11–20 of 85 posts
It doesn't sound like it is sustainable to have these subsidies for very long: - At current rates the Feed-in Tariff pays you 14.9p for every kWh you produce, whether you use it or not. The Feed-in Tariff is TAX FREE and RPI Linked. - Export your excess electricity to the grid and earn an additional 4.6p/kWh. ( http://www.hanergy.co.uk/why-solar/feed-in-tariff )
I just built an office which has 4x3m of roof on which I could easily put panels (fit them myself, I don't need someone to do that). But the cost of the inverter has put me off, and there doesn't seem to be any alternative way to power computers from it. Ideally I'd have a battery and 12V supply just to power the computers and gadgets, I don't need full mains voltage, nor do I need to feed back into the grid.
Seems to me that these solar panels are designed to generate government subsidies more than anything else...
IKEA has a bizarre complex business setup which ends up with IKEA being the world's largest (and nearly least generous) charity. ( http://www.economist.com/node/6919139/print?story_id=6919139 )
Does anyone know if this includes the inverter? I just built an office which has 4x3m of roof on which I could easily put panels (fit them myself, I don't need someone to do that). But the cost of the inverter has put me off, and there doesn't seem to be any alternative way to power computers from it. Ideally I'd have a battery and 12V supply just to power the computers and gadgets, I don't need full mains voltage, n…
Just remember if you are running 12-volt DC, it requires fairly thick wiring to get the same current as you would with 120 volt AC.
The problem is that this is a tax dodge for rich middle class people - at one time selling your solar energy back to the grid you got 8% return for 20 years guaranteed by the government. Even after the scheme was amended its a nice little subsidy for richer people it's the poor sods on key/coin meters that are paying for this.
Chinese mining has a lousy safety record, even for a dangerous industry. (15 people PER DAY dying just from volatile gases, in 2010) Anything that offloads electricity generation from dangerous mining for coal powered stations is a good thing for China. So I'm not sure why they're not just putting these solar panels on every roof.
(http://www.wvcoalmining.com/coal-news/reducing-chinese-coal-...)
(http://www.mining.com/coal-mining-deaths-in-china-lead-to-mo...)
(http://www.scanimetrics.com/condition-monitoring-news/13-equ...)
It doesn't sound like it is sustainable to have these subsidies for very long: - At current rates the Feed-in Tariff pays you 14.9p for every kWh you produce, whether you use it or not. The Feed-in Tariff is TAX FREE and RPI Linked. - Export your excess electricity to the grid and earn an additional 4.6p/kWh. ( http://www.hanergy.co.uk/why-solar/feed-in-tariff )
It does if you factor in the extremely expensive, yet largely unaccounted for, costs associated with generating electricity from coal.
It looks to me that coal is one of the cheapest forms of generating electricity there currently is. [1]