Power to the people

[alankelly]

Hi everybody.

Here is an interesting thought, if every house in the country was given a say £7000 grant to fit as a minimum an adequate solar thermal system to suit its occupants roof design and the rest was to be spent on adding a suitable PV array also, how much do we think this would cut down our dependence on fossil fuels??

This seems alot of money but when you consider the cost of a nuclear power stations, both cost to build, run AND decommission AND store the waste for the next 2000 years maybe it is not so an expensive option and would be a great leap in the right direction.

I know this would never happen as it would require a government with great vision and longterm objectives, but if we are really going to address our shortfall on renuables and create a long term solution to our energy requirement surly this is a way to go and everybody would be involved without the problems of NIMBY,s etc

Any way just a thought

Best regards Al.

[M]

It's a lovely idea, and I'm sure it would help quite a bit. But it would be heavily weighted towards one half of the year, and at around £100 billion it might be beyond our little country's budget.

Perhaps we should encourage our more wealthy residents to become a little more philanthropic. Perhaps everyone with £10million or more could sponsor 10 to 100 houses each and get some good press. Or each large company run a lottery scheme where an employee's house is 'done' each month.

Just ideas.

Martyn.

[Big Wal]

Hi alankelly.
Where will this money come from in this country of endless resource ?

[martin]

Didn't we find around £140 squillion to bail out the bankers?

[smegal]

Solar thermal, yes.

Not PV.

[billi]

Solar thermal, yes.

Not PV.

you should change your avatar then ...

[billi]

My vote since years is for a 10 kw PV   for each house , costs at  present ca 16000 -18000 pounds  ex vat

and power to the people

[danny stardust]

I would have thought "Insulation to the People" would be a better starting point.

I know there are grants available for insulation in some areas and in certain circumstances, but from all my investigations the preferred contractors were just making a fortune from it all. The prices they were charging for the materials were significantly higher than you could by the stuff at your local DIY store.

[smegal]

Solar thermal, yes.

Not PV.

you should change your avatar then ...

My comment was only on a CO₂/cost effectiveness stance.

[Wyleu]

The majority of any such funding would be quickly hoovered up in the myriad intricacies of the bureaucratic system. How many inspectors would it require? and how many dodgy operations would simply charge thro' the earth for it all?

As to where it should come from. How about the energy companies that we used to own? That is really where HMG should apply pressure. They'd huff and they'd puff and they'd lobby and they'd bribe and in the end they'd pay. Certainly there is also a danger of the shiny new tech solution, Insulation is a much better point to start than PV but PV looks sexy (ish) on Breakfast TV so that's what the minister would like her picture taken next to, so that is the sort of answer we'd get at the moment. But that profit from the energy companies was ours at one time and it was generally re-invested into the infrastructure.

It would also be nice if developers had to explain why they wern't putting these features on buildings. It would all end up with the same markups but it would make for an interesting mental change of position in the great unwashed. We do build some fairly horrible homes and our system is all stacked against any form of long term approach to it all.

Winge winge, moan, moan,

[brackwell]

With half this money spent on insulation etc one could achieve double the effect.
Ken

[azps]

My vote since years is for a 10 kw PV   for each house , costs at  present ca 16000 -18000 pounds  ex vat

Really? Wow, that seems very cheap. I've heard of £2.50/Wp (for a 3.8kWp system), but £1.60-£1.80 is very good.

And re national rollout - well, how much it ultimately costs, depends very much on whose pockets the money ends up in. Lots should come back to the public purse as tax-revenue within a year or two. Lots could be inward investment in capital and jobs. In short, the gross cost would be a massive over-estimate of the real cost. In times like these where demand is very depressed, it could well turn out to be a net earner for the country.

As for PV vs solar thermal vs insulation, well, I guess whole-house insulation must be very competitive on £/tCO2e. With 10kWp of PV per building, what happens on midday in June, if, say, London is very sunny? Doesn't its distribution grid just melt down? Not saying that's a barrier; it just means upgrading the distribution grid as well as installing the PV.

(by the way, SMF 2.0 has finally been released - what do you reckon to a forum software upgrade?)

[martin]

Upgrade? - perhaps, but not for a while - at present we have no access to perform such upgrades (or install better anti-spam measures) due to the stranglehold by our present "web designers", who if left to do it themselves (from previous experience) would undoubtedly render the forum unusable........

[azps]

Stranglehold? Lawks. Time to change web-designer ...

And re anti-spam, yeah, I know what you mean. I was administering an SMF 1.1.x forum for a while, and got fake registrations that outnumbered real ones a hundred-fold. SMF 1 seems particularly vulnerable. I don't know if SMF 2 is any better.

[billi]

My vote since years is for a 10 kw PV   for each house , costs at  present ca 16000 -18000 pounds  ex vat

Really? Wow, that seems very cheap. I've heard of £2.50/Wp (for a 3.8kWp system), but £1.60-£1.80 is very good.

sorry i follow the market in Germany more  and was surprised that  people over there get quotes under  2000 euro per kw  PV installed this year  (but  not for 4 kw and less )

Billi