Interesting idea Simon, but you won't do too well in the winter when the sun is dim and it is cold, I assume that your "wonder figure" includes your hot water, cooking etc. Well perhaps not. So I deduce you live alone, are quite well off, and have a gas supply and combi-boiler, and pobably take all your meals away from home. You are going to find the "Green Deal" really challenging whren you gas supply is removed!


I am quite supicious of those figures which I will check later, simply because solar has a utilisation factor of about 20% and wind about 25% of nameplate capcity. How much of this number is domestic solar installation estimates, as this can be significant but is usually disappointing in anywhere North of London for obvious reasons. Salesmen are very good at selling unworkable things to the public, and many results banded about are from California which has an entirely different climate from the UK.


The rating capacity of wind turbines against actual output is discussed on Wattsupwiththat.com in detail if you look at the archives, or the conference I referenced above.


I note that several of the large wind companies are not investing further (eg Innogy), because return on investment is too low now that subsidies have been cut, and maintenance costs in Germany are proving crippling. It was all driven by subsidy money which you and I have paid without representation.

According to the speaker at an IET lecture a while back, offshore wind is more like 30% utilization, rather than 25%, and the UK is moving more to offshore these days.  That's largely political, to appease the NIMBYs.  But whether it's 25% or 30% isn't so important if you build enough of them.  If you need 1GW, just build 4GW of wind turbines, spread over a wide enough area that it will be windy somewhere.


Domestic and other rooftop solar export is usually not even metered.  Its contribution to the grid is tiny, and probably just goes some way to reducing the transmission losses in the system.  This does give microgenerators a strange incentive to use as much of the electricity as possible themselves.  Anything that's exported earns no money.


My figures were for electricity only.  My cooking is a mixture of gas & electricity, and I do have a gas boiler.  I could probably produce all my hot water in summer from solar, if I was willing to spend more on a "diverter" to power the immersion heater.  A lot of people do that, and if domestic gas was banned, I would get one.


But I agree that a solar-only system is only useful when it's sunny, or at least only light cloud.  Last week (as I write), we had several days in a row with heavy cloud all day.  The solar panels just about covered the base load while I was out, and didn't generate enough to put any useful charge into the battery.  It was already flat by the time I got home.  I could uprate the battery to tide me through one bad day, but it would cost more money, and would do nothing useful in sunny weather.

Simon Barker:

 If you need 1GW, just build 4GW of wind turbines, spread over a wide enough area that it will be windy somewhere.

And hearby lies the big problem with the 'greenwash'. There appears to be an assumption that wind turbines and solar panels just happen, you don't need any natural resources, their manufacture does not create any pollution and the electricity distrubution system will just upgrade itself to suit.

 Wind and solar are low density energy sources and require more space, steel, concrete etc to install. There low utillisation means that the connecting cables, transformers, switchgear etc have to be oversized. A 1GW nuclear power station requires an interconnect rated at 1GW. A 1GW average renewable generation system requires an interconnect capable of carrying 3-4GW. This will require 3-4 times the raw materials that have to be mined and processed. How green is it really?


Best regards


Roger

Hush now Roger, Greta says we've stolen her dreams and her childhood and her generation is going to start a revolution to put us straight. She is not amused and your name is going on the list.


Pity her generation couldn't actually start a lawnmower, and seem pretty adept at ignoring other children who have their dreams and childhoods stolen working in such places as Cobalt mines in the DRC


OMS

I am surprised that you wonder at their honesty Leigh, they are presenting paperts full of scientific evidence. If you put in a bit of effort you can verify the material yourself, all the datasets are available on the net. There is a huge amount of dishonesty going on (climate emergency, Britain must shut down at once, Plant a Billion trees) and one needs to understand the facts.

Thanks Dave..lol. I have read your contribution with interest. It appears to be a more detailed analysis of the state of UK generating capacity than my more or less simplistic view. However,  when I hear American academics espousing such fixed views, albeit well developed, I can't help thinking that there is a lobbying campaign somewhere in the background and then one thinks of where is the money? But then why spend ones time considering the ills of one country when the ills of another are just as bad and perhaps more corrupt. We either have a free trading nation or we become totellitarian or perhaps something inbetween, if that's possible..


Legh

I have spent the last few years on fairly solid study of the whole climate thing, to the dismay of my partner who says "It is a complete waste of time, you will never change anything!". Perhaps not but unless someone does (preferably a large group, such as Engineers) things are going to get mighty difficult in the future.  I am dismayed by the IET who keep publishing articles in E&T which are wildly misleading about many aspects of the subject (being fairly kind), and seem to stem from journos repeating "stuff" from other websites, particularly the BBC. It is editorial policy at the BBC that the science is settled, the climate is changing due to anthroprogenic actions and we are all doomed, and that is official and available in print. They seem not to realise that the whole Greta thing is very serious child abuse, when questioned slightly she cannot answer simple questions and knows nothing of the science,and has a hissy fit.It is simple indoctrination.This week in Madrid she let the cat out of the bag and repeated the whole Marxist line in public, but this was not reported by the MSM, although delegates saw it and probably agreed too.


The site Wattsupwiththat.com has several real climate scientists who post often, and posts views in all directions, do not bother with the forum comments under each article, they are generally a waste of time.


Anyone who thinks I don't care about the climate should realise I used to own an Organic farm and retail outlets, and on that farm planted 60,000 willow trees (no grants!) for energy supply which was renewable. The value of the timber turned out to be virtually zero although would heat at least 20 houses continuously, saving in that area probably £40,000 in oil per year. The boilers etc sold to do so using wood chips turned out to be unable to feed "real" chipped wood reliably on a domestic scale and needed imported wood pellets (which are very expensive)! I hope that Drax fares better.


Does anyone know where to buy a gas powered computer? Oh no, perhaps I should patent that at once! We have the technology..........

https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/


What we do about it is a matter of politics. It's our choice.

Sure - the climate is warming - the reasons are less clear


The outcome however of either addressing carbon fuel consumption or dealing with poverty may have significant implications that may not be as expected


Regards


OMS

Like Dave I have been following the whole Climate Change/AGW for some time. I started from finding the rubbish that the Green Movement spouted about radioactivity and ionising radiation (my job involves very high levels of radiation so I had a vested interest in knowing the real risks) and wondering if the same applied to what was said about the climate. I am old enough to remember the Global Cooling worries of the 1970s and have seen many predictions that have not come to pass.

As I have said in my 1984 thread it all seems to be about political control and this was supported by the piece from Ms Thunberg et al:

“After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all. Our political leaders can no longer shirk their responsibilities.”

www.project-syndicate.org/.../climate-strikes-un-conference-madrid-by-greta-thunberg-et-al-2019-11

I have posted my summary of the state of climate knowledge elsewhere so I won't duplicate it here.
https://communities.theiet.org/discussions/viewtopic/807/24813?post_id=126994#p126994

The climate is changing, has changed and will continue to change with or without us. We need to reduce our impact on the planet and carefully consider our use of finite resources. All this requires a large amount of engineering input which I am currently not seeing. The IET just seems to spout ‘Greenwash’ in E&T. ‘The Engineer’ Magazine blocks any comments that don’t follow their ‘Green’ agenda.

I expect to see the IET publishing papers on the practicalities of reinforcing electricity distribution systems to support EV charging and the removal of gas and oil heating. How many additional substations are required to double (or more) the number of feed points to the 400V local distribution network? This is probably less disruptive than digging up the roads to install more or larger cables. How many new nuclear power stations do we need to supply this load? How does the grid need to be expanded/reinforced to achieve this? How much will this cost? How can we achieve this by whatever ridiculous target is being proposed, 2030, 2035, 2050? It might be possible/sensible by 2100.


Best regards


Roger

My goodness Roger, someone agrees with me! I am not quite sure about the ease of reinforcing the 400V network that way because the street LV cables are rated at less than 1kW per property in many areas and pretty much exist on a knife edge with electric showers etc. It is a very good thing that a 600A fuse lasts longer than the morning wake up time at 1000A or more, and the thermal time constant of transformers is measured in hour long periods. Well, life is fine until a fuse blows anyway.....