How happy would we be about having a significant fraction of the country’s energy supply concentrated into a single undersea interconnector ? For scale, right now (OK, 8 minutes ago) the UK was consuming 34GW.
VB
My point was that it’s feasible to get energy over such long distances. Regarding energy security, clearly we would want a portfolio, and the extrapolation of this would imply lots of such cables from places of generation to all over Europe, and then for onward sharing according to demand. Ok the sharing system would reduce efficiency, but it’s probably the best way to increase security.
2 Likes
I wasn’t disputing your point about feasibility. Perhaps I’d sleep more soundly if Moroccan power was channeled to us over some sort of distributed cable network buried in Spain and France, that’s all. I wonder if the cost of land access would make that unviable ?
I’ve mentioned before that when Mrs VB was a CEGB student in the 1970’s she spent some time in the national grid control room. She and the other students whiled away the hours speculating about how many pylons in the very high voltage north-south links the IRA would need to blow down to plunge SE England into darkness. The consensus was ‘very few’.
VB
I might have to watch Die Hard 4 again. I do love that film.
How you finding your bills now the sun is playing ball?
Electricity has been around 50p a day with the sun out (inlcuding the 20p ish standard charge).
1 Like
2 Likes
Enjoyed that. Aside from the man-eating spiders I am envious of my friend who emigrated to Australia who has a 6.6kWh array with scope to double it. It cost him the equivalent of about £2k with their subsidies and has an RoI of about 2.5y. They have a Nissan Leaf right now but have just ordered a Tesla.
There are some very exciting developments in the world of renewables.
I need to have a look at this.
I’ve always thought the on cost would take too long to pay back, rather like paying for the next owners to have for free.
I was inside of the tech had reached the sweet spot, too, as the other problem is the big up front layout only to find in ten years it’s a legacy system.
The RoI in the UK is still a lot longer. If you are doing it just for that, you’re probably on a hiding to nothing.
But, if you know you are staying where you are, then it’s viable
If you run an EV, or are planning to, there are so many synergies.
As an “investment” you can probably expect 6-9% returns, which is not too shabby and it’s steady/guaranteed.
I always struggled with the capex - I never had 6k or so lying around just to sink into it. But the E.On interest free deal over three years was perfect for me and tipped me over.
3 Likes
I hadn’t seen that before, it looks pretty good.
You have a GivEnergy inverter and battery pack, what brand are the panels and EV charger?
The Zappi charger looks a good fit for solar/battery system
any issues or unexpected benefits so far?
They provided Trina panels. I’ve got a spec sheet if you need. They’re probably not state of the art but they look good on the roof as they’re all-black with no silver surrounds.
I’ve ordered a Zappi that’s being installed next month.
Surprised how integral the battery is to it all working. The ability to store excess generation is key. If you’re thinking of a battery my advice would be get the largest you can and order it at the same time as the panels as I believe you’ll only pay 5% VAT on it compared to 20% if bought separately.
I think the Tesla Powerwall 2 is 13.5 kWh which is a fair bit higher than your 8
can you use your car as extra storage when you dont need the miles?
I was looking at the Zappi charger and linking it all to the hot water tank, looks like it could all work
Did you look into applying for RHI?
Trouble is it starts me thinking about GSHP to replace gas boiler, and now the bill has tripled 
The Powerwall is great, speak to @MrKettle who has one, but It’s about 3-4x the price of my battery system. Mine can do some clever things with Octopus Agile integration that isn’t available to the Powerwall too. The GivEnergy system is stackable (like the Powerwall) too.
I have not seen the RHI, so will take a look.
Powerwall is mostly great but you literally can’t tell it what to do. If you have a big demand the Powerwall doesn’t have the option to up the overnight charging (likewise for low generation) so if the aim is to only use offpeak from Octopus Go you can’t chuck more in if you want.
The Zappi can put excess in but it doesn’t do V2G. The only issue is when the Powerwall is full and the Zappi and Powerwall try to second guess each other in changing conditions. We normally turn the Zappi on to basic charging (1.4kW min but taking any excess) when the battery hits around 90% charge.
Just two months after install…
8 Likes
of course nothing is ever really ‘good’ at scale…
True, but it’s almost certainly better than what we currently have. There was a woman on Today this morning talking about starting to mine lithium in Cornwall. It won’t be economically competitive with Chile/Bolivia at the point of production, but transport costs and security of supply may make it worthwhile.
In the end the degree of damage we inflict will depend on what we’re prepared to pay. The job can be done cleanly, it’s just more expensive to do so, unlike fossil fuels where the CO2 problem is heavily locked in by the fundamental laws of physical chemistry (unless we trust the long-term security of pumping it under pressure back down into the empty oil wells).
VB
I hope you’re right but big business, and mining especially, have shown their rapacious appetite for profit knows no constraint. Even if we might be prepared to pay for clean techniques, they’ll put margin ahead of everything. And when they’re supplying 10s of millions of vehicles with batteries scale will be everything
I’m not optimistic
I should have been clearer about ‘we’. It has to be everyone. First-world well-off people can afford eco products, but most people who are hoping one day to be able to afford a car might well not be able to. Unless we can reach an international agreement and pretty much stick to it then there’s trouble coming. We more-or-less did it with CFC refrigerants though, so it’s not impossible.