ENERGY MATTERS

[Stanley]

Have a look at this LINK, plenty of similar reports if you go and have a look. Consumption in Europe is still falling because of the economic situation. The whole of the Euro-zone if you leave Germany out is flat-lining and spot prices can be expected to fall even lower.

[Tardis]

Hopefully, I will attach the home survey data

I will then attempt to add the micro renewable study 14.9megabytes

[Tardis]

Can't add the micro renewables study, keep getting the google map app no key and it deletes everything I've typed, so if anyone wants to see it they may have to ask

File may be too big

[Tardis]

having read the report a bit now, I wonder who will give up 500 acres for any proposed anaerobic digestor, and they reckon that 5 of these will be required to ensure Barnoldswick becomes energy independent

The hoops to jump through from the Environment Agency are quite substantial too, if it was to include offsite "fuel" or waste food.

[Tizer]

Why would anybody need 500 acres for an anaerobic digester when they are just big tanks? If they follow the brewery fermenter precedent and use cylindroconical vessels they take up even less space. You see the tops of these peeping out of brewery roofs or sometimes they are outside the brewery buildings.

[Tardis]

The plant envisaged would more likely run off silage rather than just waste, because of the available digestate. Don't think they quoted for slurry alone, but bearing in mind that United Utilities doesn't have one at the sewage works, and trunks it all away in tankers it might be quite a lot.

Plus slurry introduces the Environment Agency and the possible necessity to ensure that the end product is sterilised...blah..blah...then not economic

[Tardis]

Yesterday's Asian spot gas prices set new records because of Japanese activity in the market according to the FT

[Stanley]

Nuclear power replacement comes under scrutiny today in Parliament. Most widely expected result is a go-ahead for new contracts based on higher electricity prices for domestic users. A figure of +£200 on an average bill is being quoted. Nice!

[Tardis]

What a clusterf**k is the new DECC document

Outsiders expect fuel bills to double inside 5 years without this dash for nuclear

[Whyperion]

Electricity Prices to rise to pay for New Nuclear facilities. So consumers of today to pay for tomorrow's production. Funny , I always thought shareholders paid for investment in facilities , with investment + interest re-couped when asset becomes revenue earning.

[PanBiker]

We have a decision to make over the next few days regarding our fuel supplies. Our current BG dual fuel tariff comes to an end and it's time to move to one of the other plans. Will give it all a coat of looking at over the weekend.

[Stanley]

Ian, ask them the direct question "Can I please have the 4% discount". I have it but not sure whether that is the result of being so old and poor. They aren't advertising it but it exists. I don't think there is an end limit on my dual fuel tariff as I have been on it for yonks and you didn't have to sign up for it then. It was automatic if you were getting both from them.

[PanBiker]

I don't think it will work for me as I am not officially "old" if you see what I mean. There are various schemes being offered by BG which guarantee fixed prices for the duration of the contract. It's just a case of looking for the best one for our needs and then having a word.

One thing that does annoy me with BG is the fact that I currently give my meter readings online. They remind me when they are due and thank me when I have done it, then they send a bloke round to do it again! This does not make sense although it does keep a person in work.

[Tardis]

I see DECC has moved the goalposts slightly for the FiT, together with the necessity for the home to be rated Band 4 on energy conservation. A slight delay, but it will go down by 35% in August.

Total electricity generation from solar has been dropped from 35GW to 11GW, presumably to accomodate nuclear

Certainly a few fitters are shouting rather loudly, but expect some promotions to beat "the fall" if you're interested

The policy certainly does not give confidence

[Pluggy]

Or maybe taking note of what's happening in Germany where they presently have 20GW of solar capacity and their 'national grid' want the ability to remotely shut down systems because what they produce is very unpredictable (much more than wind), they get a glut of power and the spot price of electric goes negative to try and move it. Needless to say this isn't very popular with those receiving the FITs. Wind can be reasonably predicted on an hour by hour basis, theres no telling when a cloud will roll in front of the sun and the output from a generator will drop by 70 - 90 % which has to be accommodated with hot reserve, if they can remotely tell plants to stop generating on a moment by moment basis, it makes their job doable. The easiest technology to give quick reserve is gas turbine, it can be ramped up and down very quickly but it isn't very efficient unless its running hard and as a lot of it is half of a CCGT station and the steam half is much slower to react and is a slave to the GT end, it doesn't do any favours for their CO2 output. Germany has a higher CO2 output now per unit of power produced than it did before the advent of renewable power. Their rush to dump nuclear in the wake of Fukushima isn't doing them any favours either.

There's a body of opinion that says much of solar output is lost, because a large percentage is on domestic dwellings with single phase supplies and it causes phase imbalance on a local basis. Most wind generators are large(ish) scale and generate on all 3 phases

[Stanley]

Ian, they read mine as well even though I have online billing. Their problem but I agree with you. Perhaps they don't really trust us.... Applied for £100 refund yesterday on my account.... I am seriously in credit on both.
Pluggy, I have often wondered about phase imbalance, a serious matter in distribution of course and one that most people don't know about.
PS. Ian. Ask for the 4% discount anyway, they can only say no..... From my experience they have quite a lot of discretion....

[Pluggy]

This month end will probably generate some action regarding my electric meter from EDF when I give my online readings.

This is the reading I gave them last month :



This is the reading at midnight last night, theres 2 days of solid sunshine forecast so the final figure will probably be worse (better ) :



-6 units should go down well. They already know of course but it will be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing..........

I think they'd prefer the unofficial import reading (bottom right) of 168 Units, but the big one is the official one. Without the PV it would be the 255 Units the top right shows. The small meters have 2 digits after the decimal point which isn't too clear.

[Tizer]

Pluggy, when you say the German 'national grid' want the ability to remotely shut down systems do you mean shutdown the sites that are the equivalent of your roof or do you mean the big commercial PV sites only?

[Pluggy]

Presently its sites above 100 kW that have remote shut-down (so not that large, but not domestic scale either), but there's pressure for this to be reduced. Germany has long standing power grid problems, many solar systems are in the sunnier south and it can cause problems getting the power away on the grid when the sun comes out. They have NIMBY problems as well, so the massive infrastructure work required (putting up pylons and/or digging up large swathes of countryside to accommodate underground cables) comes up against protests at every turn. The alternative is having smart appliances that can burn the stuff locally (washing machines that wait for a signal. fridges that would stand being without power for a while and charging the increasing numbers of electric vehicles only when the sun shines have been suggested) and micro-generation that can be intelligently controlled to ramp down or cease production when they have a glut or their grid isn't up to moving it. Our national grid wants the same (the so called smart grid) but its not as pressing as we don't have the same installed capacity of 'whimsical' renewable power. They already do it with large wind installations and pay the owners compensation (good for a few Daily Mail stories) when they can't use it. Germany have so much solar that it would practically power their base load if could it be relied on. Their total renewable capacity would almost run peak demand, again, could it it be relied on. But they have to keep fossil fuel plant running on hot reserve for when it doesn't perform. Our base load is around 20GW, we have around 6GW of wind and 1 GW of solar so its not too problematic at the moment, maybe the government wants to keep it that way. Nuclear is several orders of magnitude more dependable and predicatable than the sun and the wind.

I do a good job of being a renewable power sceptic for someone with PV panels on his roof.

[Tizer]

Fascinating stuff! I see the UK government is not only reducing the PV FiT tariff from 1st August but it will go down every 3 months thereafter unless the market for PV bottoms out...and it's also reducing the lifetime for PV schemes from 25 to 20 years.
http://www.greenbuildingpress.co.uk/art ... le_id=1193

[Pluggy]

Fascinating stuff! I see the UK government is not only reducing the PV FiT tariff from 1st August but it will go down every 3 months thereafter unless the market for PV bottoms out...and it's also reducing the lifetime for PV schemes from 25 to 20 years.
http://www.greenbuildingpress.co.uk/art ... le_id=1193

That's this weeks version anyhow. It will probably change over time. I'm hoping they don't pull a ''Spain' and retrospectively reduce FIT across the board. There's around 300,000 of us with privately funded PV, its probably not too many to alienate in the grand scheme of things.

[Stanley]

Sounds like a Cunning Wheeze to me..... Hard luck lads!

[Pluggy]

One of my other haunts convinced me that knowingly having an electric meter run backwards is fraud - its a very grey area that hasn't been really thought through, I cracked and phoned EDF - they are coming to change the meter on the 18th of June. There are horror stories around that say some (mainly on Scottish power it seems) that have been heavily penalised and forced to pay back some arbitary figure or what they think is owing when it has come to light. Usually at this time of year when the meter reading is less than the previous one or suspiciously low. Mine is now reading what it was in the middle of April. EDF were very polite about it but it was actioned very quickly when I phoned. It seems they don't bother checking the FIT applications or the registered meter number (which would reveal whether the meter backawrds or not because it would identify the type of meter).

[Pluggy]

A Guardian story about German solar power. It was producing 22GW on Friday and Saturday with the whole country in bright sunshine. 22GW would keep the UK going in the early hours of Sunday mornings in Summer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... rd-germany

And a story about Germany's grid problems in light of their huge capacity of renewables :

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9205#more

[Tardis]

Am told that the EU has decided to reclassify gas as a 'green' fuel

Let the dash for gas electricity begin