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- CommentAuthorJoiner
- CommentTimeJun 19th 2012
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CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeJun 19th 2012 edited
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- CommentAuthorMike (Up North)
- CommentTimeJun 19th 2012
Hi,
Likewise for interest.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/06/solar-boom-heads-to-japan-creating-9-6-billion-market?cmpid=SolarNL-Tuesday-June19-2012
mmm not blue and underlined so paste it in
cheers -
- CommentAuthorEd Davies
- CommentTimeJun 19th 2012
“mmm not blue and underlined so paste it in”
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/06/solar-boom-heads-to-japan-creating-9-6-billion-market?cmpid=SolarNL-Tuesday-June19-2012
Select “Text” rather than “HTML” for “Format comment as” immediately below the comment box to have URLs enlinkified. Sadly, that means that blockquotes and things don't work — it's one or the other. You can change the format of a post after you've posted it by selecting “edit” at top right of the post — it'll only be available on your own posts, of course. -
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CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeJun 19th 2012
Been thinking about this Japanese push for solar, going to probably push the world price of panels up, will make installations pretty poor value here. -
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- CommentAuthorJoiner
- CommentTimeJun 19th 2012 edited
What? With the Japanese, I'd have thought we'd have seen the price drop because I really can't see them turning down the opportunity to get into the market themselves.
Probably bring about some nifty innovations too. -
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CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeJun 19th 2012 edited
3 or 4 large manufacturers of panels have gone to the wall, that has helped push prices up, or stabilised them at least.
When we had our 6 week boom on, we were paying about 20-30% above world prices, now we are back to world prices. The Japanese ambition is lot greater than ours, production facilities will take a while to match demand, China is pushing ahead with their plans.
3.2 GW installed capacity, even over 10 years say, is a lot of panels, 1.3 million a year ish.
Or about 32,000 tonnes of them. -
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- CommentAuthorJoiner
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012
Good job the UK saw the potential then!
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CommentAuthorDamonHD
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012
The Japanese system is so sclerotic and bound in red tape and poor competition AFAIK that it'll take a while to build up an installation industry, and over-capacity worldwide is still so great that I doubt that this'll have as big an effect as whatever the next change in German FiTs is...
Rgds
Damon -
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CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012
I better get myself over to Japan then.
Does seem, from what I can see/read/find, that they are going more for the commercial side rather than the domestic. What we should have done. -
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CommentAuthorDamonHD
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012
Nope, don't agree that we should have gone industrial (though several MW of such for the UK has just been proposed by various people); distributed solar (PV):
1) Engages individuals, in particular dampening the knee-jerk NIMBY response as there may be something in it for them
2) Injects energy/power with minimal distribution losses
3) Is far less prone to gross fluctuations as in a single cloud parking itself over a solar farm.
Rgds
Damon -
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CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012 edited
I am not so sure about points 2 and 3. Agree with 1 though.
Large scale stuff can be injected at a higher voltage, domestic stuff has to be LV, so less than 1000V.
The cloud shading is probably less of a problem on large systems than on a lot of domestic ones, which can shut the whole system down. I have seem systems that have been poorly designed and give little power (some a third of the ideal). By better geographic location, over to the dryer East, even with the lower solar resource, would probably have a larger net benefit than multiple < 3.86 kW systems down here. Would take some numbers to find out for real, but as I am in the wettest, so almost by definition the cloudiest region (though cloud type does play a role here), I suspect that when it comes to value for money and consistency of supply (which would currently rely on gas generation backup), there are better places in the UK than the 'sunniest'. The direct beam to diffused light ratio is possibly important. -
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CommentAuthorDamonHD
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012 edited
The best is almost certainly the widest possible geographical distribution weighted to the sunniest areas, IMHO.
Injection voltage is irrelevant IMHO: the fact is that if going into the local distribution network it avoids some power having to come to you and your neighbours from the substation (and HT grid) which is the lossiest bit.
And I'm not proposing building bad domestic PV, plus the FiTs motivate maximising generation.
But yes, real numbers would be good.
Rgds
Damon -
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CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012
Would be a trade off between bulk distribution losses and local substation losses plus small system losses.
I think, when dealing with large scale systems that voltage does become relevant. Not as if a 10 MW solar farm has to use a few G83 inverters.
Shall try and find some weather data and see what the differences in resources are between here and somewhere dryer (clouding over already for the predicted rain later today). -
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CommentAuthorDamonHD
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012
Just use PVGIS to sample expected yearly output for fixed kWp and optimal fixed incline south-facing for a few points in the UK, eg deepest darkest Cornwall, London, Sheffield, etc...
Rgds
Damon -
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CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012
That does not show consistency at the half hourly interval that is important for electrical generation. The downfall of means. -
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- CommentAuthorSteveZ
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012 edited
I have just discovered a zoom facility on the Solar Edge monitor. As an example of the variation in sunshine over a few hours in Cornwall, it points up why we cannot depend on such a variable source. Apologies for Moire patterns on photo - does anyone have a screen scraper or other way of saving a screen image?
EDIT Thanks for the tips on printing the screen content - I think I've got it now
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CommentAuthorDamonHD
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012
Your suggestion that "it points up why we cannot depend on such a variable source" is completely bogus.
Even if you inserted the word "entirely" after "depend" lots of people manage to live off grid by solar power.
It would be tough currently to live on renewables *alone* in the West having gotten comfortable with always-on grid power, but add storage or other energy sources and ... we're all fine.
You should look at the way that big nukes can trip out without warning in a very short time and tell me that "it points up why we cannot depend on such a [intermittent] source" and you'd be right and wrong all over again.
Rgds
Damon -
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CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012 edited
Done a weeks worth of data comparing Devon and Cornwall. Now I know that a week is not enough, but does show my concerns (I did not know what the weather was before today in Norfolk).
Now the stats first. All data is for daylight hours (not much point considering darkness for this one)
Location,Devon,Norfolk
Count,227,226
Min(W/m^2),1,1
Max(W/m^2),1114,1225
Mean(W/m^2),212,259
Mode(W/m^2),1,7
Median(W/m^2),115,176
St Dev(W/m^2),231,281
Var(W/m^2),53218,78882
T Test (P Value),0.99
The T Test shows that there was no significant difference between the distributions even though the means are different.
The difference in generation though was almost 14% in favour of Norfolk (Devon 4.2 kWh/m^2, Norfolk 4.9 kWh/m^2)
But pictures show it better. -
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CommentAuthorSteamyTea
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012 edited
Posted By: SteveZdoes anyone have a screen scraper or other way of saving a screen image?
Hit the 'Prt Scr' button, then paste that into your favourite graphics package (mine in the freebee Irfanview), then crop the bits you don't like.
Your chart looks similar to mine
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- CommentAuthorSteveZ
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012
Thanks ST - I have tried the 'Print Screen' previously, but obviously not correctly
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- CommentAuthorJoiner
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012 edited
You need to hit the 'Ctrl' key with it!
The open your graphics package (Microsoft Print will do it) and hit Edit/Paste.
Use the crop tool to get rid of all the surrounding screen image. Just place the cursor at the top right hand of what you want to keep and drag the cursor down to bottom left of the image you want.
Hit Edit/Cut, then back up top and open a new document, discarding the old one.
Hit Edit/Paste and the new image will appear on the page.
Save it however you want.
(See below...) -
- CommentAuthorJoiner
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012 edited
[IMG]http://i48.tinypic.com/1hbbeo.jpg[/IMG]
Except I've still yet to figure out how to post images direct!!
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- CommentAuthorGavin_A
- CommentTimeJun 20th 2012
why on earth are Japan setting their FIT rate so high, when panel prices are so low?
sounds like they're using it to prop up their higher priced manufacturers - panasonic, mitsubishi etc. -
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CommentAuthorDamonHD
- CommentTimeJun 21st 2012
Trying to get going from a standing start AND overcome the monstrously* closed energy industry.
Rgds
Damon
* I don't know this, but I strongly suspect it. -
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