The wife had a work car that runs on battery, so thinking this might be worthwhile.
I heard there had been recent changes after solar had gone out of favour.

Tesla keeps sending me emails about the Powerwall + solar panels. TBH if we had the cash I’d consider it especially as we’re rural and seem to be the first knocked out, and last restored whenever there is a storm + power cut. The ability to store energy until it’s needed is the big plus (our alternative is a standby generator which most of our neighbours have done / are doing).

I didn’t think the Tesla system worked if the power went out… these things normally need external power to synchronise with, even if you’re not importing any.

Systems like this are getting cheaper and more common; even ikea do them now! If we planned to stay in our current house long term I’d probably have done it already.

Right now I don’t think it adds up if you’re just thinking financially – eight grand or whatever will buy you an awful lot of power – but the extra sustainability, wanting to encourage things moving in that direction and a bit of geekery makes it up for me.

interesting read…

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/aug/12/edf-free-solar-panels-buy-power-generated-20-years

We have had solar panels for the last five years, so benefit from the better feed in tariff that is sadly no longer available.

Bought a Nissan Leaf EV car last December, having wanted a EV car for both green issues and also much nicer to drive, albeit that it’s not for everyone with the range being limited , but it suits our driving requirements and won’t go back to an ICE again.

Just had a Tesla Powerwall 2 battery installed.

Having the solar panels and EV car it makes a lot of sense to store the energy from the panels and use it for charging the car for free. Ok, the Tesla PW2 isn’t cheap at 6K, but looking at it as a longer term expenditure to reduce energy costs, and being an EV car owner it just seems daft to export the solar energy to the grid.

Haven’t had the PW2 long enough yet, but buying from the grid has gone down dramatically.

We have had solar panels for the last five years, so benefit from the better feed in tariff that is sadly no longer available.

As one of the consumers paying for the feed in tariffs through my bills I don’t find the reduced subsidies sad at all. Solar isn’t a new technology. It should now stand or fall on it’s merits not through subsidies from other consumers.

It should now stand or fall on it’s merits not through subsidies from other consumers.

Indeed…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/aug/07/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-a-staggering-5-tn-per-year

Just a few more details about the PW2.

It has the ability to import electricity from the grid to the battery. There are a few suppliers which are beginning to offer off peak rate energy for as little as 6kw overnight.

So it could be possible to buy your energy overnight when demand is low, and then use the energy through the day.

Needs a little careful planning, but if you are out of the house from 8 till 6 at work, then the home would consume roughly 0.5 kw per hour.

The battery can store 14kw, if you don’t have an exceptionally high usage then this could work for some, even without the solar.

Think this option for importing will be made available soon.

Something will have to be done in this respect though. As the take up of EV cars increase, home charging is the cheapest and most logical method of recharging.

So off peak charging at a lower energy cost makes sense for the individual and the National Grid.

Not quite.

Because generation it moving towards PV charging over night (the traditional off peak time) probably won’t make sense soon. Check out the National Grid demand curve for 24-25 March and the analysis that was done.

Before you think about anything with renewables or storage you need to drive down your energy consumption first. Spend your money on insulation and airtightness first, then think about grid-tied renewables. Batteries don’t make sense for the vast majority of consumers.

I will do it on political grounds.
This government should be doing all it can to make us as energy self sufficient as possible.
They aren’t , so it’s hypocritical for me to sit back and moan about it when I can take matters into my own hands. I would also like to be able to store my own energy in case of any future black outs.
That UK energy usage website that someone on here posted really opened my eyes to how much solar we already produce.

Has anyone ever looked a CV springs, like the wind-up radio, but far larger obvs..

As one of the consumers paying for the feed in tariffs through my bills I don’t find the reduced subsidies sad at all. Solar isn’t a new technology. It should now stand or fall on it’s merits not through subsidies from other consumers.

All depends on whether you want to breathe clean air and drink clean water or not….

Air and water perfectly clean here bar a few inner city hotspots. Solar won,t reduce diesel fumes from buses. etc.

How much power will solar give at 6pm in January?

How much power will solar give at 6pm in January?

Assuming you store excess in a Power wall or equiv, you can use up the average of 20 kWh/m2 in January that you generated during daylight hours…

Solar isn’t a new technology. It should now stand or fall on it’s merits not through subsidies from other consumers

No it shouldn’t.

We need sustainable energy. That needs to be subsidised. Governments cannot let the world go to shit by sitting back and doing bugger all whilst money does all the talking.

This is very important.

irc conveniently ignoring Kit’s post re: fossil subsidies? 😉

We’re not in a position to throw money at it yet, but I’m hoping the savings on petrol/diesel will look favourable once we can afford to replace our Diesel CRV with a wee electric run-around. Our commute is short but congested, getting a bit of a conscience about the car’s emissions 😳

Funnily enough we have a Tesla rep coming around to ours next month for the Powerwall and Solar Roof. They seem to be second to none and i was under the impression that they do power the home in the event of an outage……but we’ll see!

I’d be interested if you have any alternatives to recommend or experiences….

I like the sound of all this, but we’re contemplating moving house in the next couple of years so will hold fire until then.

We need sensible sustainable energy and subsidies for schemes which make sense. The previous solar subsidies appeared to encourage installations which weren’t sensible – our local village hall has solar panels on a North facing roof FFS (the angle is shallow, but even so)! I must remember to take a pic demonstrating the insolation at midday in winter this year…

It would be interesting to see some payback calls for various home demands.

I’m going to start logging our electric use closely, so I’ve got facts.

Before you think about anything with renewables or storage you need to drive down your energy consumption first. Spend your money on insulation and airtightness first, then think about grid-tied renewables. Batteries don’t make sense for the vast majority of consumers.

No, you should do whatever works out the most cost effective, or at least of the most benefit to you (including the sense of smug self satisfaction in saving the planet).

If you made a lot of homes airtight you’d end up with a horrible damp smelly place that made everyone ill. It’s not a problem that can always be solved with a bit of ductape over an airbrick. Yes insulation is a usually a good thing, but people still have to live in these places.

The advantage of renewables and batteries at a household level is that the household is paying the upfront cost. If you stood up in parliament and said “every household is going to pay £600 extra in tax every year for 12 years to pay for a massive solar farm in Kent” a) Kent would be very unhappy, and b) everyone being asked to chip in £600 would be very unhappy. You could build a huge battery and bury it under Bury, but you’d have the same problem (possibly with marginally less objections than Kent).

To illustrate the point, just look at the political hot potato that is Hinkley C!

You could build a huge battery and bury it under Bury

Heat dissipation during charging might be interesting.

😉

Wouldn’t the old gasometer sites make a great location for the huge batteries

Wouldn’t the old gasometer sites make a great location for the huge batteries

If only they hadn’t built flats all over them…

No, you should do whatever works out the most cost effective, or at least of the most benefit to you (including the sense of smug self satisfaction in saving the planet).

Yep. If all your heating is from renewables then it doesn’t really matter if your house is insulated or not (from a carbon footprint point of view).

Yep. If all your heating is from renewables then it doesn’t really matter if your house is insulated or not (from a carbon footprint point of view).

It does, because renewables are still limited in supply even though they are renewable.

I didn’t think the Tesla system worked if the power went out… these things normally need external power to synchronise with, even if you’re not importing any.

Yes – FIT systems will cut out if the grid is off, as they don’t want the grid live while they are fixing it. If you want to run PV as a standby you’d need a standalone inverter; you could have a FIT inverter and a standalone one with a full changeover switch but it would be a couple of £k to buy and fit.

You/I are subsidising far more due to requirements for energy security.

The requirement to provide uptime’s is a major part of your bill that is legislated in.

By that I mean you can go and turn on the light and it will come on 99.999% of the time but this is simply wasteful (and expensive)

Most new lighting is now 12v DC and you could poet a houseful of LED’s on a car battery for days…
Equally your TV/computer etc. all run on DC…. the first thing that happens inside them is a transformer and DC converter… however regulations are all based around supplying 230VAC which simply isn’t needed and not even desirable for most appliances.

The main things however don’t need 24x7x365 …. I rarely get up at 3AM to iron for example.

Classic examples are washing machines or dishwashers. These are only available with electric water heating but the motor COULD be DC… and as most wash cycles are lower temp the water could easily be PV heated.. my water pump on my gas powered central heating could be DC…

My point is that if MOST of these were available in a 12VDC/24VDC for the same price (in theory they should be cheaper but lets go same price) then having self sufficient solar and other energy forms becomes realistic.

There are many forms of sustainable energy and many of the pro-sustainable energy fans are against other forms whilst your average Joe just wants to be able to flick a switch as cheaply as possible.

The main thing in the way of a middle ground I see is reliance and deliberate tie-in/dependence to main electricity. Given the appliances were available I’d be happy with 1-2 hours a month no electricity in the middle of the night… or a different model just tap into main electricity when needed… which if you have GCH is probably not that much.

supplying 230VAC which simply isn’t needed

We transmit high voltage AC because it’s much more efficient to do so than low voltage DC.

We transmit high voltage AC because it’s much more efficient to do so than low voltage DC.

But DC use has its attractions.

As for self supply, clearly doable technically, financially it might work, but the question is (bizarrely enough) can you do it sustainably. As kit wears out (and it does) you are going to need to have maintenance and replacement plans in place for what is a fairly vital and expense bit of your life.

A hybrid solution might be a better bet – i.e. Home and grid, sometimes referred to as the fractal balancing view.

PS – I work for a power company (not an energy company).

Yes – they use high voltage DC for the grid backbone, don’t they – to reduce induction related losses? The reason most of it’s AC though is to allow it to be stepped up and down easily to achieve high voltage transmission.

Correct – though it frequently to decouple large systems, because as line lengths become appreciable fractions of 50hz wavelengths you get some interesting transmission line effects – not my area of expertise.
Transformers work better with AC. However there are some interesting power electronics developments that might change that.

Yes – they use high voltage DC for the grid backbone, don’t they – to reduce induction related losses? The reason most of it’s AC though is to allow it to be stepped up and down easily to achieve high voltage transmission.

But that doesn’t mean it needs to be delivered as high voltage AC… or most importantly consumed as “high voltage” (230v) AC.

In effect we the consumers are being forced to consume according to how “they” wish to supply and our appliances are regulated to keep this.
You can’y buy a washing machine with hot water input anymore so even if you have a limitless supply in summer through say PV or in winter from a back boiler you still have to heat the water through electricity derived from main supply.

On the other hand every lightbulb in my house has a step-down and inverter (which 90% of the time is what fails) .. the whole lot would run on a car battery for days on clean DC. I have probably several hundred transformers in the house because nearly everything electronic works off 12/5 VDC but most of those have internal transformers and no option to supply clean DC.

Cost and efficiency wise I’m not given the alternative of cheaper mains electricity with a lower uptime and some brown-outs because companies are not allowed to offer it.

So in effect we “the consumer” are being dictated to on how we consume and it isn’t to our advantage.
With the exception of a few electrical items (electric showers kettle,iron etc.) nearly everything is more efficient for the consumer supplied as DC.

The only things I really care about (not even need) being available 24×7 are all DC.

Even my gas stove “requires” mains electricity…. as does the thermostat on my GCH…

But that doesn’t mean it needs to be delivered as high voltage AC… or most importantly consumed as “high voltage” (230v) AC.

So you’re saying one large transformer in the house instead of lots of small ones?

Seems a fairly pointless change to me. Even around the house you’d lose a lot of power. And then look at the variety of voltages your stuff runs on.

You could easily do this yourself though if you care. Put 12V and 5V supply in the walls, see how warm it gets when you run loads of devices from it.

Thing is though your small electronic devices now use hardly any power, and their PSUs are very efficient – so this is absolutely trifling compared to your fridge, cooker and washing machine and even your kettle.

Transformers work better with AC

stevextc is probably wrong today but may we’ll be right in a few years – 15-18kW AC-DC supplies mounted at every house will become practical at some point.
We’re looking at it, and the DC home is quite interesting in terms of making power companies’ lives easier.
But it ain’t cheap – fag packet calculations suggest it might double the cost of the distribution grid to the customer.

irc conveniently ignoring Kit’s post re: fossil subsidies?

Does the UK have fossil fuel subsidies?

The UK defines fossil fuel subsidies as government action that “lowers the pretax price to consumers to below international market levels”.

Since a reduction in the usual rate of tax paid in a certain sector (such as North Sea oil and gas) doesn’t fit into this definition, the government says this isn’t subsidy.

Therefore, despite multiple reports highlighting how the UK gives frequent financial support to prop up its oil and gas industries, the government argues it is simply lowering the sector’s already higher-than-usual rate of tax and has no fossil fuel subsidies.

Explainer: The challenge of defining fossil fuel subsidies

Edit: ignore, hadn’t read carbonbrief link

So you’re saying one large transformer in the house instead of lots of small ones?

Yes which is simply the opposite of the inverters used with Tesla batteries etc.

Seems a fairly pointless change to me. Even around the house you’d lose a lot of power. And then look at the variety of voltages your stuff runs on.

Nearly all of it is 5v or 12v….

You could easily do this yourself though if you care. Put 12V and 5V supply in the walls, see how warm it gets when you run loads of devices from it.

I’m already doing that…. based on the number of different chargers and transformers all round the house. Every light has one, every TV, the blue ray actually has an external 12v one…
However that’s missing the point…. What I’m suggesting is instead to use local solar at 12/24 VDC and do away with the transformers altogether for …..

Thing is though your small electronic devices now use hardly any power, and their PSUs are very efficient – so this is absolutely trifling compared to your fridge, cooker and washing machine and even your kettle.

Yep, that my point…. nearly all the stuff I want powered permanantly takes almost nothing… so little I could run it in winter off solar powering/charging a battery…. my cooker takes even less, it only needs power to power the clock and lighter… (you could even power the lighter with a large capacitor that just charges from static)

Fridge is marginal…. and the power for the washing machine goes mainly into heating water not the motor… if the washing machine could take hot water input the power requirements would be much less.

The GCH has a pump but again not huge power demands compared to a kettle or electric shower..

So my point is to cut out the transformers altogether except as an over-ride when you don’t have sufficient battery power.

When I plug in the kettle or use the electric shower then I can just go straight to mains power but I’m willing to accept much much lower energy security on that (as low as 99.9%).. if I have heating/lighting and some form of entertainment and way to work I can accept the iron may not be available or might not get as hot as quickly in a brownout at 2am…

stevextc is probably wrong today but may we’ll be right in a few years – 15-18kW AC-DC supplies mounted at every house will become practical at some point.
We’re looking at it, and the DC home is quite interesting in terms of making power companies’ lives easier.
But it ain’t cheap – fag packet calculations suggest it might double the cost of the distribution grid to the customer.

This is the problem… I don’t want or need DC delivered but obviously the energy companies who drive legislation want to deliver so they can charge me.
It’s not about making the power companies lives easier except it is because they control legislation indirectly.

What I want is to be able to run completely free of the grid most of the time. Only using the grid for infrequent activities or top up charging of a battery.
I’ll take care of the “lights coming on” .. I just want (living in the UK as we do) some top-up… and to run a few items like irons and kettles infrequently

What I’d like to see as a consumer is lower availability of AC but cheaper whilst being able to buy a boiler with a DC motor and TV with clean 12V input (that isn’t designed for a caravan).

My fag packet says I could happily run the “highly desirable 24×7 stuff” like lights from energy collected from solar.(including water heating to a temperature usable for washing clothes/people).. and maybe some days in winter this would need supplementing if I open the fridge/freezer lot or want to shower and do the washing at the same time.

The lack of option here is buying the devices in the first place… as seen demonstrated by home solar’s requiring a voltage inverter that then converts to 230VAC that then gets converted back to 12/5VDC

OK, just skim read the Carbonbrief article, but this leapt out at me:

“For instance, chancellor Philip Hammond recently announced new help for the North Sea oil and gas industry, also highlighting the “unprecedented support already provided to the oil and gas sector through £2.3bn packages in the last three years”.

A recent Carbon Brief analysis found the UK’s North Sea oil and gas sector actually became a net drain on public finances in 2016, with the sector receiving an overall £396m in 2016, even when tax payments were taken into account. Another investigation released by Greenpeace and Private Eye in April found the UK had pledged £4.8bn in financial support to fossil fuel firms since 2010 through UK Export Finance, the government agency that supports risky export deals to boost international trade by providing guarantees, insurance and reinsurance against loss.”

And that’s fossil fuels standing up by themselves is it? How cost effective would local solar/batteries look if they received £4.8bn in subsidies I mean support?