Britain Opens Its First Subsidy-Free Solar Power Farm (reuters.com) 117
AmiMoJo quotes Reuters: Britain's first solar power farm to operate without a government subsidy is due to open in eastern England on Tuesday, as a sharp fall in costs has made renewable energy much more economical. Britain needs to invest in new energy capacity to replace aging coal and nuclear plants that are due to close in the 2020s. But it is also trying to reduce subsidies on renewable power generation... The 10 megawatt (MW) solar farm, in Clayhill, Bedfordshire, can generate enough electricity to power around 2,500 homes and also has a 6 MW battery storage facility on site.
Whatever (Score:1)
It is still subsidized.
You are uninformed.
But while the rest of the World forges ahead with renewable energy - China is in the lead - we are staying behind because of the misguided policies of Trump and his fetish for Coal - and his removing important environmental controls that prohibited the Coal industry from poisoning water and destroying fisheries. And the Republicans who have been bought and paid for by the Coal industry have made sure that they have a nice cushy ride.
So, spare us with the argument that Solar is subsidized
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Re:Whatever (Score:5, Informative)
You should not uncritically believe the NY Times:
https://unearthed.greenpeace.o... [greenpeace.org]
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I'm "planning" to fly to the moon next Tuesday, doesn't mean it will happen. And as China stopped approving new coal plants a year ago, the cancellation rate has increased dramatically.
Also, "700+" new coal plants would create a vast oversupply in China. It would be a huge crisis.
Also, all new nuclear plants in China have been cancelled, the only ones getting built are ones that were started before 2012.
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You didn't notice that China is actually suspending [nytimes.com] those coal plant build-outs, and if they are keeping some, it's only to retire older, dirtier plants sooner?
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Except for 700+ more [nytimes.com], that is...
Nope. You should learn to read better, your own article points out that those aren't even in China.
Mostly because the Chinese know they can't keep burning coal at home, but have a lot invested in power plant construction...which is also failing, especially the nuclear ones.
Odds are, they won't get built.
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China cancels 103 coal power plants
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... [nytimes.com]
https://www.sciencealert.com/t... [sciencealert.com]
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China is also the largest builder of new coal plants... Just sayin...
Per capita, China consumes half as much coal as America.
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The scrubing of a lignite fired coal plant works exactly the same as a hard coal fired plant.
And please assure us that mixed up Bitumen with hard coal.
Otherwise your statement makes no sense at all, as Bitumen is probably the worst fuel thinkable after burning sulfur.
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Yea and the cool thing is on a good day is you can't even see the coal plants from a half a mile away because the pollution hides them. On a bad day, it's best not to go outside at all.
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This is one of those products not yet ready for the mainstream. It therefore "can't survive without government subsidies.*"
*e.g. throw public money at it, and you will end with the public trillions in debt, the project will take longer than desired, and so much market INEFFICIENCY was added that you would have gotten the same results at the same time never subsidizing it to begin with.
I agree that subsidizing Hinckley Point C, already $2 Billion USD over budget and projected to be late, is a very bad idea
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Hinckley C will receive a subsidy to 92.50 pounds/MWh. (Plus increases for inflation... no power expected for another 8 years)
New unsubsidized wind power in the UK comes in at 47 pounds/MWh... available today.
Do the math
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I'll wager the 8 year figure will end up being nearer 18 too
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It is still subsidized.
The article, unfortunately is not specific enough to know. From the wording chose by the owner "subsidy free development", it appears there were no subsidies provided to construct the facility. But there may still be subsidies or other incentives on power purchased from it. I wish these journalists would get all the facts, rather than leave us all to assumption.
Hidden subsidies (Score:2)
The solar panels aren't subsidized. But they're not the primary purpose of the project anyway. [principia-scientific.org]
This is a load balancing project, needed because existing wind and solar generation fluctuates so much. The real money here is in the battery storage, which will be charged from the grid and is only needed because of subsidized solar and wind generation generation projects elsewhere.
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The solar panels aren't subsidized. But they're not the primary purpose of the project anyway. [principia-scientific.org]
This is a load balancing project, needed because existing wind and solar generation fluctuates so much. The real money here is in the battery storage, which will be charged from the grid and is only needed because of subsidized solar and wind generation generation projects elsewhere.
Thanks for getting to the real facts of the matter. The hype machine will roll on regardless.
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Quiet, you heathens!
This is Green Progress(TM)!!
Why do you hate civilization, cute little animals, and the
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What has that to do with 'hype'?
A 10MW plant with a 6MW storage obviously is a balancing power plant, facepalm.
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This is a solar plant which doesn't need subsidies. Why are you so angry about this?
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awesome! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another nail in the coffin of fossil fuels. The sooner oil producing terrorist sponsoring states go broke, the better for our security - Saudi Arabia.
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Yet another nail in the coffin of fossil fuels. The sooner oil producing terrorist sponsoring states go broke, the better for our security - Saudi Arabia.
Many of those states will be able to take advantage of cheap solar, too, including solar thermal which the UK can't utilize efficiently or reliably.
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No idea if you attempt to be funny.
The typical way to export electricity is called a wire, or a cable.
Re: awesome! (Score:2)
In Europe we have these things called cables which can be used to transfer electricity between countries, even between the UK and the continent.
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Interesting idea - convert the oil tankers to carry charged batteries instead... I wonder what the MWh rating of a super tanker fully loaded with such storage would be.
Dock it in a port and offload the power to the local grid over a period of time (or use it to recharge other stored energy systems, such as pumped storage), then send it back for charging.
Re: awesome! (Score:1)
You can already buy containerized batteries [kokam.com]: 2.6MWh per 40 foot container.
The biggest ships can carry 10,000 of them which could provide 100MW for 10 days but would it be possible to persuade a crew and an insurance company that it's fine to sail around with a ship full of charged lithium ion batteries?
Given safer technology it's a great idea. Does your grid need a top up? We'll send a tanker. Charge your batteries where and when electricity is cheap then sail somewhere where it's expensive.
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Crews already man ships filled with liquid petroleum gas, which is much more dangerous than Li-ion if shit were to go south...
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Britain has seriously been considering buying power from Iceland via underwater cables, Saudi Arabia could indeed export power to Europe. We are building more lines to Norway (might be finished now).
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Ever been to Poland?
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Yes, but we won't be giving them billions of dollars each year for oil any more.
Huge wealth drives odd behavior. In this case, saudi princes having hundreds of millions of dollars to toss around on violent strains of islam. And to support the saudi royal family by buying peace from it's citizens.
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The sooner oil producing terrorist sponsoring states go broke, the better for our security - Saudi Arabia.
Oil is used for transportation, not generating electricity.
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Fully electric commerical passenger plains are projected in under 20 years.
Fully electric small passenger plains already exist.
You'll only need jet fuel for the longest flights... and you can use biofuel for that. Oil only makes sense when it is cheaper than biofuels. As oil loses it's network effects, volume cost savings, and trillion dollar security subsidies (who's going to go to war over oil if it ceases to be a military resource and isn't used by passenger vehicles), it will become more expensive.
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Do you ever fly? What do you suggest other than petroleum-based fuel?
Biofuels work fine in jet engines [ge.com].
Scramjets [wikipedia.org] run on hydrogen.
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run on hydrogen
Hydrogen is not an energy source, it is only a means to store and transport energy. Petroleum is an energy source that also happens to be much easier to store and transport than hydrogen. We are not getting rid of petroleum until we figure out how to make fuel that is cheaper to produce than petroleum, and is just as easy to store and transport.
We can solve the problems of energy storage and transport by synthesizing hydrocarbons, since petroleum is just a mix of hydrocarbons that's a solved problem. We'
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Just another reason to get rid of it.
Sure, we should phase out oil. But this solar plant has nothing to do with that.
Phasing out oil requires better* car batteries, not better solar panels.
*better = cheaper, lighter, more capacity, faster charging. But especially cheaper.
2 MW of storage? (Score:1)
My bike can also store 30 km/h of speed.
Meh, folks.
Re:2 MW of storage? (Score:4, Funny)
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Could have sworn I fixed that (the mistake is in TFA), but at least we got a chuckle out of it.
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My bike can also store 30 km/h of speed.
Meh, folks.
Typical misunderstanding of the difference between energy and energy capacity and production by reporters, and the /. author.
BTW, irradiance in this region is on par with Germany, where average solar capacity factor is around 10% nationally. They are pretty much useless in the winter, but do OK in the summer.
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To be fair, the linked article makes the same, very basic mistake.
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Strange that the days with highest solar and wind contribution (nearly 100%) where in January days in Germany then.
Hint: most of the winter is grey clouds.
But at sunny days the difference between summer and winter is marginal, it is only the length of the day. So only the low ends of the cosinus curve are cut off.
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Strange that the days with highest solar and wind contribution (nearly 100%) where in January days in Germany then.
Well, I spoke only of solar, which is the topic, not wind. So those days are almost 100% wind contribution. But the highest contribution days are typically Sundays with moderate weather and very low demand and high wind.
Not sure why you think it is strange.
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Those days actually where solar contributions.
Several days in the row (over late Christmas to early january) we had the highest percentage of power covered by solar. However: those were holidays, so peak is to 60%?of what we have on busy workdays.
Point is: it is more a question of cloud coverage than latitude.
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Point is: it is more a question of cloud coverage than latitude.
Its both, and snow, fog, etc, but that's why I looked at solar insolation charts to make the comparison.
Cost comparison (Score:4, Informative)
10 MW * 0.097 capacity factor [wikipedia.org] = 970 kW
970 kW / 2500 homes = 388 Watts per home
Average UK home annual consumption [ovoenergy.com] is 3940 kWh
3940 kWh / 1 year = 450 Watts average consumption.
So their "homes powered" metric is fairly close to accurate (2150 homes would be exact). We'll go with the exact 450 Watts per home figure.
To put this in perspective, the proposed Hinkley C nuclear plant [carbonbrief.org] would have a 3.2 GW capacity. Using the 90% capacity factor for newer nuclear reactors, this would give an actual generation of 2.88 GW, or enough to power 6.4 million homes.
At a construction cost of 24.5 billion GBP (the UK has some of the most expensive nuclear in the world), this works out to 3828 GBP per home powered.
If you run the same calculation using the 70% capacity factor for the UK's older nuclear plants [wikipedia.org] over the last 5 years, it works out to 2.24 GW. Enough to power 5 million homes at 4900 GBP per home powered.
Unfortunately none of the news reports on this new solar farm that I was able to find mention its cost. This site [solarmango.com] estimates a utility-scale solar installation in the UK costs about 1.1 GBP per Watt. That works out to 11 million GBP / 2150 homes = 5116 GBP per home powered. But it doesn't include the cost of the 6 MW battery.
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Re:Cost comparison (Score:5, Informative)
The 24 billion for Hinkley is, I think, construction costs. The lifetime costs vary depending on who you ask, of course, but 35+billion. And, of course, Hinkley is already significantly over budget. Given that the decommissioning costs have only ever gone up, twice the price doesn't seem so far off.
And, of course, Hinkley C is in one place -- so you have to distribute the power to 6 million people over a wide area. WIth solar, this is less true -- you can site it in many places often more locally, so it might well be more stable than nuclear. Although the grid is currently designed for nuclear type power with most generation at few locations.
Conclusion -- the headline figure is just that -- a headline. The actual costs are very, very difficult to estimate. Having solar in the UK (the UK!) being somewhat mroe expensive or somewhat less expensive than nuclear is, indeed, big news. Especially as nuclear is second or third generation. Move this equation to Texas, or Brazil, or anywhere sunnier than the UK, and the figures change again,
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One can assume that the british electric plant will produce power at a competitive rate.
https://www.theecoexperts.co.u... [theecoexperts.co.uk]
So 9-17p/kwh (avg 13.37 p/kwh).
Nuclear works out to about the same cost of electricity.
Nuclear plants are notorious for underestimating decommissioning costs AND for collecting profits during lifecycle and then dumping those decommissioning costs on the public by going bankrupt/"selling" the plant to a fake company which then goes bankrupt. (one plant had estimated decommissioning costs
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There is an additional cost to nuclear - the need for large amounts of excess capacity.
Nuclear isn't good for ramping up/down its output to follow load. It's also a huge single point of failure - Hinkley C is rated for 3.2GW, so a single emergency situation can instantly take that amount out of the grid. Thus you need significant amounts of power on standby to kick in quickly if something happens, or you face brown-outs and controlled black-outs.
Because solar is distributed and battery backed, single failur
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Given sufficient battery power, solar is also stable.
How much do the batteries cost? If solar is merely "competitive" without the batteries then what happens when the cost of the batteries is added? I doubt the batteries cost nothing to build and maintain.
The failure cost of a solar plant does not include losing the use of 525+ square miles of prime real estate for a few centuries.
No, the success of a solar plant means losing large tracts of prime real estate for the life of the plant, and then some. The failure of the solar plant means we get the land back. I'm not sure this is a good argument to make.
Comparing nuclear power plant designs from the 1970s to those of today is like
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Your point on batteries is a good one. Batteries do not last as long as solar panels and maintenance and replacement do need to be included in the cost estimates.
The amounts of real estate required by solar are a rounding error compared to the land we've lost from nuclear accidents.
I've been following solar for a couple decades now. It is continuously dropping in cost while also increasing in capacity. Likewise, battery technology is now constantly dropping in cost while also increasing in capacity.
In ea
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Oh, and I left off that Coal Mines pollute huge areas with mercury and other airborne toxins. Only last year did older plants finally have to start refitting to modern standards.
I'm not against nuclear power per se. We just have a bad record with it due to human nature.
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And look at Fukushima how costly a decommissioning could turn out to be...
So, because a 50 year old reactor design was hit by a once in 500 years tsunami in Japan means we can't build a new reactor in North Dakota? I guess if we wait until the sea levels rise high enough before turning to nuclear power then we might have to worry about sea water flooding a nuclear reactor outside of Fargo. Maybe we should build some nuclear reactors before that happens. Just an idea.
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Re:Cost comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you fail to read the article? Or do you simply not know how the electricity market works in the UK?
Either way, I suggest that you don't bother posting when you don't have the facts at hand.
In this case, the installation is "subsidy free", which means that it must compete with other sources to sell electricity into the grid. You might also note that UK-produced nuclear power is heavily subsidized.
https://www.ft.com/content/b8e... [ft.com]
Re:Cost comparison (Score:5, Informative)
You forgot to factor the massive subsidy that nuclear gets. Hinckley is guaranteed massive subsidies for life, while this wind farm is subsidy free.
Including subsidy the cost of Hinkly C is expected to be around £37bn, which is just under 6000 GBP per household. That's assuming it comes in on budget, which is unlikely to say the least.
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The only challenge is that winter months you get 25% of the output compared to summer with a fixed array (16% with a 2-axis tracker). I would expect winter demand is also significantly higher than summer-- likely at least 50% higher if you aren't using electric heat.
This makes solar a good part of your power mix-- up to about 10% of winter demand or 50% of summer demand-- but you need other sources. Wind obviously can make a good dent as well-- annual profile is pretty flat and reliable so 50% of a diverse
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Your calculation would be more accurate and comprehensive for a layman if you would look up the geographic location of the solar plant and the sun hours per year.
Self invented CFs help no one and make calculations more or less meaningless.
E.g. 388 watt per home ... when exactly should that happen?
if the only thing in my home runnning is the fridge (computer off, light off, probably I'm away) it draws 1.2kW. Of course it only does that for 10 minutes once an hour.
CFs are completely meaningless for calculatio
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Or buy a new fridge.
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A fridge draws about 1kW when it is actually cooling.
That is how ever not 1kWh over the course of an hour.
Either I explained wrong or you missed the difference between kW and kWh.
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Usually these renewable reports are grossly exaggerated to make it seem like renewable is more capable than it really is. But this one is actually fairly accurate. 10 MW * 0.097 capacity factor [wikipedia.org] = 970 kW 970 kW / 2500 homes = 388 Watts per home Average UK home annual consumption [ovoenergy.com] is 3940 kWh 3940 kWh / 1 year = 450 Watts average consumption.
A 6 MW facility, when operating at 100%, will feed the 4 KW average demand of about 2500 homes. With a .097 CF, this demand will be met an average of 10% of the time, but since output is actually variable, the equivalent of 10% of the time. So the remaining 90% of demand from those homes must be provided by another source.
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Another interesting comparison* would be with the proposed Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon [tidallagoonpower.com].
If only the UK government would pull their fingers out of their collective arses and give it the final go-ahead.
*In brief: Construction costs £1.3 billion; Estimated lifespan (tbh I'm a tad skeptical of this figure) 120 years; 'Capacity' of 320 MW (which they estimate to provide power for 155,000 homes - think it's more like 60,000 based on your calculations).
Sometimes I wonder at the priorities of those in government,
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If only the UK government would pull their fingers out of their collective arses and give it the final go-ahead.
They can't, the nuclear-industrial complex would make sure they'd never be re-elected.
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They can't, the nuclear-industrial complex would make sure they'd never be re-elected.
Are the politicians more concerned about getting votes than saving the planet? Sounds like we need to vote them out.
The nuclear industry doesn't elect people, voters do.
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Clearly this is the first nuclear power plant to have:
- no maintenance costs
- no operating costs
- no fuel costs
- no reprocessing costs
- no decommissioning costs
Hinckley Point required an index linked, guaranteed price twice the spot price. It will never achieve 90% uptime, because real nuclear power plants never achieve more than 80% over their lifetime.
I don't know if this solar plant will ever earn its owners a return above their cost of capital, and I don't really care.
But I can guarantee you that this p
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Elon Musk is almost ready to provide the bulk of the solar cells and batteries needed for a full conversion to solar electricity.
Re: "6MW storage" (Score:2)
Ignorant writers (Score:2)
The 10 megawatt (MW) solar farm, in Clayhill, Bedfordshire, can generate enough electricity to power around 2,500 homes and also has a 6 MW battery storage facility on site.
Well I have a AA battery that's over 6 gigawatts. ...that is will store more than 6 gigawatt-microseconds of energy
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It said it can store energy equal to 6MW. but a MW is not a measure of energy and I in my post I misused it exactly the same way the summary did.
As for your request to about a 2000W electric kettle, why don't you google supercaps. You should be able to run the kettle off a few dollars worth of capacitor bank. For a few seconds.
I use photographic camera flashes that do use about 6MW of power. An
But it's got to be subsidized!!! (Score:3)
Just skimming the newest responses, I see that. And don't forget, the pollution creating them causes *more* than 20 years of not requiring any fuel other than the sun.
Yep.
You suckers. A century ago, I can see the daily dot: these car things are just a fad, and they're only for rich folks, and where would you drive them, anyway....?