Decorative diesel

From the Guardian

South Pacific island ditches fossil fuels to run entirely on solar power

Using more than 5,000 solar panels and 60 Tesla power packs the tiny island of Ta’u in American Samoa is now entirely self-sufficient for its electricity supply – though the process of converting has been tough and pitted with delays.

From the website of the government of  American Samoa

The project description lists 1,410 kW of Solar panels and 6,000 kWh of battery storage.  Also, three new 275KW Cummins Diesel Generators...

The latter presumably for decoration.

Two years later

Engineers and industry agree that although challenges abound in utility-scale solar in the sunniest places on Earth, we have the technology to go big in the desert

The vast and glittering Ivanpah solar facility in California will soon start sending electrons to the grid, likely by the end of the summer. When all three of its units are operating by the end of the year, its 392-megawatt output will make it the largest concentrating solar power plant in the world, providing enough energy to power 140,000 homes. And it is pretty much smack in the middle of nowhere.

Scientific American, 1 July 2013

[Ivanpah] isn’t producing the electricity it is contractually required to deliver to PG&E Corp., which says the solar plant may be forced to shut down if it doesn’t receive a break Thursday from state regulators.

Marketwatch, yesterday

H/T Anthony

Renewables slump on the way

The Independent is reporting research that suggests that investment in renewable energy is about to slump dramatically. The research comes from BNEF, so the usual caveats about reliability apply.

The dour forecast comes as the industry celebrated a record-breaking year in 2015, with billions of pounds poured into solar and wind energy and more homes powered by nature than ever before. But experts have warned this is all about to grind to a halt as the Government abandons its commitment to green energy and instead invests in fracking and nuclear power.

And of course this is all happening just as renewables become cost competitive with fossil fuels.

Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist and policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: “Wind and solar energy are at the point of becoming really competitive with fossil fuels, but failure to support them for another few years will result in huge losses of potential jobs.”

If this is true then it's good news for everyone other than the subsidy junkies. But we will have to wait and see.

How can the BBC help you advertise your wares better, Mr Green Blob?

BBC preparations for the arrival of the Green BlobMy thanks to Stewgreen for pointing me to this excerpt from Jeremy Leggett's new book, describing a meeting with Roger Harrabin:

In the headquarters of the Britsh Broadcasting Corporation, I sit talking with veteran environment correspondent, Roger Harrabin. I am accompanied by my Solarcentury colleagues Frans van den Heuvel and Sarah Allison. We want to explore with Roger whether there are ways that solar energy can be better covered on television.

Click to read more ...

The subsidy cuts and the pea under the thimble

This is a guest post by Phillip Bratby.

Readers will no doubt have seen the apoplexy of Roger Harrabin and others in the media about the cuts in subsidies for rooftop solar power announced by Amber Rudd on 17th December (DECC press release here).  Cuts of 64% (Telegraph, BBC) or 65% (Guardian, Independent, FT) were reported.  The new subsidies (the Feed-in-Tariff scheme which consists of a generation tariff plus an export tariff) were given following a consultation, which had supposedly been proposing cuts of 87%.

Click to read more ...

Hugo's howler, Harrabin's howler

Updated on Nov 26, 2015 by Bishop Hill

The Spectator doesn't do a great deal on the climate front, but when it does, it does it very well. At the moment they have a long piece (£, but you may get a free look) by David Rose on Judy Curry, which although containing little that will be new to BH readers will be informative for many.

If it's pure entertainment you want, they also have a preview of Paris from Hugo Rifkind (£), a man with a wonderful facility for words, but also one who is just a moderately loud repeater of metroliberal certainties on the state of the climate. His effort this week is rather more thoughtful than usual, but he still retains some odd notions. Observing, quite correctly, that everyone in the UK is backing off green policy, he says that as a country we are starting to look a bit provincial:

Germany’s big push for renewables (which was admittedly predicated on an hysterical and frankly stupid post-Fukushima fear of nuclear) is surging ahead, in precisely the manner that Scotland’s could be if anybody still gave a damn.

Click to read more ...

South Australia today, UK tomorrow?

The authorities in South Australia have been pretty right on in terms of their devotion to the green cause, and the state has been in the forefront of efforts to increase renewables' share of electricity generation. That being the case, the state is something of a leading indicator for us here in the UK. Over the weekend there were strong hints that the chickens are coming home to roost.

Click to read more ...

More heat than light

Does the sun shine all night in Australia?  Are the new batteries a breakthrough? Over to you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/11945075/Half-of-Australian-homes-to-adopt-solar-power-and-move-off-grid-from-2018.html

A dampish squib

So President Obama has a new climate plan out and his fans in the BBC are getting very excited about it. The main thing seems to be a requirement for states to formulate climate plans, but not for a while. There is an even longer delay before they have to implement them.

Here are my impressions:

• The main objective is to make climate change an wedge issue in the next round of elections.
• The delays will make them more acceptable to the states.
• The plan will make only a tiny fraction of a degree of a difference to global temperatures at the end of the century.
• The US is halfway to the new target already on the back of the shale gas revolution.
• The new rules are put in place by executive order and can therefore be removed just as easily.

I'm not sure this amounts to a particularly large hill of beans.

Behind solar power's bamboo curtain

This is rather interesting. John Hempton, who blogs at Bronte Capital, has written a piece describing a visit he made to a factory owned by the behemoth Chinese multinational Hanergy Solar, which crashed a few days ago. Before its shares crashed, its market capitalisation was bigger than all other Chinese solar manufacturers put together. But if Hempton's account is to be believed, the company seems to have been something of a Ponzi scheme:

I went to visit Hanergy's main factory in China about a six weeks ago. It was almost entirely silent. There was essentially no production of solar cells at all and the accounts that suggest significant production and sales are entirely fraudulent.

There was some evidence that someone was exploring starting production - and I will get to that - but the factory was almost entirely idle.

Hedge funds snap up free money from UK poor

From a correspondent in the world of big finance (edited for clarity).

The current appetite from US hedge funds is for UK solar. Indeed most asset managers want to get their hands on these assets. In a low-yield world, they offer >15% returns for the risk (which is mainly regulatory). The UK has little development risk, so as you well know, it's a redistribution of taxpayer money into the hands of hedge funds under the guise of climate change mitigation. Given that Ed Milliband created the DECC and with the likely failure of the Tories to gain a majority, they see little regulatory risk after the election. What we find appalling is the lack of awareness in the MSM over these transactions and the flow of money from poor to rich.

[To my correspondent: I tried to respond to your email, but the message bounced.]

Solar heat illustrated - Josh 322

See post below - the marvel of modern technology.

Cartoons by Josh

Solar heat

A fire at Hove Town Hall was caused by solar panels on its roof, it emerged today.

"The source of the fire is believed to be an electrical fault with a solar panel on the roof. An investigation is under way."

The council said all its solar panels were checked annually, with those at the town hall checked two weeks ago.

ESF&RS said solar panels were no more dangerous than any other electrical product.

Although according to this website, this is not actually true

Research commissioned by the DCLG and carried out by BRE on fire safety and solar electric/photovoltaic systems, identifies the major obstacle facing firefighters: “In contrast to the power used by conventional mains electrical equipment, the power that PV systems generate is DC (direct current) and parts of the system cannot be switched off. DC installations have a continuous current, making them more hazardous (volt for volt) than normal AC (alternating current) electrical installations.”  

The issue is that a household’s AC supply can easily be shut off by firefighters, however, the DC current supplied by the solar panels will also be generating as long as the sun is out.

The whole article is pretty interesting, pointing out for example that if a fire breaks out in your solar panels, it is not going to get picked up by your smoke detectors.

WWF spivs are spinning

It hasn't taken long, but the story put out by WWF over the weekend about windfarms meeting nearly all domestic demand during December is being torn to shreds.

Euan Mearns gives the claims a good going over here:

Their press release is biased, vague and ambiguous, and journalists may be forgiven for reaching the wrong conclusions and miss reporting it. It would appear this is the intention.

And David Mackay, the former chief scientist at DECC, is having a go on Twitter too.

.@LangBanks "Home" is a misleading unit - total power cons'm'n in all forms is about 24x greater than "all homes" http://t.co/6rcs7UnGKU

— David MacKay FRS (@davidjcmackay) January 5, 2015

Update on Jan 5, 2015 by Bishop Hill

Anoneumouse sends us the new logo for WWF.

Diary dates, cafe culture edition

The Dundee Cafe Science has an event on renewables on Monday:

Dr David Rodley from the University of Dundee Centre for Renewable Energy will speculate on how the energy landscape in Scotland and the wider UK might look in the future. Will carbon become the new currency as extreme targets for limiting greenhouse gas emissions begin to bite? Can Scotland achieve its goal for 100% equivalent renewable electricity, and how might smart metering help keep the lights on, and affordable?

Details here.