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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 15:23 
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In an article on The Register there is

Andrew Orlowski wrote:
As they are in large part a flat tax on electricity which hits the poor much harder than the rich, climate activist George Monbiot has described FiTs as "extortionate, useless [and] deeply regressive".


This is the second time I find myself agreeing with Monbiot, the prior occasion being on the need for Nuclear power.

Scary :o

Even if my initial reasons are somewhat different than his should I be worried at this? ;)

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 20:40 
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I think I probably agree - on the basis that poorer people won't have a roof of their own. But presumably the feed-in tariffs are available to anyone with an electricity bill and a roof that faces the right way - rich or poor? Clearly, someone on a low income wouldn't have the capital to cash out on some PV panels, but I thought there were companies that would install them for nothing and take their cut from the electricity that was generated? Presumably, these panels will go on generating after they have covered their installation costs, and whether the person living under them uses that electricity or whether it goes back into the grid, it's still low-carbon electricity which will benefit the whole population? Let's face it, global warming or not, we ARE going to run out of fossil fuels one day, and, looking at the bigger picture, anything that pushes non-fossil technology on is a benefit to society as a whole.


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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 14:53 
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Bad investment.
The feed-in tariffs are being reduced, as they were always going to be when the true cost of providing money to people for not generating electricity got to be common knowledge, and expensive.
And why should people who do not want to "invest" in expensive and inefficient pv cells be forced to pay higher bills to subsidise others.
With gas (yes, gas bills are higher to pay for electricity generating subsidies) the amount extracted from billpayers is some 24% of the bill (and with vat on top of that)
I'd also like to point-out that the power generated only feeds the local area, since it cannot be fed into the national grid...
Without subsidy it is totally uneconomical.
PV cells, courtesy of China.
With all micro-generation projects being uneconomical anyway....even with transport losses the bulk generation of electricity is more economical than local generation.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 18:41 
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I have not yet found anyone that will simply install for free and then you benefit, they all ask you for a money investment up front.
You have no say in what type of cells are installed and they only want you if you happen to live in certain areas too ...
and if your property faces south and you have a sloping roof and so on !
Even the recent insulation is a joke too !
As usual it is OK if you happen to meet ALL their specific criteria.

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 23:01 
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jomukuk wrote:
I'd also like to point-out that the power generated only feeds the local area, since it cannot be fed into the national grid...

...i am glad that somebody else appreciates this, as i have asked many people but nobody has been able to explain exactly where your FIT goes!

AFAIAA, it can't get past your local sub-station because a transformer doesn't work that way. I don't know how large an area a typical sub-station covers, but i don't think that it is a lot. Additionally, there are normally three phases coming out of a sub-station, so at best you would only be feeding into a third of your local "subnet".

Finally, as the sun shines during the day, most of the FIT would be produced when everybody was at work, so unless someone on the same phase and on your local subnet happened to switch their kettle on at that moment in time, those electrons that cost FOUR TIMES THE LIST PRICE (never mind the wholesale price) are just heating up the wires underground!!!!!!

Solar PV - just a passing phase ;)

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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 08:26 
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Yes, it's just another scam to make a few people/companies rich[er].
Rather like the megawatts of installed "renewable" generators, that have to have the same backup of fossil-fuelled generation for when they don't generate.
Look behind all these projects and you see either a scam, or the influence of a watermelon organisation....like greenpuce or fiends of the earth (watermelon: green on the outside, red on the inside (to paraphrase the old song: where have all the communists gone, long-time-passing, where have all the communists gone, watermelons every one)
Save the planet, subsidise your greenpuce commissars somerset dachar.
Have a read:http://tinyurl.com/6xpk5lz

Now all the major companies are going "green", for a price.
Same shit, different day.

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56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:07 
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Quote:
it can't get past your local sub-station because a transformer doesn't work that way.


Actually transformers do work both ways (In much the same way as generators can also be motors and vice versa) the problem is that (IIRC) the electrical protection systems at substations will regard "negative power flows" as a fault condition and will shut the relevent circuts down. this is not impossible to overcome but is yet another added expensive complexity.

Also, there are other more serious issues with having anything more than a small percentage of overall power generation being in the form of "Embedded generators|" IE generators that are unregulated and simply present as variable "Negative loads". (All micro generation schemes operate as "Embedded generators" as do larger windfarms)

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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 15:37 
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Well, they do: work both ways that is.
But. That is when you are feeding power into a transformer that has no power into the "secondary"
Substations do have power into their primary. Lots more than your micro-generator.
Another thing to ponder on is that for any power transformer the flux density is at maximum when the transformer is idle.
And you are feeding power into a working system, one that has both input at a high voltage and output at low voltage already working at high powers.
Complicated.
I will be interested to see what happens when every house/property has its own generator, phase locked to the mains, feeding into the same substation with all its protection equipment..
I wonder how they are going to isolate that system for work ?

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 03:18 
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Is there really any left over power anyway ?
Even keeping a single 12v bat charged they seem utterly useless never mind a whole standard house !

I guess if the cables get 'warm' then that will provide some underfloor heating at least ! ;) Somewhat seriously though if they are getting warm might that not mean that they are not rated high enough ?

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