With solar panels brought into the public and media spotlight recently, many questions are asked about this green and energy saving technology. (more…)
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5 Good reasons why it’s a good time to install solar panels
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010The UK’s energy vunerability
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010With demand for gas rising sharply, Britain’s gas reserves are running low, meaning the country is more reliant on imported gas bought on the international market.
The UK faces gas supply problems if the cold snap continues, a leading energy consultancy warned today. The National Grid issued a Gas Balancing Alert asking large industrial customers to ease off on fuel use earlier this week – the first in almost four years. And as supply struggles to keep up with record demand, the security of the UK’s energy supply is under threat.
The unusually cold weather exposes the UK’s underinvestment in gas storage facilities while it could rely on gas production from now-dwindling North Sea reserves. ” While gas importing countries like Germany have 4 months’ supply stored in reserve, the UK has only 3 weeks,” David Hunter, an analyst at M&C, said. “The Government is acting as if the UK is still a gas exporter – unfortunately this is no longer the case and the truth is we rely on Norway, Russia and the Middle East to keep the lights on, our homes heated and businesses operating.”
Notwithstanding acknowledgements in the industry that more storage is needed, there was scepticism about claims from the Conservative Party that the UK’s facilities contain only enough gas for eight more days. Sources said there are more like 15 days’ worth left.
“The UK’s energy policy has not managed to keep pace with changing demands in recent years, leaving us vulnerable to fluctuating international markets. To avoid energy crises and price hikes in the future the UK energy sector must urgently build extra gas storage capacity into the network. We simply cannot continue to rely on unpredictable overseas supplies.”
Britain was a net exporter of gas until 2004, but the steady decline of the North Sea has left the country dependent on imports. Imported energy is more expensive, and rising demand across Europe this week caused natural gas prices to jump to their highest level in 10 months this week. A prolonged cold snap has the potential to make things uncomfortably tight and this might give the energy companies the excuse they need to increase prices.
Original Source: The Independent
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Save money over the long term with solar panels
Thursday, August 20th, 2009Right now many UK homeowners are under the impression that the UK simply does not get enough sunshine for solar panels to be effective. However, new reports have shown that this is wrong. According to solar panel advisors, solar panels actually do not run off “sunlight” but off solar radiation.
Heat my Home, the renewable energy advisor, has now explained to many UK homeowners that solar panels will help them with their energy bills. This is due to the fact that solar panels do not need sun rays to produce energy but solar radiation.
Stuart Lovatt, from Heat my Home, goes on say that one of the most unique selling points of solar panels is their longevity. Solar panels are not things that are suppose to last just a few years. Stuart points out that a good quality system could last the average household 30 years easily. Thus, the long term benefits of buying solar panels is very easy to see.
Lovatt also points out that there are not many things that people can buy nowadays that have a 30-year life span. Thus, solar panels, due to their long lifespan, are a perfect investment for people who are thinking along the lines of retirement.
Current reports show that Germany is one of the biggest installers of solar panels in all of Europe. Not only that, but Germany has a very similar climate to that of the UK. Both areas receive about 60 percent of the solar radiation levels that the equator does.
Solar panels use to be more orientated toward people who wanted to go green. Now these are systems that are also orientated to people who want to save money over the long run by cutting down on their energy bills.
Original Source: The Electric
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New solar panels are not accessable in the UK
Monday, March 17th, 2008The holy grail of renewable energy came a step closer yesterday as thousands of mass-produced wafer-thin solar cells printed on aluminium film rolled off a production line in California, heralding what British scientists called “a revolution” in generating electricity.
The solar panels produced by a Silicon Valley start-up company, Nanosolar, are radically different from the kind that European consumers are increasingly buying to generate power from their own roofs. Printed like a newspaper directly on to aluminium foil, they are flexible, light and, if you believe the company, expected to make it as cheap to produce electricity from sunlight as from coal.
Yesterday Nanosolar said its order books were full until mid-2009 and that a second factory would soon open in Germany where demand for solar power has rocketed. Britain was unlikely to benefit from the technology for some years because other countries paid better money for renewable electricity, it added.
“Our first solar panels will be used in a solar power station in Germany,” said Erik Oldekop, Nanosolar’s manager in Switzerland. “We aim to produce the panels for 99 cents [50p] a watt, which is comparable to the price of electricity generated from coal. We cannot disclose our exact figures yet as we are a private company but we can bring it down to that level. That is the vision we are aiming at.”
He added that the first panels the company was producing were aimed for large- scale power plants rather than for homeowners, and that the cost benefits would be in the speed that the technology could be deployed. “We are aiming to make solar power stations up to 10MW in size. They can be up and running in six to nine months compared to 10 years or more for coal-powered stations and 15 years for nuclear plants. Solar can be deployed very quickly,” said Oldekop.
Nanosolar is one of several companies in Japan, Europe, China and the US racing to develop different versions of “thin film” solar technology. It is owned by internet entrepreneur Martin Roscheisen who sold his company to Yahoo for $450m and, with the help of the founders of Google, the US government and other entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, has invested nearly $300m in commercialising the technology.
At the moment solar electricity costs nearly three times as much as conventional electricity to generate, but Nanosolar’s developments are thought to have halved the price of producing conventional solar cells at a stroke.
“This is the world’s lowest-cost solar panel, which we believe will make us the first solar manufacturer capable of profitably selling solar panels at as little as 99 cents a watt,” said Roscheisen yesterday.
However, the company, which claims to lead the “third wave” of solar electricity, is notoriously secretive and has not answered questions about its panels’ efficiency or their durability. It is quite open about wanting to restrict access to the technology to give it a market advantage.
Jeremy Leggett, chief executive of Britain’s leading solar energy company, Solar Century, said that it would be “breathtaking” if the technology proved as efficient as projected by the company. “This is a revolution. But people are going to be amazed at other developments taking place in solar technologies. We will be thrilled if this technology is as efficient as the company says. It will not change the direction of solar power in itself. Spectacular improvements are also being made in other parts of the industry,” he said.
Figures released yesterday by the Earth Policy Institute in Washington showed that solar electricity generation was now the fastest-growing electricity source, doubling its output every two years. It is now attracting government and venture capital money on an unprecedented scale.
The technology is particularly exciting because it can be used nearly everywhere. “You are talking about printing rolls of the stuff, printing it on garages, anywhere you want it. It really is a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar,” said Dan Kamman, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley.
“The next industrial revolution will be based on these clean green technologies,” said Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth. “If the UK wants to be part of it, as Gordon Brown says it does, then it needs to rethink its strategies. Ministers have so far shown a distinct lack of vision.”
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