Conservatives:voters and professional politicians

There are a lot of things people will have to accept if they don't want future generations of their children and grandchildren to perish.

Katie59

MerylStreep

Kate59
With respect I don’t need educating on solar/ wind power.
We lived off grid for 20 years on this boat.
The wheelhouse roof is covered with solar panels. Two wind generators were on our landing stage at our mooring.

Well done living off grid but it’s not going to become widespread in the UK. Solar thermal is only useful where sunshine is abundant, now that solar voltaic is available it’s much more use in climates like the UK.

However, too much Solar is proving difficult to control at domestic level the voltage being fed to the grid is overloading local infrastructure. Solar farms too are having to be limited because of grid capacity.

I think you may be getting confused with the main types of solar panels. Solar Thermal are solar panels which give out heat for heating, hot water and of course heat storage. Solar Photo Voltaic (the most common) are solar panels for providing electricity.

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MaizieD

If the solar panels are producing more than the house is using the rest is fed back to the grid. It isn't wasted. It doesn't overload the grid... It can even cover the extra electricity being used in your workplace.

You say that the extra voltage is overloading the local infrastructure. What is your evidence for that statement?

The grid voltage is being reported as over 250v risking damage to equipment locally, it should be 240v, the likely remedy is that batteries will be needed in some situations.

We have Solar with a battery with cooking lunch and washing machine we have used 20kwh today only 2kw from the grid. It’s been sunny today, a couple of days last week only 5kw Solar was available the house used 9kw so 4kw from grid.

If the solar panels are producing more than the house is using the rest is fed back to the grid. It isn't wasted. It doesn't overload the grid... It can even cover the extra electricity being used in your workplace.

You say that the extra voltage is overloading the local infrastructure. What is your evidence for that statement?

When the house is empty in the afternoon there is only frigdge maybe boiler, device charger and other stuff on standby, at work you will be using much more power. Whereas if you stayed at home you may have some lights on or maybe boil a kettle, very little extra.
My point was your solar panels could easily be producing 4kw, more than 10 times the house was on a sunny afternoon

When nobody goes to work they don’t use electricity in the workplace, sorry but I thought that was a concept that was understood easily.

Katie59

MaizieD

This abstract points out that demand for electricity fell during lockdowns (when almost everyone was at home)

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abf876

Yes because there were no offices or industry working the average home uses very little electricity during the afternoon. Octopus tell me that mine is about 200 watts the peak is around 5pm when solar is reducing, its this imbalance that’s the problem.
Fitting a battery would even the supply out, at present only a small proportion have solar storage, there are incentives to fit a battery and prices are falling so it is an economic option.

But Katie59. You just told us with apparent great authority, that electricity usage falls when people go to work.

So, when I post evidence that in fact it fell when people weren't going to work, you basically say the opposite...

You cannot have it both ways.

MaizieD

This abstract points out that demand for electricity fell during lockdowns (when almost everyone was at home)

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abf876

Yes because there were no offices or industry working the average home uses very little electricity during the afternoon. Octopus tell me that mine is about 200 watts the peak is around 5pm when solar is reducing, its this imbalance that’s the problem.
Fitting a battery would even the supply out, at present only a small proportion have solar storage, there are incentives to fit a battery and prices are falling so it is an economic option.

This abstract points out that demand for electricity fell during lockdowns (when almost everyone was at home)

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abf876

If you can imagine a sunny day mid week everybody at work nobody using power. It has to go somewhere but it can’t.

Can you back that statement up with some academic/scientific evidence, Katie59? Because, otherwise it sounds a bit nonsensical...

For a start, a large percentage of the population won't be at work....

From Statista

There were over 32.8 million people employed in the United Kingdom in the three months to July 2023

Which is fewer than 50%....

Most work places use more electricity during working hours...

It would be interesting to see how electricity usage fared during lockdown. Higher, lower, or, the same?

However, too much Solar is proving difficult to control at domestic level the voltage being fed to the grid is overloading local infrastructure. Solar farms too are having to be limited because of grid capacity.

I've understood that quite differently, Katie59.

It's not a question of 'too much' solar, so much as the failure of the privatised National Grid to provide the infrastructure (i.e connectors/connections) needed to feed the solar and wind generated electricity into the national grid.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65500339

Yep, I understand, thanks Katie.

maddyone

Thanks ronib. I was confused about the solar panels and then mentioning nice conservatives. A bit of sarcasm then I presume.
I wasn’t aware that solar panels were causing overloading of the grid at local level.
The side of the house we mostly live in is very well heated by the sun, as it is today. We haven’t got solar panels but we have a lot of windows and the house is warm even in winter so long as the sun shines.

If you can imagine a sunny day mid week everybody at work nobody using power. It has to go somewhere but it can’t.

Thanks ronib. I was confused about the solar panels and then mentioning nice conservatives. A bit of sarcasm then I presume.
I wasn’t aware that solar panels were causing overloading of the grid at local level.
The side of the house we mostly live in is very well heated by the sun, as it is today. We haven’t got solar panels but we have a lot of windows and the house is warm even in winter so long as the sun shines.

I'd rather have solar panels and wind turbines than more nuclear power stations.

MerylStreep

Kate59
With respect I don’t need educating on solar/ wind power.
We lived off grid for 20 years on this boat.
The wheelhouse roof is covered with solar panels. Two wind generators were on our landing stage at our mooring.

Well done living off grid but it’s not going to become widespread in the UK. Solar thermal is only useful where sunshine is abundant, now that solar voltaic is available it’s much more use in climates like the UK.

However, too much Solar is proving difficult to control at domestic level the voltage being fed to the grid is overloading local infrastructure. Solar farms too are having to be limited because of grid capacity.

Kate59
With respect I don’t need educating on solar/ wind power.
We lived off grid for 20 years on this boat.
The wheelhouse roof is covered with solar panels. Two wind generators were on our landing stage at our mooring.

Solar farms aren't a threat to food production, the area being planted with environmental schemes is a significant threat, probably more than 100 times more than Solar.

Every acre of environmental means an acre of imports, it’s a balance that any government has to make, feeding the population is quite important!.

maddyone I was having a senior moment and thought you meant something else…. I think the point of this O/P is that Rishi Sunak is concerned with ‘food security’ and therefore thinks that farmland should be protected and not be used for additional solar energy production.

My preference would be for solar panels to go on top of buildings where possible.
I am a bit surprised that actual solar panels don’t seem to have a very long life span and wonder what plans exist to recycle them in due course?

As well as protecting farmland , oil exploration/drilling is now going ahead. Or something like that ….. About 40 years ago, tidal power was thought to have potential too and don’t know how that is going.

Original post?

I must have lost the plot, but I don’t understand what is meant by the OP.
Maybe I’m naive.

MerylStreep

We’ve driven past this Solar panel farm in Spain many times.
We park up, have lunch and just take in the the sight. The light coming from the top of the tower is breathtaking.

These are solar thermal plants using mirrors to focus the suns rays to heat water to drive a turbine, if birds fly through the focused beams they get fried.

We’ve driven past this Solar panel farm in Spain many times.
We park up, have lunch and just take in the the sight. The light coming from the top of the tower is breathtaking.