Solar PV Success Story - The Cowing family, Greasby

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[Prophet2520]

Although our array was designed to generate 30% of our electricity requirements, we are pleased to report that in reality it generates more than that and on very sunny days, we become a net exporter of clean green electricity.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Is it true that it takes far more energy to manufacture a photovoltaic cell than it will ever produce?

I know it used to be. But then, "ever" is a long time.

[Prophet2520]

“Coal (or rather coal users) PAY FOR THEIR SUBSIDIES:”

HA HA HA yeah in taxes

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Federal_coal_subsidies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies
http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/13/463874/top-three-ways-that-american-taxpayers-subsidize-dirty-coal-development/

[DariusBane]

I would rather have a coal/wood fired boiler and steam turbine in my back yard than solar panels.

[Prophet2520]

“Can you provide a source on the amount and nature of the subsidies to different sources of energy generation? “

This is the leading source about tax and other incentives.
http://www.dsireusa.org/

Be aware that while geothermal is extremely efficient, it usually has a very high initial cost, and it is a moving parts system, whereas most PV has no moving parts. If you are just looking at it to provide space conditioning, you may want to get some information on how your particular building may be able to be improved through passive solar, insulation, envelope tightening etc.

[CatherineofAragon]

"It is very tiring to hear the constant whine from anti solar people too ignorant to realize that COAL is far more subsidized than solar has ever been. If conventional central powers true cost was charged directly to you, you would run screaming for solar at any cost."

Ignorance, hm? You know, it's funny...I haven't been here that long, but when I started posting I had enough basic courtesy not to do so in an insulting manner.

You, on the other hand, seem to have no problem making your negative opinion of this site known. You've said that Freepers often make fools of themselves, and that if you were a person considering becoming a conservative, Free Republic would send you screaming in the other direction.

Your short posting history reveals a habit of mocking Free Republic and its posters.

Other folks have called you on your newbie attitude, but you've implied you're really not so new. So are you a retread?

[DariusBane]

No. Utilities still have to provide a base of production capacity. Solar and wind cannot provide that due to the transient nature of wind and sunlight.

[Paladin2]

You can (and probably should) have both.

[mrsmith]

here’s a fairly reasonable comparison to use instead of the nonsense you posted:
http://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/

Notice the subsidies are about the same for coal and solar.
But coal pays taxes to the feds and the states.
There is no tax on solar.

State subsidies increase the solar subsidy load significantly.

If you don’t want to sound like a mindless “true believer” then don’t. There are positive points a reasonable person can make for solar, even PV.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Wrong. Show the productivity (efficiency) of panels over time: They lose their nameplate rating quickly, then continue declining over time but at a slower rate.

[Prophet2520]

“Ignorance, hm? You know, it’s funny...I haven’t been here that long, but when I started posting I had enough basic courtesy not to do so in an insulting manner.”

There are many freepers with good sensible attitudes. Unfortunately some of the most vocal seldom offer any real content just insults and one liners. I endeavor to add real content. I frequently post link to sources of factual information. Further declaring someone ignorant in an area should not be considered an insult. I, and everyone else are ignorant in some areas. I generally try to keep quiet in areas I am ignorant, though.

“You’ve said that Freepers often make fools of themselves”
That was specifically in regard to ebola, and is simply a fact. People predicting a 100 US ebola cases by thanksgiving, and that the people on the planes with Duncan and the nurse, or in the bowling alley would get ebola. NONE! It is just facts. Maybe you don’t like that, but it is fact. What do you think a liberal should think when reading a site with so many voluminous but unfounded statements like those that were made about ebola?

“Other folks have called you on your newbie attitude, but you’ve implied you’re really not so new. So are you a retread?”

I usually don’t have the time to spend much time here. My work right now is allowing some time, and it did in the past. However I tried for quite a while to figure out what my previous login was and could not figure it out so I created a new one. I find it funny how much importance some freepers place on how long you have been posting at FR. It is as if, you cannot have a valid argument in anything if you have not been posting in FR for years.

Newbie attitude?! Maybe you have glossed over the prolific stream of insults that comes from a large number of vocal freepers.

Lets review posts to this thread out of 45 replies 19 were negative many rudely so, and only one of those actually provided any meaningful info. There were only two positive comments. The rest were either neutral or questions and answers.

I provide a positive story of a happy family’s results with solar, offered four posts with links to data, and another with direct suggestion to a freeper’s solar site problem. If you want to think I am evil after posting all that positive real information, while the negative reigns down go ahead. The very small percentage of my posts that were negative were only responses to negative posts with inaccurate information.

[Prophet2520]

Thanks for the link, even if you present it with insults and bias, and apparently didn’t read much of the other info.

“Notice the subsidies are about the same for coal and solar.”

At least now you are seeing that solar help by the federal government is not worse than coal, so don’t treat it differently.

“State subsidies increase the solar subsidy load significantly.”

The link you provided is only for federal subsidies. To make that statement you would need to prove there have been no state subsidies for coal, which is ridiculous.

Also, what you seem to be forgetting is history. That link may give some numbers for 2010, but the entire coal industry, electric industry, the power grid and everything has been subsidized for like a hundred years. It would be one thing if all the subsidies for central power had stopped 70 years ago once the power grid was established, but NOT.

[Prophet2520]

One thing that should be realized is one of the huge costs in power plants is designing for peak capacity. The plants have to be made MUCH larger than the normal amount of electricity they need to provide, because they also need to provide power at peak demand which is much higher. Power companies are beginning to realize that grid scale energy storage may actually save them money without even considering alternative energy, because a plant can be designed smaller with the storage providing the limited duration peak power. Then when you factor in wind, and solar, it changes the whole picture.

Solar often produces the most during peak demand anyway. Those wicked hot spells where the sun is blazing down and everyone turns on their air conditioners, are solar heaven.

[Prophet2520]

“A useful life of 12 to 14 years is about maximum.” “Wrong. Show the productivity (efficiency) of panels over time: They lose their nameplate rating quickly, then continue declining over time but at a slower rate.”

Most production rates are warrantied for 20 years. So if what you say is true that is fantastic, because you get a complete refund and received 15 years of power for free.

reposted from another thread regarding this link

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3225413/posts
Here is an excerpt. All Caps emphasis mine

•A 33W solar panel (Arco Solar 16-2000) actually outperformed it’s original factory specifications 30 YEARS after it was manufactured.[2]
•World`s first modern solar panel still works after 60 YEARS.[3]
•Kyocera has reported several solar power installations that continue to operate reliably and generate electricity even though they are nearly 30 YEARS old.[4]

[chrisser]

Are you kidding? Get real. The power fed back to the lines has to be stepped up to the same voltages as everything else on the lines. The only thing you have accomplished with your argument is to show how ridiculous central power is compared to distributed power. Thanks for arguing for solar.

What's a generously sized solar system put out? Maybe 50 amps at 110v on a sunny day if you're lucky after it's inverted, then subtract any usage. So what's left now has to run through a step-up transformer to 220 or 440. It gets to the street and gets stepped back up to however many thousand volts is required for the local transmission lines. Then this trickle of amps has to go down the street to your neighbor, at minimum, where it gets run through another transformer to step it back down. When all is said and done, what percent of the power the utility is paying for actually makes it to the neighbor in this best case scenario, assuming they actually need it at the time?

I'm not arguing for or against distributed power. I'm arguing against forcing utilities to pay for power they can't use so that an uneconomical solar installation can claim to be "green", "independent", or a "success story".

Absolutely, but you don’t have to send it at 110, you can send it at 220, or 440 or higher. But it sounds like solar might not be optimal for your situation.

I was illustrating a point. If it ain't economical to send "free" power across my yard, it sure as heck isn't economical to send it down the street to my neighbor.

It's one thing to have thousands of volts and amps at one end and have to push it through at a relative trickle to the other - you can bill based on what it costs on the front end to cover all the losses through the system to get to the use point. But when you're trying to push it backwards, and billing on the low voltage/amps end, it doesn't make economic sense.

Here's an example. Let's say it takes 5kw of power at the power company to give you 1kw at the use point. You pay for 1kw, but you're actually paying for the power company's costs to produce 5kw. The other 4kw are transmission and transformer losses or 80%. I'm just pulling easy numbers out of the air for easy math, but they work regardless of the actual figures.

So now you decide to push 1kw backwards into the system. Does the power company get 5kw back? No, more likely they get 0.2kw because of the same 80% loss in the other direction.

They're forced to pay you for the 1kw, which they bill at the rate it costs to otherwise cover their costs to produce 5kw, but they only get back .2kw of usable power to redistribute.

[Prophet2520]

here is a link to an actual solar panel datasheet
http://sunelec.com/datasheet-library/download/ds-e20-series-327-residential-solar-panels-datasheet.pdf

[DCBryan1]

Can’t run air conditioners, of course, but lights & refrigeration should be fine. NO COFFEE MAKERS EITHER!

and no curling irons, no hair dryers, no soldering kits, no space heaters, no heating blankets, no electric griddles.....basically nothing with a high amp starting load.

[mrsmith]

You’re welcome. Citing Wikipedia, thinkprogress, etc is defeating one’s own argument.
You ignore the STATE and federal taxes coal pays which solar doesn’t.

If you want to try to make the case that state subsidies for coal are or ever were of a par with the solar subsidies and mandates of today the effort would be rewarding.

Historically, the choice was between ‘no electricity’ and subsidies. In the last fifty years or so electricity has been produced and delivered by mostly quasi-government utilities. Yes, utilities are fascist! That system seems to work best in this rare instance.
But of course solar PV use depends greatly upon the subsidized power grid so that subsidy must be counted as a subsidy for PV too...

[thackney]

DO NOT run DC any further than you need to.

DC is not the problem, it is the low voltage and associated amperage.

HVDC are more efficient than HVAC transmission lines. The problem is the cost of the conversion stations. You have to go a long distance with no taps to make the economics work.

[chrisser]

But it also shows a really successful application of solar: avoiding long runs of wire. If one can put up with the harsh limits of PV solar money can be saved at isolated sites.

I'm an advocate of solar, especially in rural areas. Our place isn't the ideal site because of topography, and we're lucky that the previous owner already has it cabled with a transformer right to the most likely use site. I'd just have to connect. If it weren't for that already being in place, I'd be looking at 100% solar.

That said, power is not reliable in rural areas and we'll need some sort of backup. Whether that's solar, fossil fuel, wind, or some combination is really going to be a fun project. And building out the rest of the site to be able to run on that backup will be even more interesting.

Now, we have a barn about 1000' away. Power company would need to run another string of poles and a transformer there in order to give me some lights. It's in a very sunny location. Solar there, at least for lights and maybe a few small power tools, would be a perfect permanent solution with perhaps a small generator augment for the dead of winter.

[thackney]

The plants have to be made MUCH larger than the normal amount of electricity they need to provide, because they also need to provide power at peak demand which is much higher.

No. That is not how it is done.

Fast starting Gas Turbines and the like are used to ramp up and down with load changes. They are shut off as the load drops back down. The other plants are mostly base loaded to operate efficiently.