Filed under: Carbon solutions, Case Studies, Evo Friends, Photovoltaics, Solar, Solar PV
A new client of EvoEnergy is an academic within the architecture department of the University of Nottingham: Dr Nicholson-Cole
Charging the Earth: A Blog by Dr Nicholson-Cole
In his blog he is mainly discussing an experiment to recharge the heat being removed via a borehole from the ground beneath his house. The heat is currently being used through a ground-source heat pump and the worry is that in twenty years time the deep clay earth will not have replaced all the used energy. He’s been looking at ways of keeping the deep earth warm as well as talking about zero carbon homes, his solar PV install, sparring with the mighty Wikipedia and various assorted topics.
It’s a fascinating read!
Filed under: Solar PV
Have you ever wondered how you could make your own PV module from broken pieces of silicon? If so then please see the link below.
Here at EvoEnergy we think it is the sort of thing that makes it worth buying them manufactured en mass!
Filed under: Solar PV
Feed-In Tariffs
Dr Aidan Bell
Director, EvoEnergy
Reaction to the Department for Energy and Climate Change’s White Paper on Feed-In Tariffs, 15th July 2009
The UK has lagged behind continental Europe since Hans – Josef Fell first tabled the idea of Feed-In Tariffs to the German government, a scheme which guarantees an above market rate price for electricity generated from renewable sources like, solar photovoltaic (PV), for a period of twenty years.
Ed Miliband’s presentation yesterday morning in the common’s indicated a Feed-In Tariff in Britain for the first time to be introduced in April 2010 and as a renewable energy professional I was amazed at the intelligence of the tariff for microgeneration. The hundreds of pages surrounded the issue showed they had learnt from the mistakes made abroad. The feed in tariff is layered by size so that smaller, and necessarily more expensive, PV systems become investable whilst larger PV systems are not going to make a fast-buck for venture capitalists as they have in Spain and Italy, but that sensible long-term investors such as pension funds might see them as attractive.
The tariff is also layered by technology type so that continued investment in all types will be encouraged. This will help bring the idea of electrical generation down to a home or community level and because there are no restrictions on how the systems can be integrated will provide the best possible return on any of the technologies.
One of the overlooked features of the tariff is making people recognise how difficult it is to generate electricity, something that is simply taken for granted, but really shouldn’t be and therefore educating people in the need to become more efficient.
Photovoltaic Feed in Tariff
Size of PV System |
Feed in Tariff (pence / kWh) |
| <4kW (new build) | 31.0 |
| <4kW (retrofit) | 36.5 |
| 4-10kW | 31.0 |
| 10–100kW | 28.0 |
| 100kW–5MW | 26.0 |
| Stand alone system (Off Grid) | 26.0 |
A typical home photovoltaic system costing 2.55 kWp system might cost £13,400 and if mounted on a south facing roof in the midlands would be expected to generate 2126 kWh/yr which would now be worth £967 / year if half the electricity is used and half exported.
Without grant that’s an impressive 7.22% return on your PV investment
With a £2,500 grant still available from the Low Carbon Building Programme that’s 8.87%
Full praise to the DECC!
Struggling banks that have been taken over by the UK government should be required to invest in solar energy initiatives, a major figure has claimed.
According to former head of BP Lord Browne of Madingley, institutions such as Royal Bank of Scotland and the Lloyds Banking Group could help kick-start the low-carbon economy by backing such projects.
In an interview with the Times, he also lauded the government’s commitment to build 25GW of new offshore wind power generation capacity by 2020 as an “ambitious but achievable” target.
Lord Browne suggested that the biggest challenge in the way of such a goal – which would represent a 40-times increase over the UK’s current offshore wind capacity – is funding.
“This could be alleviated by directing state-controlled banks to lend more to projects in the supply chain and by working with the European Investment Bank to speed up implementation of its programme of green lending,” he told the paper.
Today, Britain has 2,537 operational wind turbines, which together generate 3.6GW of electricity, according to the Times.
Last month, prime minister Gordon Brown predicted that the global renewable energy sector would be worth as much as £1.8 trillion per year by 2050.
Filed under: Solar PV | Tags: Dr Kevin Hard, EcoBuild, Solar Photovoltaics, sustainable buildings
Dr Kevin Hard, Managing Director of EvoEnergy was recently invited to talk at the World’s largest sustainable building event in the section entitled “performance matters”.
The talk was well received and further indication of how EvoEnergy is becoming recognised on a national level as solar photovoltaic experts.
The slides to the talk, entitled simply “Solar Photovoltaics” can now be found on our website.
Filed under: Case Studies, Industry News, Photovoltaics, Solar, Solar Power
In a speech on the challenges of tackling climate change during the recession, Lord Smith made a range of radical suggestions.
He said every public building in the country should be fitted with solar panels and wind turbines must be put up wherever possible.
Children should be taught about climate change alongside literacy and numeracy and all public sector organisations should be forced to consider the environment in annual budgets.
In a lecture to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), Lord Smith advocated following in the footsteps of US President Barack Obama with a range of measures that boost the economy by creating jobs while tackling climate change.
He said: “All public buildings should be fitted with solar or photovaltic panels. New buildings should be fitted with ground source heat pumps. Public land should be used, where possible, for wind power generation. Every new public building should meet the highest possible standards for energy and water efficiency, becoming a showcase of good practice for other local businesses and organisations to follow.”
The Government is due to announce a heat and energy package on Thursday that will include plans to insulate millions of homes and introduce grants for renewable heat generators like solar panels or wood chip boilers.
Lord Smith said policy-makers must make it easier for people to go green. For example a one-stop-shop run by local authorities to help households fit renewables and interest free loans to pay for micro-generators like wind turbines.
He also said transport in local government could be transformed by switching to hybrid or electric cars or video conferencing where possible. Every public sector organisation would be required to publish an “environmental responsibility report” alongside its annual budget.
In education children should be taught about the impacts of climate change.
He said: “I’m sure there is scope to do more to place the science and the impact of climate change as much at the heart of the school week as the other fundamentals of language, literacy, numeracy and the broader fields of physics, chemistry and biology.”
Lord Smith is in a key position to influence Government.
He made clear that controversial plans to build a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent should not be allowed unless carbon capture and storage (CCS), that takes the CO2 and stores it underground, is fitted by the 2020s.
He said all fossil fuel power plants should be fitted with the technology by the mid 2020s and old power stations should be retrofitted with CCS by 2030.
read more at: http://www.evoenergy.co.uk
Energy firms which have not sourced enough electricity from renewable sources will have to pay more, according to energy regulator Ofgem. In the Renewables Obligation compliance period of 2009-10, Ofgem expects energy firms to have to pay £37.29 per megawatt hour (MWh), to confirmed by legislation due in April. This represents an increase from £35.76 per MWh they have to pay currently if they cannot provide sufficient Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC) for the energy they produce. The amount of electricity the companies supply from renewables will also have to rise from the present 9.1 per cent to 9.7 per cent. Ofgem also said that the Renewable Obligation Order 2009, which will set the so-called buy-out rate, will also establish banded subsidies, so that some renewable technologies are granted more support by being worth more in ROCs. “It is expected that the new legislation, which is planned to take effect from April 1st, 2009, will set the buy-out price and mutualisation ceilings for 2009/10, It is also expected that these will then be adjusted by Ofgem in each subsequent year to reflect changes in the Retail Prices Index.” The government has committed to generating 15 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020.
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and
Filed under: Business News, Industry News, Photovoltaics, Solar Cells, Solar PV
The Information Network, recently published a report projecting that the nanomaterials for solar cells industry is expected to grow by 44 percent in 2009, after a growth rate of 47 percent in 2008. The report, “Nanomaterials for Solar Cells, Displays, Sensors, Lighting, and RFID Marketing Analysis and Driving Forces,” says that Copper Indium Gallium diSelenide (CIGS) solar cells pushed the market as manufacturers developed unique deposition methods and substrates using nanomaterials. According to Dr. Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network, “[C]ompeting with GICS are traditional crystalline and polycrystalline cells made with silicon wafers. On the horizon is a new nanomaterial that promises to cut solar cell prices.” Dr. Castellano describes a steel based on nanotechnology that would allow solar wafer manufacturers to reduce the amount of waste, or kerf, when slicing silicon wafers. This development could save the industry US$866 million, and drive down the price of solar cells.
One of EvoEnergy’s solar photovoltaic (PV) panel suppliers has been talking about a competitor installing a PV system on the It’s Not Easy Being Green (INEBG) house. The episode was screened last night (Wednesday 7th January) at 8pm on BBC. I do not know the viewing figures, but being prime time terrestrial it is certain to be at least a couple of million.
The solar PV installation world is a small one in the UK, with most of the firms having met one another. We recognise that the industry benefits from positive coverage that any one firm receives and we were therefore delighted to see the first terrestrially televised UK PV installation and the positive publicity that it received.
Already we have seen an increase in the number of enquiries through our website and expect, as the series goes on, that this will be maintained.
The solar system installed looked to be 15 x Sanyo 215 panels which would give a maximum output of 3,225W. The reading taken on the show was around 2,300W which would be entirely consistent with this as it was, as Dick Strawbridge commented in show, an overcast day. Where they are based geographically they should be generating in excess of 3,000kWh per year with this system, which is nearly enough for a standard household.
A very telling factor was the installation cost of £15,000 and the ‘bargain’ that it represented to the installers, to a somewhat taken aback customer (Dick). I don’t think I am going out on much of a limb to suggest that this didn’t include the very entertaining under road digging made with ‘the mole’. It might well also have been made with the full realisation that the extra TV exposure was something not to be missed (we’d probably have undercut this value for similar airtime).
The question of payback is one that is often asked, and addressed on a number of sites. I’ll only reiterate here what was said in the show; that panels last a very long time and do pay for themselves eventually. It was also mentioned that the Renewable Obligation Credit value is doubling in value this year; this will bring the amount paid per kWh generated to around 10p, which is suddenly not an insignificant amount of money at all, and almost doubles the worth of the electricity on an unsupported free market.
Overall, it was the first time that I’ve actually watch INEBG and loved the combination of hi-tech and low-tech solutions given, meaning that there was something for everybody. I am particularly looking forward to what they can make of an old Victorian house given a nicely sized budget of £100,000. This does sound a lot of money, even to somebody in the business, so I hope they manage to make it look good value.
What would be the perfect time for solar?
– A breakthrough for making solar cells directly from sand for mere pennies?
– A giant mirror placed on the moon focusing sunlight onto your house’s roof through the night?
– Or a combination of less exotic factors resulting in the best time to invest for many years to come?
The world has seen an unprecedented explosion in growth slow to a crawl, with the majority of the developed world now officially in recession. The spiralling costs of crude oil and natural gas have come to an end – oil has been back below $40 a barrel, but the utility companies so quick to point out the direct cause and effect a year ago are now back pedalling. We are now told that risk is the decisive factor in pricing and that companies don’t want to be seen to decrease the price and then increase it soon afterwards, even if that would have saved consumers money.
Overall, it looks as though domestic energy prices will remain higher than previously thought. This is particularly ominous when wholesale gas and oil prices slowly start their rise again when the recession lifts. There is an air of inevitability in the increase of the price of oil and gas, as the finite resource becomes ever rarer and more expensive to extract.
Solar photovoltaic cells are the perfect way to establish independence from increasing electricity prices. The only other remotely viable electricity generation would be a miniature wind turbine. These also provide protection from electricity price increases and although they only function on windy days, this is comparable with only working in daylight hours. The major disadvantages with microgeneration of electricity using wind turbines are swirling wind direction in urban areas, particularly if not mounted on the tallest building in the vicinity, and the obstructive planning laws in this country. Hopefully planning permission will become much easier and 2010 might yet be the year of the micro wind turbine.
Renewable technology cannot compete on the free market with fossil fuels unless carbon trading schemes are brought in to represent the global damage being caused by climate change. The UK has introduced Renewable Obligation Credits (ROC’s) and one off grants towards the initial capital outlay of microgeneration. For solar photovoltaics this grant currently stands at £2,500 per household and ROC’s provide about 5p/kWh of energy produced.
Since the climate change bill was passed into law in late 2008 there has been renewed talk of what form a feed-in tariff will take. If the bill follows the path blazed by Germany, France and Spain it will create a massive boom in the market. This will not only begin to strain demand, leading to an increase in solar panel costs, but more importantly it will replace the upfront capital grant.
The resultant conclusion: If you believe the feed-in tariff is likely to come into law, now is the ideal time to be purchasing solar photovoltaic systems. You receive the capital grant and the production grants making solar photovoltaics a sound financial investment.
