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

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

#291

Post by rwmj »

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…

Here's another more mass audience article about these plug-in solar panels: https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/plug-in-solar-to-become...

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

#292

Post by nutjob2 »

LunaSea wrote: post #178
mbgerring wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not weird if you’ve been participating in discussions on clean energy since the beginning of this century. The inevitability of the energy transition has been obvious for so long, and even when it’s done there will be cranks insisting that it’ll never work.

I like the transition to renewables , but there is nothing inevitable about it. We don't produce solar panels or have the materials to produce them in Europe. So we're just as dependent on imports as before.

Your comment makes no sense. If the Middle Eat oil gets cut off, you're suffering within days. If China cuts off solar panels, you have many plenty of time to find an alternative source or ramp up your own production.

If you chase down all inputs into everything you need to generate power you will find you're not truly independent from anyone. But solar panels and various other renewables hardware is much easier to stockpile than oil.

> but there is nothing inevitable about it

The Middle East is not going back to normal any time soon. The Israeli/US attack on Iran is a strategic catastrophe, implemented by two felons advised by ideologues and incompetents. The conditions are right to make oil more expensive for a long time, regardless of the outcome of the war. True peace is very unlikely to never be achieved. For instance: Iran now has a massive incentive to build nukes.

Meanwhile solar panel, wind farm, and battery prices are dropping like a rock and they avoid all of the problems of oil. Only the most ideologically fixated wouldn't invest in and install renewables. Anything that makes huge amounts of money is indeed inevitable.

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

#293

Post by michaelt »

teo_zero wrote: post #271
aaronmdjones wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between the phasing out of analog meters (the latter half of the last century) and the introduction of smart meters (2010), a lot of electronic prepayment meters produced for the UK market would set a tamper flag if they detected power flowing backwards through them, as a proxy indication of an attempt at electricity theft. These meters will refuse top-ups in this condition, requiring you to contact your energy suppl…

Why would power flowing out of my house into the grid be a theft?

The kind of meters we used to install 50 years ago would turn backwards if electricity flowed backwards.

So if you spent a week with the meter connected normally, then you swapped the input and output cables around for a week, the meter would be back at zero. Free electricity!

They used anti-tamper seals to make it more detectable, but there are ways around that sort of thing.

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

#294

Post by formerly_proven »

fy20 wrote: post #223
formerly_proven wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

These are not just circuit breakers/MCBs, they are RCBOs which combine an MCB + RCD in a single unit. RCDs traditionally only measure - and protect - current flow is one direction, so if you are using them for solar you need a bi-directional unit for full protection. The device will not be damaged, it just won't protect you. However in the case of a UK home, where you may have a single ring circuit connecting all the…

Outside the UK, neither RCDs nor RCBOs (type A/AC) are generally distinguished by bidirectionality (all search results about this being .co.uk), since the RCD part of these devices is just a current transformer driving a trip solenoid; there is nothing in it that's powered by the line, nor something which could sense net power flow direction. The situation is different for AFDDs or type B RCDs, since those have active, powered electronics in them which need to be fed from the line side.

After some research the main reason seems to be two-fold:

Answer #1: Many UK RCDs/RCBOs are actually single-pole devices and don't disconnect the neutral. In the simplest case, this means pressing the test button might burn out the test resistor when backfed. I don't imagine this to be a problem in practice, since grid-tie inverters shut down very quickly if the grid disappears under them, especially plug-in inverters. RCDs/RCBOs elsewhere are virtually always disconnecting the neutral, so don't care about this.

Answer #2: It looks like some/many one-module wide UK RCBOs _do have_ electronics in them, even if type A, because they're actively driving the trip solenoid of the MCB part, and if you sketch this out and do it in a very cheap way it's easy to see how you could burn that out if backfed (i.e. powering the trip solenoid during a fault is assumed to disconnect in a very short amount of time, but if backfed for longer than the disconnect time that might be enough to toast the solenoid or the driver).

Notably neither of these has anything to do with the direction of power flow.

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

#295

Post by Gasp0de »

I live in Germany, installed a micro solar system in September 2024. Since then, we've been producing 45% of our electricity consumption ourselves. This has saved us 550€, while the initial cost was around 800€. So this September, after 2 years, the system will have paid for itself.

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

#296

Post by skippyboxedhero »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #213
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK also has massive subsidies. I know someone who got a government subsidy, the company didn't complete the job, got paid for the government for the full job, and they calculated the payback was 50+ years. At this point, I do not understand how anyone can possibly believe that the people advocating for this stuff are thinking in terms of economic (as opposed to political or social) returns. This stuff makes no econom…

I can't speak for the UK, but ... I did my own install of a 6.7kW ground-mount array. The materials cost me about US$12k. That meant just 7-10 years until payback. Sure, I saved on labo(u)r costs, often the most expensive part of the work, but the overall point remains ... it absolutely makes sense, at least in the "right" parts of the planet.

It isn't just the "right" parts. Yes, the UK has less sun but ground mount is not happening in the UK because average dwelling size is so mall. So typically installed on roof of much smaller properties which costs significantly more for far less solar panel. Detached homes are also rarer than the US because of the issues with supply of almost all goods/services in the UK so there are more issues with tree cover. And, of course, almost all the marginal demand for solar panel is through government subsidies which adds even more cost.

Guy I spoke about above lives in a part of the UK with less sunlight, there was extensive tree cover around his property, and the job was done incorrectly (but full subsidy paid). As I said, there is wilful corruption and, therefore, it is impossible to engage with this subject on the basis of rational economic thought. Companies receiving the subsidies pretend to be doing work and politicians pretend the companies are saving the environment.

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

#297

Post by adrianN »

yawaramin wrote: post #245
ericd wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's aluminum, glass, silicon, and some conductive metal. Surely you all have those materials. And even if you don't make them yourselves, they aren't make and then burn like fossil fuels, they are durable infrastructure, you don't have to replace them often - they have an expected lifespan of >30 years. Buy as many as China will sell you, and once you have more than enough installed, you're good for a long time, reg…

> expected lifespan of >30 years More like > I think being reliant on the fossil fuel supply chain for so long France isn't. And they are net exporting their (nuclear fission) electricity to their neighbours who shut down nuclear power plants.

Panels you buy today come with 20 year warranties.

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

#298

Post by brabel »

lpcvoid wrote: post #256
yawaramin wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> expected lifespan of >30 years More like > I think being reliant on the fossil fuel supply chain for so long France isn't. And they are net exporting their (nuclear fission) electricity to their neighbours who shut down nuclear power plants.

Yes, and France currently has a huge problem with keeping their plants online in the summer when it's too warm. And building new plants is outrageously expensive, see Hinkley Point C. Oh, ans you still need to import fission material, so you're dependent again on other countries. Nuclear was good in the 70s, now it's beaten thoroughly by renewables.

The Swedish government is very pro renewables, yet it is initiating large investments in nuclear because they believe it is the only way to ensure enough electricity for the larger and larger need for it in the near future. I’d say they have some good information to base that decision on, since you’re right it’s really expensive, but also it’s the only way to get large amounts of production when the sun ain’t shining (all winter here) and there’s no wind (also happens a lot in the colder months).

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

#299

Post by mmlkrx »

Gasp0de wrote: post #295

I live in Germany, installed a micro solar system in September 2024. Since then, we've been producing 45% of our electricity consumption ourselves. This has saved us 550€, while the initial cost was around 800€. So this September, after 2 years, the system will have paid for itself.

Could you provide more details? 800 Euros sounds very cheap while being able to produce 45% of your electricity needs. Did you mount it on your roof or a balcony or wall? How much power does it produce? Very curious to hear more details or even recommendations (I too live in Germany).

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

#300

Post by adjejmxbdjdn »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #14
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…

I find it fascinating how this comment comes up with a whole theory of what happened, along with implications about how the government, and Ed Miliband in particular, think and act, and it’s based entirely on just dreaming up what the facts are, when in reality the facts can be looked up trivially, including the fact that this was in the manifesto, or other facts that are known by anyone who has any knowledge about how govt (especially the UK govt that is designed to be conservative and slow moving) works.

Like you just invented a story and made massive implications based on the invented story, with absolutely no hesitation. And you’re probably in at least the 50th percentile of intelligence.

This is why we’re screwed.

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