Tag: Solar

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The UK clean energy targets will be missed without £48 billion

The UK has set a hard target of 100% green electricity by 2030, but unfortunately, at the current time, its investments are not keeping up with its targets.

It is estimated that the UK need £48 billion to get to this target in time. This target would require a doubling of the onshore wind capacity, a tripling of solar power and a quadrupling of offshore wind capacity.

The current thinking, is that the UK is just half way to the wind energy target in 2030, however with solar it is worse. Currently we have roughly 15GW installed capacity, but it is predicted that we need 70GW to meet our target. Current progress suggests that we will hit 44% renewable by then, which is far short of the 69% that would be required.

What is worse, is that at this rate, gas will still account for 29% of energy which would be more than the individual contribution of Solar, onshore wind or offshore wind. It should be noted, that it is thought that meeting this target on time, will be worth far more in savings, but there does not seem to be enough urgency from the UK government to push this forwards.

It should be noted, that we have just had a change of government, and if Labour continues as it has started, we should get back on track.

In the summer, a government report found that the policies put in place by Rishi Sunak were only good enough to meet roughly 1/3 of the carbon reduction that we had pledged to make in the Paris climate agreement of 68%.

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“EU must cut carbon emissions 3 times faster to meet targets”

A new report has calculated that the EU is only cutting carbon emissions at 1/3 of the rate which is required in order to meet the 55% cut – from buildings, transport and agriculture by 2030

While emissions are falling, they are not falling anywhere near fast enough

Over the last 30 years, carbon emissions have dropped by 32% . while this is an impressive amount, it is far short of the promise.

The best predictions for the future, are that by 2050 the EU will have cut emissions by around 43%. While this is an important step, it is far short of what has been promised.

More importantly, at the current rate, we will have only met a further 1/3 by 2050.

The job is not done – much of the carbon emissions from the last 3 decades have been easy to achieve. They have been achieved through efficiency gains, and moving production offshore. Very little change in the EU behaviour has been required.  

An easy gain, both for individual cost, and emissions is electric cars. A faster transition is likely to save countries much money too (though it is true that at the current time, there is an issue with the tax revenue coming from fossil fuel sales.

It is far cheaper to run clean alternatives, so we must make that show in the figures.

Some governments are making efforts to help, but not in every way. For instance, in the UK, you can get money towards an electric car, but not a used one (which given the reduction in price, is likely to go further and help more. On heat pump the government is doing better – with the increase in the air-source heat pump grant, the cost to individuals has reduced to around 3500 (on average buying a heat-pump as well as installing and changing radiators to work with the lower temperature (bigger) the cost is around £11,000. However, many people have missed the advertising, and are unaware. It is true that new build homes will not be allowed to install boilers after 2025. 

However, older houses with gas boilers will be unaffected by the change until 2035. But the average cost for a new boiler, plus installation is thought to be around £4000, in 2023, meaning that for many homes, it will be cheaper to replace now.

Furthermore, while an air-source heat pump is thought to be around £50 more to run each year, should something like a thermal solar panel be added, the cost is far lower.

With carefully designed rules for builders, the switch to low cost private transport, and low cost private house heating can be cheap and obvious. At the current rate, though, this is not being met.

In the UK, clearly better understanding and education is essential, and builders need to see that adding things like thermal solar panels is a must.

Will it happen? will the EU meet our 55% target? at current speed, it is clear that this will be hard work. However, if this money is not found, we are likely to need far more in the future to adapt to the world we are creating.

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France has decreed that every carpark with more than 80 car spaces must have a solar canopy

Across France this is around 11gigawatts, or over the year almost 10 terawatt hours of electricity generation per year. This is a very sensible idea, as it is a second use of the land.

Might this become a common site in the UK as well as France (where it is required on all new car parks over 80 spaces)

In the south of England, there are now 2000 panels placed over car parking spaces. These offer a capacity of almost 1MW hour. Each parking space covered, has a capacity of about 2kw. In the UK, the countries target of solar by 2030 is to have 40gw of solar capacity, up from 15gw currently. It is estimated, that almost half the remaining target would be met by carpark roofing – which suggests that we could hit far more than 40gw of solar.

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Coal power stations could cut coal use, and therefore emissions by 50%

Coal power plants have to be a thing of the past as soon as possible. This is because no matter how efficient they are, they are powered by digging up carbon and releasing it into the air.

However for the time being, there are many coal power stations across the world. Vishwanath Haily Dalvi of the institute of Chemical technology in Mumbai India has been looking at how we could assist this process with the suns energy.

By collecting the suns heat energy, and using this to heat the water, the amount of coal needed is reduced by 50%.

This could therefore be a more economic way of reducing emissions from power generation. Given that coal power emits 0.85 pounds of carbon per kwh (about 380g), cutting this in half would make carbon far cleaner. While this may well be expensive to set up, it might allow coal power plants to operate for a few years longer and therefore be worthwhile, as well as offsetting some of the damage from the large number of coal powered stations being built across countries such as India and China.

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Large-scale wind and solar power ‘could green the Sahara’

There has been much conversation about how to power the world on green electricity.

One suggestion would be to fill the Sahara with solar panels. This would allow us to generate all the worlds power in a sustainable way (of course the world would need a significant amount of batteries as well for when the sun isn’t shining in the Sahara – it may be one of the sunniest places, but it is still night half the time.

Could we make the vast area of the Sahara desert habitable to wildlife at the same time as creating enough green electricity for the whole world?
Continue reading “Large-scale wind and solar power ‘could green the Sahara’”
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How can California be so stupid?

California is known for its forward thinking views on climate change. They have taken some of the biggest steps towards decarbonising, and being a country that receives a great deal of sun have the potential to make more electricity than they need, completely from green sources.

1.3 million houses already have solar. The California Public Utilities Commission is considering taxing everyone $8 per month per kilowatt of solar installed. Nothing else would change – for people with large arrays, they could have to pay $1000 dollars a year.

This has been a main aim for utilities for years. It is quite understandable. If for 5-10 thousand dollars you can create a solar array on your roof, which means that you become close to self sustaining the utility companies loose their market share. Furthermore, if they are required to pay for exported solar, then that eats into their profits. This of course is despite the fact that this solar exported is clean energy so is good for the planet.

The argument is that this money will go for upkeep of the grid, and that the customers are getting free use of the grid. Now there are several issues with this.

Firstly, this move is likely to push many people with batteries to go further off grid. This will hit utilities hard. Now not only will they not get cheap electricity but they will also not be able to supply night time power. However there is another issue. A connection to the grid once there does not cost a lot to maintain – also, whether exporting 1kw or 10kw the same wires is used. Therefore, the pricing if one was needed should be flat ($8 flat per month seems far more reasonable- $8 per kwh suggests the states are giving utilities the means to squash small energy suppliers.

Are big power companies going to be charged this as well? because if you are going to go to this system they must be. The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is 2256megawatt output, if we were to charge the same thing then they would have to pay slightly over $18 million a year. This is something that even on a large nuclear plant would threaten their future finances.

There is still a coal powered station in California, and 41mw of gas powerplant.

Powerplants which are still using fossil fuels should be forced out of business – this foolish move will likely greatly reduce the rollout of solar in the country, which would lead to problems. Indeed, this state is aiming for 100% green electricity by 2045, which means that they need all the solar they can get.

This is a foolish move and is likely to either damage California’s future, or will be reversed in the future. I feel that it is extremely similar allowing petrol stations to charge electric cars for their lost business.

Another thing that should be recognized, is that as the grid improves more and more power will be consumed locally. For most houses with solar panels, any power they export are used by their neighbours. In other words, Solar panel owners, use a few hundred meters of cabling, while the utility companies are sending power over thousands of miles.

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If the UK covered all south facing roofs with solar panels, this could provide all our electricity – but

Currently, the weight of solar panels mean that (along with the cost) it is rare that companies have the money to cover large roofs with solar panels.

A new product developed by a firm in Sunderland may change this. They have developed a light weight alternative which can be stuck in the same place panels would usually go. This method is much cheaper and at least as effective as many flexible panels.

They still have tests to run, but if they are a success, the company aims to start selling it 0.3mm thick solar film in the middle of 2022. This would also easily go on cars and lorries as well. Although the initial aim will be to cover large building, a lorry has roughly 20 square meters of flat roof space – even with relatively poor panels, this should make 20-30kwh a day easily. While an electric lorry will use more than this, over the year, a system like this could make as much as 6megawatt hours, which is certainly not to be sniffed at.

Could this new product move us faster towards gaining significant amounts of our power from solar? I would hope so.

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How can an average UK household reduce their carbon footprint?

The average UK household has a footprint of around 20 tonnes. Now it is true, that this is well below USA emissions as that is for 4 people – so average emissions of around 5 tonnes per head.

However, with relatively small adjustments, this can be cut dramatically. 12.3% of emissions come from heating, and a further 10.4% comes from electricity.

Furthermore, a significant cut can be made through replacing beef mince with Turkey mince. This can reduce your food carbon footprint by as much as 50%, and given that most mince is eaten in dishes with other foods, it is often unnoticeable

Continue reading “How can an average UK household reduce their carbon footprint?”
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Agrovoltaics : what what is it and why are they interesting

There is often a concern that advances in efficiency and green technologies use more land and more resources, with these two processes that is not the case. 

Agrovoltaics involve putting solar panels above food crops. Food crops using a very small portion of the light that falls on them, and as such can often grow very effectively under solar panels so long as they don’t cut off too much of the light. Furthermore, while putting solar panels a metre or less of the ground is cheaper, these raised solar panels have a similar cost to roof based solar. 

A wide range of crops can be grown under solar panels

However there are also advantages for the the plants growing underneath. The amount of water evaporation is vastly lower, allowing more water hungry plants to grow well with less. The lower temperature also benefits many of the plant species.

Added to this of course is the ability for the farmer to sell megawatts of electricity each year. If enough farmers entered into this business and we invested in enough battery to store it for use in the evening and at night, we would eliminate the need for gas and coal powered electricity. Perhaps supporting rollout of Silvopasture could end the need for farmers to need additional finance from the government.

In the next article I will look at Silvopasture.

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Foolish attacks on renewable energy – Texas blackouts cannot be blamed on green energy

With incredibly cold weather hitting Texas (for instance the beach is covered in snow), Fox News has been making a big thing of the fact that some of the wind turbines are not turning supposedly because they froze – and that this is the cause of the blackouts.

This is factually incorrect. According to data from the Texas government wind turbine shutdowns accounted for less than 13% of the total outage. A bigger problem is freezing of oil and gas equipment throughout the state.

Continue reading “Foolish attacks on renewable energy – Texas blackouts cannot be blamed on green energy”
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