Germany sets record

Pepperman · Post by **Pepperman** » 17 Sep 2013, 19:27

No it wouldn't.

Daytime demand is currently about 40GW which could be generated on a sunny day by 10m typical domestic rooftop PV installations. And then you've got extensive roof space on industrial and commercial buildings, over car parks etc for larger scale installations.

As I mentioned above, the fact that they're not generating at the same time as peak demand is not a deal breaker. Doubtless PV is a better fit in the south west USA where peak demand is air conditioning-led and comes in the middle of the afternoon, but it's still a useful contributor to our electricity mix in the UK.

What are the alternatives to supply 40GW during the day? 40GW of nukes? or CCGT? or coal?

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 21 Sep 2013, 13:15

I think my only whinge about PV here in the UK is, if you've gone to all the effort of manufacturing a panel, is (for example) Cumbria the best place to put it? Many families who buy them, though, are spending what would otherwise be their holiday/new-kitchen (oh heck!) loot, which is no bad thing!

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 21 Sep 2013, 19:55

Which brings us back to the issue that the only way to stop global warming is to keep the carbon underground. The rest is just tinkering.
As per: http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/0 ... art-7.html

Pepperman · Post by **Pepperman** » 22 Sep 2013, 15:07

RenewableCandy wrote:I think my only whinge about PV here in the UK is, if you've gone to all the effort of manufacturing a panel, is (for example) Cumbria the best place to put it? Many families who buy them, though, are spending what would otherwise be their holiday/new-wearedodgy (oh heck!) loot, which is no bad thing!

With the current state of PV technology and its embodied carbon I would agree with you but as costs reduce and manufacturing processes improve I can forsee it becoming viable, even in relatively poor conditions like Cumbria.

To get a sense of the relative generation I had a look at PVGIS: PV panels in Cumbria would generate about a quarter less than the same system in the south west of Cornwall and the Cornish panels would generate about a third less than the same system in the south of Spain (so the Cumbrian panels would generate about half what they would generate in Spain).