As far as I am aware the main reason solar isn't listed is because it's usually fed direct into DNOs and not fed into the Grid. The Gridwatch site shows info on NationalGrid and not the individual DNOs
Solar Panels
- Thread starter JamesEB
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If the power station is making a profit then why would the generating company want to shut it down? EDF seem to be happy to keep coal running for as long as possible. West Burton have just spent out to replace a generator transformer that 'turned up it's toes' (not a recognised phrase for a fail , just mine!) on one of it's four units. Uskmouth was closed by SSE but now has 2 of it's three units up and running again with new owners. The problem with coal stations is the governmen is putting too many hurdles in their way. Germany are currently building new coal/lignite burning stations.
No, the main reason solar (domestic and small installations specifically) isn't shown is that nobody knows what it is. If you have panels on your house, and generate 20kWh today, nobody knows if you used it yourself, or exported it. And you only provide a generation meter reading once in three months, so nobody even knows what you generated until then. It is slightly detectable on Gridwatch, because if a million people like you are running their 3kW tumble driers, and the sun comes out and all their roofs start generating 3kW each, the load drops.
I don't know the arrangements for solar farms.
Somebody, somewhere, ought to know what the FITS payments for 2016 were, and how many kWh it was, but I've never seen it.
I don't know. Is it not possible that they might look to the medium-/long-term future, and decide that their ongoing profits over that time-span would be greater if they shifted to a different fuel?
Kind Regards, John
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Over long term yes, profits would be greater with a newer CCGT with much higher efficiency BUT the coal sites are still very profitable. It makes more sense to continue running profitable coal sites while newer CCGT sites are built. There would still be an ongoing income from coal until the CCGT sites are commissioned. So, until it reaches a point where the annual legally required maintenance costs more than the profit it seems stupid to close. If it wasn't for the generating companies being forced to cut the running hours coal would be here for a long time to come.
In a lot of cases they aren't making a profit.
If you run a coal fired station then you are hit from all sides.
To start with there are ever tightening emissions restrictions which are causing expenditure on plant upgrades (flue scrubbers and the like).
And then you are forced to pay money into the shakedown pot to pay for the ROCs and FITs to renewables operators.
And you have to compete in the energy market against all the other generators - including those you are subsidising.
If you want to run flat out for long periods, you have to bid very low and make no money. If you don't bid low then you only get to run when the cheaper options aren't sufficient - and that means lots of starts/stops and power variations which is hell on big machinery (causes lots of wear and tear, and hence high maintenance costs).
And then there's the biggie.
If the politicians have finally woken up to the realities, and the graphs are showing a huge shortfall during winter, then ... you announce that you are closing your huge power station. TPTB then go "oh sh*t" or whatever the official terminology is, and decide that your plant is too important to security of supplies and will pay you "availability payments" to keep the plant available.
On the question of stuff not showing up in the figures ...
The likes of Gridwatch and BM Reports only report what is metered onto the grid and therefore visible to the energy market (that's what the figures are being reported for). There are a lot of small generation installations which are not metered at the grid level as they are only connected into the DNO network. So as well as roof-top PV, there are a lot of small hydro and wind installations that don't appear in the figures.
Given the number of them, the small unmetered wind installations add up to quite a bit. I recall seeing some figures a while ago, but I can't remember what they were.
All these years, when I've seen things like "It's gone t**s-up", I never realised it meant that.
UK wind farm costs fall almost a third in 4 years - Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/e7cce732-e171-11e6-9645-c9357a75844a1 day ago ... The green energy industry has hit another milestone as offshore wind companies reveal their costs have tumbled much faster than expected ...
well that's interesting.
An older article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...ational-gamble-on-wind-power-may-yet-pay-off/
"The biggest offshore companies have together vowed to cut costs to €80 per MWh - or £69 - by 2025. If so, the strike prices may start to match the wholesale price of electricity in the UK market. They may even come below the market price, in which case they will pay money back to society under Britain's 'contract for difference' system.
The Government's next three offshore auctions will see a staggered fall in strike prices to a maximum of £85 per MWh by 2020, and they will arguably keep falling step by step thereafter until market forces prevail."
well that's interesting.
An older article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...ational-gamble-on-wind-power-may-yet-pay-off/
"The biggest offshore companies have together vowed to cut costs to €80 per MWh - or £69 - by 2025. If so, the strike prices may start to match the wholesale price of electricity in the UK market. They may even come below the market price, in which case they will pay money back to society under Britain's 'contract for difference' system.
The Government's next three offshore auctions will see a staggered fall in strike prices to a maximum of £85 per MWh by 2020, and they will arguably keep falling step by step thereafter until market forces prevail."
That's too sexist now. You've got to use the phrase 'It's gone chest skywards'All these years, when I've seen things like "It's gone t**s-up", I never realised it meant that.
I was looking at the Grid meters the other day. Coal, Nuclear, Biomass and Combined Gas are all at max capacity, approaching overload. We had a few days of still, foggy weather last week when Wind and Solar were right down.
Consistent Government failure to have an energy policy for a generation has left us in a deep hole.
It's a shame that prosperous homeowners with a pretty rural view have blocked the building of quick, cheap windmills.
Consistent Government failure to have an energy policy for a generation has left us in a deep hole.
It's a shame that prosperous homeowners with a pretty rural view have blocked the building of quick, cheap windmills.
Whilst at the same time greedily troughing up subsidies to make their pretty roofs look ugly.
and for a few days each year reflect the glaring sun light into other people's homes
Cheap and quick windmills have other effects other than just affecting the view.
Look up infrasound and the effects on the human body. Acoustic weapons are a serious research project.
A single wind turbine creates an infrasound pulse each time a blade sweeps past the post. An array of turbines is a source of more sustained and complex infrasound.
That is obvious. No need for you to make the point.
BUT infrasound can be use as a weapon.
Hence infrasound created by a weapon must have adverse effects on the human body.
Hence infrasound created by a non weapon will have some effects on the human body
The abstract from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25786948
For at least four decades, there have been reports in scientific literature of people experiencing motion sickness-like symptoms attributed to low-frequency sound and infrasound. In the last several years, there have been an increasing number of such reports with respect to wind turbines; this corresponds to wind turbines becoming more prevalent. A study in Shirley, WI, has led to interesting findings that include: (1) To induce major effects, it appears that the source must be at a very low frequency, about 0.8 Hz and below with maximum effects at about 0.2 Hz; (2) the largest, newest wind turbines are moving down in frequency into this range; (3) the symptoms of motion sickness and wind turbine acoustic emissions "sickness" are very similar; (4) and it appears that the same organs in the inner ear, the otoliths may be central to both conditions. Given that the same organs may produce the same symptoms, one explanation is that the wind turbine acoustic emissions may, in fact, induce motion sickness in those prone to this affliction.
Wind mills that hang upside down ( the australian ones ) seem to have lost their fans
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-17/wind-farms-david-leyonhjelm-fact-check/6553746
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-17/wind-farms-david-leyonhjelm-fact-check/6553746
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