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Britain Opens Its First Subsidy-Free Solar Power Farm (reuters.com)
AmiMoJo quotes Reuters: Britain's first solar power farm to operate without a government subsidy is due to open in eastern England on Tuesday, as a sharp fall in costs has made renewable energy much more economical. Britain needs to invest in new energy capacity to replace aging coal and nuclear plants that are due to close in the 2020s. But it is also trying to reduce subsidies on renewable power generation... The 10 megawatt (MW) solar farm, in Clayhill, Bedfordshire, can generate enough electricity to power around 2,500 homes and also has a 6 MW battery storage facility on site.
It is still subsidized.
Yet another nail in the coffin of fossil fuels. The sooner oil producing terrorist sponsoring states go broke, the better for our security - Saudi Arabia.
My bike can also store 30 km/h of speed.
Meh, folks.
It is still subsidized.
You are uninformed.
But while the rest of the World forges ahead with renewable energy - China is in the lead - we are staying behind because of the misguided policies of Trump and his fetish for Coal - and his removing important environmental controls that prohibited the Coal industry from poisoning water and destroying fisheries. And the Republicans who have been bought and paid for by the Coal industry have made sure that they have a nice cushy ride.
So, spare us with the argument that Solar is subsidized.
And the way the Chinese are going, Solar will become cheaper than any fossil fuel. And good riddance!
And now we sit back and watch as the fossil fuel fans cast about aimlessly, grasping at straws trying to prove that the only possible way to maintain a modern democratic society is to allow large corporations to pump kilotons of shit into the atmosphere everyday.
The solar panels aren't subsidized. But they're not the primary purpose of the project anyway.
This is a load balancing project, needed because existing wind and solar generation fluctuates so much. The real money here is in the battery storage, which will be charged from the grid and is only needed because of subsidized solar and wind generation generation projects elsewhere.
Usually these renewable reports are grossly exaggerated to make it seem like renewable is more capable than it really is. But this one is actually fairly accurate.
10 MW * 0.097 capacity factor = 970 kW
970 kW / 2500 homes = 388 Watts per home
Average UK home annual consumption is 3940 kWh
3940 kWh / 1 year = 450 Watts average consumption.
So their "homes powered" metric is fairly close to accurate (2150 homes would be exact). We'll go with the exact 450 Watts per home figure.
To put this in perspective, the proposed Hinkley C nuclear plant would have a 3.2 GW capacity. Using the 90% capacity factor for newer nuclear reactors, this would give an actual generation of 2.88 GW, or enough to power 6.4 million homes.
At a construction cost of 24.5 billion GBP (the UK has some of the most expensive nuclear in the world), this works out to 3828 GBP per home powered.
If you run the same calculation using the 70% capacity factor for the UK's older nuclear plants over the last 5 years, it works out to 2.24 GW. Enough to power 5 million homes at 4900 GBP per home powered.
Unfortunately none of the news reports on this new solar farm that I was able to find mention its cost. This site estimates a utility-scale solar installation in the UK costs about 1.1 GBP per Watt. That works out to 11 million GBP / 2150 homes = 5116 GBP per home powered. But it doesn't include the cost of the 6 MW battery.
News for nerds, huh.
That's a wasted ten seconds of my life I'll never get back!
But, no, you're just bleating because you're a butthurt rightwinger who doesn't want those "ecoloons" to have done anything right.
The 10 megawatt (MW) solar farm, in Clayhill, Bedfordshire, can generate enough electricity to power around 2,500 homes and also has a 6 MW battery storage facility on site.
Well I have a AA battery that's over 6 gigawatts. ...that is will store more than 6 gigawatt-microseconds of energy
Nope, dumbass, nuke gets about 60% availability, half of that scheduled maintenance, half unexpected outage for one of a myriad of reasons.
This doesn't make sense.
Bringing more energy into the "possible consumption fold" is a good thing(tm).
This can save lives but can also lead to an increase in population; which is also a good thing(tm).
however, an increase in population also means and increase in growth overall (financially).
however, the base for a economy that relies on growth is humans that are NOT hungry!
if climate change is to be believed, we are in a situation, where growth of population and
consumption, in all aspects, go hand in hand.
most of the increase in energy production, required for further growth, it seems, is by emitting more CO2
which will lead to a climate change and a possible shift and decrease in food production?
CO2 is good for plants, but some established food-stuff growing areas might shift into another
"climate zone", maybe drier. other, non established areas, might see the opposite,
getting wetter or even MORE wet.
economics built on growth: they are building lemming housing by eroding the cliff base to make more lemmings fall further?
Just skimming the newest responses, I see that. And don't forget, the pollution creating them causes *more* than 20 years of not requiring any fuel other than the sun.
Yep.
You suckers. A century ago, I can see the daily dot: these car things are just a fad, and they're only for rich folks, and where would you drive them, anyway....?