Why don’t we put solar panels on every home?

[Whyaretheynotdoinganything]

Just as the tile says, I’m wondering why the government or the opposition are not proposing free solar panels for every home as a solution to the energy crisis and energy security?

Surely a cost benefit analysis would show net economic benefit, whereas subsidising household energy bills is expensive with little return for the economy.

One barrier would be the workforce, but we’ve managed mass construction projects in the past eg. post war council house building programme.

We need a radical solution fast, it would at least give us hope even if the returns are not immediate.

Those who don’t want panels can pay market rates. Apparently panels pay for themselves in 7 years. I’d happily contribute a proportion but don’t have the savings to cover it all.

We could be moving towards a scenario where the comfortable middle class get free electricity for much of the year and don’t pay for gas because they run electric cars.

While the working class pay extortionate prices for electricity and gas at petrol stations.

Demand is already through the roof for solar panels on homes.

This would further increase inequalities and probably lead to a revolution.

We need fair access to renewables for all.

We NEED government intervention NOW!

Second stupid question - if you have solar panels etc at home and get most energy for your home that way, so you still have to pay the crippling standing charge?

This is what puts me off. I imagine if lots more people got solar panels, the energy companies would hike the standing charge massively.

Some cars can be used as a home storage battery and could supply a home for several days in event of a power cut, I’m not sure how many are actually doing that.
Solar panels are expensive, there is no FIT scheme now, so it’s going to take many years to pay back, it it ever does. For commercial users that need lots of refrigeration or ventilation in hot weather they are very usefull, the average domestic property does not use power in hot weather.

If current high energy prices become the new “normal” ( they might) Solar will be more economic, assuming that the Solar Panels are available at lower cost, current supply problems for electronic components may last a long time

I have a 3 bedroom semi with a south facing roof and was quoted £6-7000 for solar panels to be ‘battery ready’. Basically as we’re wfh most of the day the vendor advised we could just use the energy then and then upgrade to a battery when we could afford it.
All this lovely talk about educating homeowners. My house is 100 years old, I know how to increase its heat keeping potential in winter but there’s no amount of education/insulation that will take away from the fact that it will need heat and power in the winter. It rains and damp here constantly otherwise!

‘I was quoted’ sorry

Probably a stupid question, but what happens to power station generated electricity? Is that all used immediately or do we store that?

You can't really 'store electricity'. What you can do is convert some of it to another form which can then later be used to generate electricity. The main forms are chemical (batteries) and potential energy (pumped hydro like 'electric mountain' that concrete block idea mentioned upthread). Each conversion to and fro has a loss associated (waste heat). Apart from that, the grid has to be balanced quite finely so that supply and demand match - overload and you'll get outages. The main reason for building electric mountain back in the 70s (iirc from the tour - do go if you're in the snowdon area, I reckon it's one of the things which hooked DD on engineering ) wasn't for storing renewable energy with its unpredictable weather dependent supply, but primarily for balancing the grid at peak demand times as it can (re)generate a lot of power really quickly.

Are they still buying back extra electricity? I thought someone said they had stopped doing that in 2019?

yes but the FIT no longer exists for new users and the buy back rate is an average of about 5p per unit which is criminal

Lead to a revolution, in this country? As if.

I mean, where were all the newly poor during the ten years of austerity and it was other people's children going cold and hungry?

If we could buy solar panels, outright own them and use the energy just for our own homes then more would. It’s not that simple, complex agreements/contracts/terms are the issue.

you can. You simply need panels and a battery (and maybe a solar immersion heating element) It’s only complex if you lease.

Energy companies will presumably always have to impose a charge for maintaining the grid, building storage etc etc.
Or maybe it'd be better to renationalise it all and raise taxes instead to pay for the infrastructure? ... someone has to pay for it somehow.

The buy back rate is low or not available because it wasn't helping

As pp have said the grid needs to be balanced - exactly what goes in must go out somewhere or the thing will go bang

The trouble with home solar is it generates all at the same time - that time isn't peak demand time anyway and is also when the grid has its Own solar available

Until we get storage sorted we just end up with an excess of solar energy that needs to be managed

• and the gossip is that the government promised financial support to large battery factory in Northumberland and still hasn't handed over the cash so it isn't actually even being built yet

The developers have no competition so can do what they like in regards to not making their houses eco. If they are building 10 micro boxes as "family" homes, they will sell as 40+ families need somewhere to live nearby. It's no good if there is an ecohome 150 miles away as it costs to much to travel every day for work.

I had forgotten, but Googled it after reading your post and I think I did visit Electronic Mountain as a child! Sadly you can't visit anymore apparently.

Has there been any progress regarding the issue of recycling used/expired solar panels and the associated toxic waste etc?
More solar energy would be great but it's an issue noone talks about?
Maybe there's been progress though?

• rate of return was more like 20 yrs when I enquired 18m ago
• likelihood was that more money would need to be spent maintaining them in that period
• some mortgage companies won't lend on a home with solar panels (ERL ones especially)

Having said that, I still would if there was a grant to fit them but not if I have to pay or take a loan.

Thank you for answering my stupid questions. I have another - is there a reason why we can't have mini wind turbines on houses (replacing aerials and satellite dishes) to generate electricity as well as solar panels.

But mainly I agree - ALL new builds should by law have to be fully insulated, have a car charger, have solar panels and hear pumps*. Much easier to build green houses than try and fix them. This is the first step before grants for retrofitting.

*Actually I am not convinced about heat pumps, but the government said we would all have to have them, so I don't understand why they are not now being fitted as standard.

A small amount is stored, most is used direct, the Grid switches power generators on and off according to demand. Solar Farms are fitting large battery installations to smooth out supply peaks although this is very much work in progress.

Heat pumps
To work properly you need underfloor heating and ground source heat pumps, so only really economic for new properties with a large garden. Cheaper air source heat pumps are not effective in cold weather below 5C, they have to use electric elements to produce heat

Ground source heat pumps should go in new builds , not air source ( I think anyway !)

Wind turbines in roofs are tricky- I suspect you would need a stronger roof as the motion will give more stress

Also wind turbines need a certain amount of wind before they can generate electricity, and in urban areas the wind levels are lower than the surrounding countryside so they will be quite often not working

So you would waste a lot of carbon building turbines that don't generate enough electricity to make them a net benefit over their lifetime

On shore rural wind is the most cost effective but off shore keeps the land free for other uses and gives us the option to use spare wind capacity for hydrogen generation- that hydrogen can feed into the gas grid ( massive pipe replacement going on ) and with a small fix most boilers can run a much lower carbon heat

Generating our own hydrogen and having sone to sell to counties less well suited to generating it seems good business to me

Hydro schemes are one way we store electricity btw

Regarding above - really interesting and there is definitely some work to be done regarding solar panel production & disposal environmental impact but some are doing it

interestingengineering.com/science/renewable-energy-paradox-solar-panels-and-their-toxic-waste

The more you read about it, it seems there are core problems that just haven't been addressed. Why are they so expensive in the first place, I bet that could be reduced. Why have more people not been trying to fit them? Why not an better battery or alternative facility to store the energy that they produce so that the household household can use it themselves? There are so many problems here. The whole scheme is shit.

We've just been to enquire about getting solar panels. There's a 2 week wait just for someone to ring and make an appointment to come and do a survey then 2-3 month wait for them to be fitted.
A friend has recently had panels fitted. They rang around 3 firms to get quotes. Only one rang back. The capacity just isn't there in the system to fit more panels atm.

You don’t want a wind turbine on your house or near it, the noise and vibration will drive you mad for sure.
Green Hydrogen is a long way off, to produce 1KW of Hydrogen you need 2KW of Electricity so until we have a surplus of cheap off peak power it’s not going to happen

That's why I am generating the hydrogen on my off shore wind farms

To have sufficient electricity with lots of wind in the mix then there will be lots of times when you have way to much wind - when you generate green hydrogen

At the same time this then secures or expand jobs in eg the Aberdeenshire region that currently rely on oil abs gas - and reuses many of the skills of that workforce