Renewable energy sources - the good, the bad and the ugly

I think the problem lies in the fact that electricity prices are linked to world gas prices, I could be wrong, but because renewables are so unreliable they have to keep gas power stations on standby to kick in on days like today, no wind and like its never going to get daylight again.

If renewables are really so cheap I do wonder who is getting the rake off of all the money we pay.
Presumably the wind farm owners, most of which appear to be non UK.

 

Well, if they seriously want us to move away from gas, making a unit of electricity cost the same would be a start. Currently it is over 3 times the price of a unit of gas.

 

I've never been able to make a comparison regarding the two, I dont think its straight forward.

 

Indeed! Here's a fairly good article.

https://www.moneysupermarket.com/gas-and-electricity/is-gas-or-electric-cheaper/

 

Yes we have an immersion heater, but that only seems to heat the top part of the hot water tank. I couldn't be bothered to save a few pence.

As for the car hubby takes an hour to set it up - has to get the leaves out etc.

 

At the moment, there are times when wind energy suppliers are paid not to generate energy because there is too much energy in the grid. This is clearly bonkers.

There's quite a lot of work going on to increase storage in the system, to level out consumer demand, and to better match demand to supply.
Some of the ways this is done at the consumer end is to offer financial incentives to help balance the grid.

Current examples of this in the UK are variable time of use tariffs, where the price to the consumer varies over time, and occasionally becomes negative (you get paid to use electricity), free electricity sessions, saving sessions (when you get paid to use less) and EV charging regimes which automatically responds to grid demand.
Consumers are responding by installing batteries, V2G EV chargers (if they can find them) , and either setting up automatic systems to respond to price changes, or manually changing when they use or export power.

It's all in it's infancy, but is improving how user friendly and effective it is.
The whims are in the sun, the wind, changes in demand levels, availability of energy from international interconnectors, generators going off or on line for various reasons etc...

 

Yes - the difference really is unhelpful.

It is possible to reduce the difference with time of use tariffs and home energy storage - electricity can be regularly bought for chunks of the night at about 8.5p/kWh on some tariffs, whereas gas is around 6p/kWh, and of course electricity is more efficient than gas - a gas boiler will produce I think somewhere around 70% of it's original energy for the home, where an electric heater will produce as much as you put in (or up to about 3 times as much if you're lucky enough to have a heat pump).

 

Where heat pumps aren't practical, surely an electric boiler is the second best option, so making it as cheap to run as a current gas one would be much more sensible than spending billions on net zero.

 

I have enough stock and raw materials to keep me busy for a good couple of years. I have about a 1000 cubic metres of peat undercover, about 50 ton of fertiliser, pots, planters, sundries etc etc in stock. I am only going to be open to the general public for 2/4 days a week depending on the time of year. Already getting good feedback from the general public that they will still come out for my compost, so I will jus plodder away on my own.

 

It may be possible to use the cheap off peak tariffs for washing machines etc, but it's not very practical for heating your home. What are people supposed to do, stay in bed all day then get up at night when they can afford the tariff for heating and cooking?

 

Yes, this is exactly why energy storage becomes more crucial - things like well insulated water tanks, underfloor heating, thermal mass, heat batteries, home batteries, V2G EV chargers, and even a return to night storage heaters...
There's some info here: Energy storage options explained

 

A return to night storage heaters?

Actually, at this rate, many homes may return to the 1950s, with very little heating and a lot of wood burning ... which will not be environmentally friendly or good for respiratory health.

 

I've got a paraffin heater in the shed and an old oil lamp.
But have you seen the price of paraffin.

 

We had 7 solar panels fitted in the roof soon after we moved here. i thought 9 would be better but chappy insisted 7 were enough. They are, just about, but one is no longer functioning at full capacity and the company has gone bust so it'll be fun getting it fixed.

There were heat exchangers fitted at the same time but their main purpose is to cool the roofspace behind the panels tho excess energy form those can be used to warm the upstairs. There's also a small heat exchanger to heat a new hot water tank so the CH boiler only heats radiators now.

We still have to pay for an electricity connection but we also generate enough leccy at peak sunshine to send some back to teh grid and receive a tiny payment.

Here in France, all new houses have to be carbon neutral which covers insulation, ground heat and/or heat exchangers and so on. The govt provided extra loft insulation for our house for a nominal 1€. If they make a decent offer to install heat exchangers and lose the oil CH boiler we'll take it, but not yet.

The 2 main SMs I use are replacing all the covered roofing in their parking areas with solar panles. I've seen other office and small factory parking areas do teh same. It seems to me far more intelligent than covering viable farmland. Every car park could do it.

They're now building lots of offshore wind farms along the Vendée coast amidst lots of opposition from environmentalists, tourism industry and fishermen. Plenty going up on land too. I think they are seriously bad for many reasons - dangerous to wildlife especially bats and migrating birds, bad for health of anyone living within the humming zone and strobe effects, damage to the land/sea bed they're built on and all the micro flora and fauna and bigger stuff they disrupt for construction and access, look awful and can't be recycled so end up as landfill.