Global solar panel glut

[Bear Hug]

What also works against solar in the UK?  

- BTL.  Landlord don't care if tenants have cheap energy.  Tenants are limited in changes/improvements they can make to their accommodation and don't stay in one place long enough for the investment to pay off.

Those who would benefit from such long term investment the most - the youngest are less and less likely to own their houses. 

[EnglishinWales]

A tenant farmer of 10 years was recently evicted near me after a long battle with the council. Made me really angry. He wanted to buy the farm, he had lots of animals there, but the council wanted the land for a solar farm, even though no plans or agreements about how it would operate are in place.

The council even said that the tenant was 'trespassing' on the land after refusing to give up his home for this nonsense, the cheek. I'm wondering now if the plan is bogus and the council just wants the subsidies. Not much sun in North Wales.

Edited January 2, 2017 by EnglishinWales

[Peter Hun]

 

22 minutes ago, EnglishinWales said:

A Not much sun in North Wales.

That's no hindrance to solar power

http://greensystemsengineering.co.uk/renewable-technologies-using-solar-energy

[Simon Taylor]

10 hours ago, Kurt Barlow said:

They won't be mothballed as most the costs are upfront and already sunk. You might as well run the farm to its life end. Contrary to popular opinion the land can still be used - sheep grazing, free range poultry, piggies.

They will still receive the subsidies which are guaranteed for 20 years,  unless the UK does what Spain did and end them retrospectively.  This,  at a stroke,  all but wiped out a solar industry in a country which really should be running on solar.  

 

10 hours ago, Kurt Barlow said:

Supermarket roofs are the ideal spot for solar with all that refrigeration needing 24/7 power.

Indeed,  and the they'll need more electricity once a significant percentage of their customers have electric cars and charging becomes another part of the supermarket offer.

[Kurt Barlow]

10 minutes ago, Simon Taylor said:

They will still receive the subsidies which are guaranteed for 20 years,  unless the UK does what Spain did and end them retrospectively.  This,  at a stroke,  all but wiped out a solar industry in a country which really should be running on solar.  

 

Indeed,  and the they'll need more electricity once a significant percentage of their customers have electric cars and charging becomes another part of the supermarket offer.

I was just making the point that even if all subsidies were scrapped solar (and wind farms) would continue to run as most costs are upfront.

[Kurt Barlow]

9 hours ago, Bear Hug said:

What also works against solar in the UK?  

- BTL.  Landlord don't care if tenants have cheap energy.  Tenants are limited in changes/improvements they can make to their accommodation and don't stay in one place long enough for the investment to pay off.

Those who would benefit from such long term investment the most - the youngest are less and less likely to own their houses. 

We need another energy saving thread for tenants ;-)

[Neverwhere]

11 hours ago, Bear Hug said:

What also works against solar in the UK?  

- BTL.  Landlord don't care if tenants have cheap energy.  Tenants are limited in changes/improvements they can make to their accommodation and don't stay in one place long enough for the investment to pay off.

Those who would benefit from such long term investment the most - the youngest are less and less likely to own their houses. 

+ 1

It's also a disincentive to house builders to plan for and include this kind of technology in residential developments, because they need only do the bare minimum to appeal to investors, and have no real care for the wants or needs of end users where investors are their primary market (and very little care where first time buyers are their primary market, but are weighing up the appeal of their properties over having to put up with living in low quality, insecure BTLs).

[Rave]

On 12/31/2016 at 5:19 PM, Peter Hun said:

2 strokes are indeed twice as efficient as four strokes and the optimum solution was recently analysed to be a hybrid.

So I think your German friend was on to something.

Two strokes are not 'twice as efficient' as four strokes, in fact for a given power output a small two-stroke will generally be less fuel efficient than an equivalent four stroke. Yes, by having a power stroke every revolution and doing away with a valve train their frictional losses are significantly lower, but they more than compensate for that by throwing lots of unburned fuel out of the exhaust, along with the total loss lubricating oil. You can in theory resolve these problems by using direct injection (and ideally forced induction), but then you're removing most of the simplicity and low friction advantages (superchargers take a significant amount of energy to power).

It's a bit odd of Funn3r's chap to have blamed Honda for the demise of the two stroke; while it's true that Soichiro Honda didn't like them, they made some perfectly competent ones in the 70s, and some bloody excellent ones once they finally realised that trying to beat the two-strokes in GP racing with ludicrously exotic four stroke engines was a fool's errand. They even built a direct injection 2 stroke in 1995 and took it to a 5th place finish in the Paris-Dakar.

http://www.honda-museum.com/honda-exp-2/

Quite why the idea wasn't developed further, I have no idea :(.

[Peter Hun]

3 hours ago, Rave said:

In theory, 2 strokes are indeed twice as efficient as four strokes

That better?

 

Edited January 2, 2017 by Peter Hun

[Rave]

4 hours ago, Peter Hun said:

That better?

No, it's not. I'm not trying to be patronising here, but it sounds like you don't actually understand how 2-stroke and 4-stroke engines differ in operation. Even if you could get a 2-stroke engine to burn fuel as efficiently as a 4-stroke, which would be very difficult in a small engine*, the improvement in overall thermal efficiency would only be down to reduced frictional losses in the engine; and I can assure you that frictional losses in a modern 4-stroke do not rob it of 50% of its output, or anything like that. The fact that the 2-stroke engine should be smaller and lighter would also help packaging and fuel efficiency, but again, only to a small extent in the context of a 1 ton plus car.

*in larger medium and low speed diesel engines, like train or ship engines, getting an efficient burn is a lot easier (using forced induction and/or poppet valves to aid scavenging) and power density not such a huge concern, so two-stroke designs are common.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-a-4stroke-and-2stroke-engine

Edited January 2, 2017 by Rave

[Peter Hun]

Yes, I'm fully aware of that but I didn't  think it relevant to go into the details as it's completelyoff topic.

[DeepLurker]

10 hours ago, Rave said:

No, it's not. I'm not trying to be patronising here, but it sounds like you don't actually understand how 2-stroke and 4-stroke engines differ in operation. Even if you could get a 2-stroke engine to burn fuel as efficiently as a 4-stroke, which would be very difficult in a small engine*, the improvement in overall thermal efficiency would only be down to reduced frictional losses in the engine; and I can assure you that frictional losses in a modern 4-stroke do not rob it of 50% of its output, or anything like that. The fact that the 2-stroke engine should be smaller and lighter would also help packaging and fuel efficiency, but again, only to a small extent in the context of a 1 ton plus car.

*in larger medium and low speed diesel engines, like train or ship engines, getting an efficient burn is a lot easier (using forced induction and/or poppet valves to aid scavenging) and power density not such a huge concern, so two-stroke designs are common.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-a-4stroke-and-2stroke-engine

Being generous here: "efficiency" might refer to the lower weight of a 2-stroke compared to a 4. For a range extender  - which will most of the time be switched off and just a dead weight to lug around - weight might be a lot more important than fuel efficiency.

[jetcat]

23 hours ago, Rave said:

It's a bit odd of Funn3r's chap to have blamed Honda for the demise of the two stroke; while it's true that Soichiro Honda didn't like them, they made some perfectly competent ones in the 70s, and some bloody excellent ones once they finally realised that trying to beat the two-strokes in GP racing with ludicrously exotic four stroke engines was a fool's errand. They even built a direct injection 2 stroke in 1995 and took it to a 5th place finish in the Paris-Dakar.

http://www.honda-museum.com/honda-exp-2/

Quite why the idea wasn't developed further, I have no idea :(.

It looks like they did!   http://newatlas.com/honda-two-stroke-with-fuel-injection-patent-filing/38529/

[NMBAB]

All this 2 stroke vs 4 stroke is like two bald men arguing over a comb, you are not seeing the disruption that is coming.  Within 10 years all new vehicles will be electric.  

Tesla has already broken the two hundred mile range barrier, so there is no need for range extenders.  For ninety five plus percent of journeys the average driver will get nowhere near this.  And for longer journeys if you think about your driving pattern on a long journey you don't just get in your car and drive all day without stopping, there will be comfort breaks, rest breaks, lunch etc, and assuming Tesla standard super chargers, each stop of say twenty minutes tops up around 50% capacity (adds another 100plus miles). Lunch for an hour gives 80% recharge.  This is already the case right now and all those data points are only going to improve, new startup Lucid partnering with Samsung SDI for the batteries is claiming a 400 mile range for its new car to be launched In 2018.  If you actually think about it you will actually spend less time refuelling your car when it is electric because it is something that happens while you are doing other things.  Tesla has already become the best selling car in the luxury car segment in the US and my guess is it would be swallowing even more market share if it could up its production rate.  With the coming of its new model 3 it will start to eat into the medium segment of the car market.  They have around half a million orders for a car that is about a year away from production, when was the last time that happened, I suspect never.  With the battery cost curve declining relentlessly, in the next few years Tesla or someone will be producing a lower market segment car.  The batteries keep dropping in price and incrementally improving in range and lifecycle and at some point electric cars will be cheaper than ICE.  Throw in the almost zero maintenance and fuel (electricity) cost per mile being around 90% cheaper than ICE fuel and it will simply make no economic sense to buy an ICE vehicle.

I am not predicting Tesla will be the ultimate winner out of this, but a couple of things stand out in its favour, it has a substantial lead on the ICE encumbents, and it is almost always outsiders that win during disruptions not the encumbents.  With electric cars the three most important factors are Batteries, Batteries, Batteries, and the encumbents are nowhere on those three, they are still investing in ICE, like Kodak investing in a new generation of film.

 

[rollover]

Solar Could Beat Coal to Become the Cheapest Power on Earth

Solar power is now cheaper than coal in some parts of the world. In less than a decade, it’s likely to be the lowest-cost option almost everywhere. Since 2009, solar prices are down 62 percent, with every part of the supply chain trimming costs. That’s help cut risk premiums on bank loans, and pushed manufacturing capacity to record levels. By 2025, solar may be cheaper than using coal on average globally, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “These are game-changing numbers, and it’s becoming normal in more and more markets." "Every time you double capacity, you reduce the price by 20 percent.”

“We’re seeing a new reality where solar is the lowest-cost source of energy, and I don’t see an end in sight in terms of the decline in costs,” said Enviromena’s Khoreibi. Bloomberg

[Peter Hun]

Tesla don't have anything special on the battery front.

"For ninety five plus percent of journeys the average driver will get nowhere near this.  And for longer journeys if you think about your driving pattern on a long journey you don't just get in your car and drive all day without stopping, there will be comfort breaks, rest breaks, lunch etc, "

So 5% of the time you are ******ed? No thanks.

Until 600+mile range is possible, long distance driving won't be practical. Which is why a hybrid (I. E. range extender) was determined to be the optimum solution.

 

Edited January 3, 2017 by Peter Hun

[NMBAB]

 

31 minutes ago, Peter Hun said:

Tesla don't have anything special on the battery front.

"For ninety five plus percent of journeys the average driver will get nowhere near this.  And for longer journeys if you think about your driving pattern on a long journey you don't just get in your car and drive all day without stopping, there will be comfort breaks, rest breaks, lunch etc, "

So 5% of the time you are ******ed? No thanks.

Until 600+mile range is possible, long distance driving won't be practical. Which is why a hybrid (I. E. range extender) was determined to be the optimum solution.

 

I take it you didn't actually read my post about the 5% of journeys above 200 miles.  Do you just hop in your car and drive continuously for 600 miles?  Even assuming you can maintain a 70 mph average you are going to drive continuously for more than 8.5 hours.  No resting every two hours so you don't get too tired and cause accidents?  No comforts breaks?  No lunch?  As I tried to show in my previous post if you bothered to a read it you could easily do 600 miles in a day of travelling with recharging at the driving breaks you would/should be taking during the day, assuming the Tesl Super charging standard, without adding any extra time to your journey above what would do in an ICE.

 

 

[Funn3r]

I've seen electric cars at my office where the company proudly display their green credentials by having a couple of charging points. It doesn't look easy or simple when they are plugging things in so it can charge up. Doubt if I could religiously remember to do it every time there was a toilet break. 

[onlyme2]

Tesla's biggest asset is Elon Musk, although you could argue his job is largely done already in getting some traction in the electric car market by making the technology deliverable and having the drive for getting the finance in place to do it as well as a long made plan to go from conversion (lotus roadster) to full build mega priced car to prove concept and gain the funding for the mass market product in the model 3. The batteries they use are nothing special - they used the same tech as laptop batteries, 18650 cells but at the high capacity end. No need to go fancy and try and solve the battery/range issues all in one go. There's probably hundreds of university and industrial programmes around the world ongoing to find faster charging and higher energy density cells, as soon as there is a step change in both of those and the product is available in volume then the car manufacturers will switch between techs, if the battery manufacturers get it right they will package it so that change can be made quickly.

ICE cars are tied to increasing cost  curve, battery powered on decreasing cost curve, with no obvious sign that anything will change those trends, total hammer blow for conventional cars and all electric will win.  

 

Back on topic, solar panel companies will come and go but demand will just keep on increasing and costs reduce so cannot see too many going tot he wall, too important strategically and with plenty of mileage in their product.

 

[onlyme2]

59 minutes ago, Peter Hun said:

Until 600+mile range is possible, long distance driving won't be practical. Which is why a hybrid (I. E. range extender) was determined to be the optimum solution.

 

Don't rate hybrid myself, dogs dinner of a solution, fits a gap in the market at the moment but will be replaced with all electric. Carrying all the extra weight and complexity of an ICE engine and totally compromising the efficiency, size and range from the battery. Battery tech will improve rapidly and all electric is the way to go. Higher capacity and faster charging will do it.

[NMBAB]

18 minutes ago, Funn3r said:

I've seen electric cars at my office where the company proudly display their green credentials by having a couple of charging points. It doesn't look easy or simple when they are plugging things in so it can charge up. Doubt if I could religiously remember to do it every time there was a toilet break. 

Hard to know if this is sarcasm or just an extremely lame attempt to diss all those different.  Plugging in the old vacuum cleaner looks a bit complicated vs using the old broom.  Do you often forget to fill your car up with fuel when it is running low?

[Bear Hug]

Sorry but just a bit more off-topic.  Isn't main cost advantage of electrical because it isn't taxed as much as petrol is?  

About 70% of UK petrol price is tax, so (before tax) price of petrol to be compared against cost of the electric is more like 30-40p per litre.  At those prices, the annual cost of 10k miles would be very small (less than £500), and any saving by using electricity instead of ICE is insignificant compared to cost of car purchase and depreciation. 

[NMBAB]

24 minutes ago, Funn3r said:

I've seen electric cars at my office where the company proudly display their green credentials by having a couple of charging points. It doesn't look easy or simple when they are plugging things in so it can charge up. Doubt if I could religiously remember to do it every time there was a toilet break. 

 And by the way this is not about brandishing green credentials, this is pure economics, electric cars are about to become overwhelmingly and unarguably cheaper to buy, with running costs orders of magnitude cheaper than ICE.  If you want the flush money down the loo because it looks a bit diifucult to plug in one of those new fangledvelectrics cars be my guest.

[NMBAB]

22 minutes ago, onlyme2 said:

Tesla's biggest asset is Elon Musk, although you could argue his job is largely done already in getting some traction in the electric car market by making the technology deliverable and having the drive for getting the finance in place to do it as well as a long made plan to go from conversion (lotus roadster) to full build mega priced car to prove concept and gain the funding for the mass market product in the model 3. The batteries they use are nothing special - they used the same tech as laptop batteries, 18650 cells but at the high capacity end. No need to go fancy and try and solve the battery/range issues all in one go. There's probably hundreds of university and industrial programmes around the world ongoing to find faster charging and higher energy density cells, as soon as there is a step change in both of those and the product is available in volume then the car manufacturers will switch between techs, if the battery manufacturers get it right they will package it so that change can be made quickly.

ICE cars are tied to increasing cost  curve, battery powered on decreasing cost curve, with no obvious sign that anything will change those trends, total hammer blow for conventional cars and all electric will win.  

 

Back on topic, solar panel companies will come and go but demand will just keep on increasing and costs reduce so cannot see too many going tot he wall, too important strategically and with plenty of mileage in their product.

 

Agreed, Musk has put the inevitable on steroids. and agreed the batteries are nothing special, and that is the beauty of it, no breakthroughs etc.  What he has done is some minor incremental improvements in the actual technology and some major improvements/efficiency gains in the manufacturing process by bringing the whole battery production process from raw materials to batteries under one roof on a massive scale.  And not just what Tesla is doing, they have sparked an arms race with the likes of BYD in China, LG Chem and Samsung SDI all playing the mines bigger than your game as they try to catch up/pass Tesla.  This is all going to accelerate the Battery cost curve leading to everr cheaper batteries.

 

And yes getting back on topic, combine the battery cost curve with the solar cost curve , which is the opposite of the cost curve for all other forms of generation other than wind, and this is going to lead to massive disruption to the existing energy markets.  Solar on its own is already braking through grid parity in more and more places every year, and when solar and batteries breaks through grid parity and keeps going to where it is even cheaper than transmission costs, such that even if conventional generation was free it could not compete.  That is the point when everyone will say they always knew Hinckley Point C for what it is, folly on stilts.

 

[mattyboy1973]

2 hours ago, Peter Hun said:

Until 600+mile range is possible, long distance driving won't be practical. Which is why a hybrid (I. E. range extender) was determined to be the optimum solution.

600 miles is really at the very upper end of what anyone drives on a regular basis. I admit it - I would probably not get an electric as an only vehicle with < 400 mile range, or a very fast charging option, "just in case", but I can tell you that I have only driven > 300 miles in a day twice in the last 4 years. Electric cars right now are perfect as second cars / commuters / city cars where range anxiety is not an issue.

46 minutes ago, Bear Hug said:

Sorry but just a bit more off-topic.  Isn't main cost advantage of electrical because it isn't taxed as much as petrol is?  

About 70% of UK petrol price is tax, so (before tax) price of petrol to be compared against cost of the electric is more like 30-40p per litre.  At those prices, the annual cost of 10k miles would be very small (less than £500), and any saving by using electricity instead of ICE is insignificant compared to cost of car purchase and depreciation. 

Maybe true, but that tax on petrol isn't going anywhere (other than up) so its something of a moot point.

46 minutes ago, NMBAB said:

And by the way this is not about brandishing green credentials, this is pure economics, electric cars are about to become overwhelmingly and unarguably cheaper to buy, with running costs orders of magnitude cheaper than ICE.  If you want the flush money down the loo because it looks a bit diifucult to plug in one of those new fangledvelectrics cars be my guest.

Agreed. Almost everything about electric cars is/will be better than ICE; cheaper to build, more reliable, less maintenance, vastly less complicated in many ways (no transmission, drive train, a fraction of the moving parts), more efficient. We are right on the cusp of a revolution - I wouldn't be surprised to see some city centres limited to EVs within a decade. Diesel owners are going to get badly shafted soon.