Re: Solar heated hot water

[Bruno Prior <bruno@xxxxxxx>]

Ian Lowe wrote:
> Deeply thought provoking Bruno.
>
> I have been watching BP Solar's developments (especially the whole
roof
> shingle replacement systems)  with interest, I seem to recall reading
> (possibly on the BP Solar website, actually) that the key problem at
the
> moment with manufacturing is simply one of low volumes, and that the
energy
> cost and chemical usage could be improved greatly through larger scale
> manufacturing processes.

We sponsored the inaugural conference of the Renewable Power Association
last year, and as part of our contribution, we commissioned a report by
Doug
McWilliams (former Chief Economist at the CBI) and his brother Mike into
the
true (i.e. including hidden) costs of different electricity generation
technologies and locations. It makes for pretty dense reading, but if you
are interested, you can download it from:
http://www.summerleaze.co.uk/regen/renewable_power_economics.doc
We are currently in the process of updating it and adding other
technologies, but one of the conclusions that leapt out was that PV is, by
a
long chalk, the least economic of all generation technologies examined.

Not surprisingly, this got the PV guys pretty agitated, and several of them
came to our stand to argue their case. Their strongest point, in my
opinion,
was that it was unfair to apply the full cost of the panels to the initial
capital cost, as they were intended also to serve as roof tiles, and
therefore the avoided cost of normal roof tiles should be deducted from the
capital cost. I would say that this is fair comment for new-build projects,
and irrelevant for anyone looking to install at a location where they do
not
need to replace their roof tiles. I assume it would make a significant
difference to the economics, but probably still leave them as the least
viable.

As for the economies of scale that BP are hoping to achieve, PV is now
being
installed in significant volumes in Germany, thanks to that incredibly
expensive feed-in tariff. It will be interesting to see if this has a major
downwards effect on prices. But it seems to me that this is a chicken and
egg situation and if any company is in a position to take a lead, it is BP.
If they really believed in it, they would go ahead and build the
large-scale
production facilities to produce loads of cheap panels to grab a dominant
share of the market. Given their size, they are quite capable of making
that
sort of investment now. The fact that they complain about volumes without
committing to increase their production facilities to deliver these
economies of scale, says to me that they are not _that_ confident that
prices can be decreased to a point where PV installations will become
widespread. Of course, that's not surprising. Large, public companies tend
to be very risk-averse.

> The dynamics of a vastly distributed power generation system, with
almost
> every roof covered in PF tiles of some sort, and huge fuel cell
systems (in
> place of current power stations) acting as national reservoirs sound
like
> Sci-Fi just now, but I suspect are not so far fetched in the decades
to
> come..

The McWilliams report highlighted the advantages of distributed power and
the fact that the true cost of transmission is not applied at the moment.
But there are practical problems. The transmission and distribution systems
were designed in the days of the CEGB to be a one-directional system,
flowing outwards and downwards to each customer. Embedded generation (i.e.
generation exporting into the local grid) can have a big impact that was
never expected by the original designers, so the Distribution Network
Operators (DNOs - the people who operate the cables of the formers Regional
Electricity Companies -RECs) are less than encouraging to this sort of
generation. Our industry abounds with stories of connection quotes of
£300,000+ per MW, which will kill most renewable projects dead. Apart from
exceptional circumstances, the biggest component is not usually the cost of
the cable and switchgear on the generation site (the shallow costs). Most
of
it is usually the cost of upgrading the wider network to cope with the
change in flows and fault levels due to the installation. This is a hot
topic in the industry, but there is no easy solution.

At least with purpose-built power stations of 100kW+, it is feasible for
the
DNOs to manage the effect of the generation on the network. Now imagine
that
they are trying to feed into their calculations the potential PV output of
every house in their area. They would have no direct information, because
this electricity export is too small to practically operate real-time
export
metering. So they would be trying to run their network by guesstimate (as
they already do on the demand side). Their primary obligation is to ensure
that we have 99.9999% availability (although those in the 24/7 region may
have trouble believing that). If you had that sort of obligation, would you
volunteer to double (and more) your uncertainty? Remember, not only is it
difficult to store electricity, but an imbalance between supply and demand
leads to voltage fluctuations, which puts strain on their equipment that it
was not designed to take. Denmark (3rd largest wind generator in Europe)
has
come close to a national brown-out, and Spain (2nd after Germany) had major
problems this last winter when we had that high over Europe for more than a
month that gave very low temperatures (i.e. high electricity demand) and no
wind.

We have to find a way for distributed power to become more widespread, but
I
am not convinced that it will take the form of all of us producing and
consuming as we see fit, and big fuel cell stations to make up for our
unpredictability. My guess would be that the tendency would be for greater
individual responsibility for energy use - in other words, if we want to
generate our own power, we will have to provide our own means to use it or
store it when it is not wanted on the grid.

> Just wondering, what's your take on Nuclear? I have often found it
strange
> that nuclear power has not been developed more, (especially the
breeder
> reactors, like Dounreay) as it seems a particularly powerful solution
to CO2
> emissions.

Do you live anywhere near Dounreay? My personal opinion is that nuclear
power stations are some of the few things that I would not be prepared to
live near, and if I would not live near it, I should not expect anyone else
to either. So maybe we stick them where they are nowhere near people
(although that's pretty hard to do on a small island like ours), but we
need
our electricity where people are - not where they aren't. As I pointed out
above, the true costs of transmission are much higher than charged by the
National Grid.

The truth is, nowhere in the world is anyone even considering building a
nuclear power station in a deregulated market. The only places where they
build them are where governments can use tax payers' money to ignore
economic realities. Remember, when Cecil Parkinson was handling electricity
privatisation, he discovered that they were so uneconomic that they had to
be unbundled from the parcels that made up National Power and Powergen or
they would have sunk the whole privatisation. We should not forget that
lesson.

Nuclear has already been shown to be uneconomic even at low transmission
costs - just on the basis of its running costs. Why do you think British
Energy was going bust if the government hadn't bailed them out? If you
added
in the true cost of transmission from Dounreay, the capital cost (which we
paid for when electricity was a nationalised industry), correctly wrote
down
their nuclear waste as a liability (rather than as an asset, as it is now),
put in full provision for decommissioning costs, and put a price on the
environmental cost of dealing with nuclear waste, I wouldn't be surprised
if
nuclear overtook PV as the least economic generation technology of all.

And there are other factors. For instance, the security implications of
having ready-made nuclear targets scattered round the country, just waiting
for terrorist-hijacked planes to be crashed into them. Or the inflexibility
of nuclear output - you can't just switch it off at night, so what do you
do
with all that power when no one wants it (Mark Marooth provided exactly the
right answer to that, but we can't do any more)? Or the impact on the
stability of our network and electricity prices of relying on a few large
power stations (when one was shut down by H&S for a month last year,
short-term electricity prices went through the roof). Diversity is one of
the biggest reasons why we should have more renewable energy, not more
nuclear power. However it goes down (terrorism or accident), the impact of
a
few small power stations going down is much easier to cope with than the
failure of one big one.

It's just a (very strong) personal opinion, but I would much rather meet
our
environmental requirements through a combination of energy efficiency and
renewable energy, than I would from any more nuclear power stations. The
day
they close the last British nuclear power station (and better still the
French ones lined up along the Channel to make sure that if anyone gets the
fallout it's us not them ;-)) will be a happy day for me.

There is a fundamental point here. I take it as axiomatic that competition
is not just good but essential. Wherever people can avoid competition, you
get inefficiency and corruption. But nuclear never has and probably never
will exist in a truly open market. Who, apart from governments, is going to
take the risk? So a policy of nuclear development goes hand in hand with a
strong element of centralisation and government control of the energy
industry. Is that the environment in which you would expect innovation to
flourish and personal involvement to grow? Look at the history of the CEGB
and you will know the answer. But as always, what will deliver the best
result is individual commitment, responsibility and innovation, not the
abrogation of responsibility that is dependence on the state to sort out
our
problems.

Rant over.

Cheers,

Bruno