car use (SoH around 60-70%), it's still perfectly enough to run _everything_ in my house for multiple days - except for the electric sauna, and I'm smart enough to turn it on if there are production issues :D There's a reason why EV's will never be as cheap as the cheapest ICE shitbox. Just the bare metals in the battery are worth thousands when recycled, e…

The value of the metals will depend a lot on the battery chemistry. LFP batteries don't need nickel or cobalt and sodium-ion batteries can also replace the expensive copper foil on the anode with cheaper aluminium foil.

I'm somewhat sceptical that used batteries will ever be worth much other than as scrap given the cost and complexity in testing, installing, and managing a mixed set of used batteries in larger installations.

With new batteries halving in price every 4 years or so the value of the raw materials in old NMC batteries alone should make it economical to sell for scrap and buy new batteries for stationary use cases after 10 years or so!

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