Wind farms paid not to produce electricity

Hold on a minute, they paid the wind farm companies to shut down to avoid overloading the grid but didn't simply tell the power stations using fossil fuels to just throttle back till the huricaine passed ??????

 

(polite cough)

Please be aware there are two types of "solar panels"

Water solar panels that heat water (and some use it to heat their swimming pool)

Electric solar panels that make electricity.


The ones that I am meaning is electric, not water.

 

Its very easy for us that know to forget that there are some that don't:DOH:

Good call Watergarden

I have an electric system too, only a 12volt back up that powers 8watt strip lights, the sort used in caravans. In the event of a power cut we will still have light and 12volt sockets that will power 1 laptop via an in line cigarette lighter socket. So we can all sit around & watch a dvd.

18 watt solar electric panel cost £230 ish & the batteries were about £60x 2

Also have an emergency battery powered light by the cooker that comes on as soon as the mains power is cut, so we won't be left in the dark in the middle of cooking.

Both types of solar panel will need cleaning at some stage though. Seen one in Crewkerne that looks like a roof garden, can't be giving them much power

 

True, and this inspires an aside.

If you take a step back from the detail, by far the most significant use of energy in the typical home is to heat water. It takes 4200 joules of energy to heat one cc of water by one degree centrigade.

In the typical home, we heat water for our bath tubs, the washing machine heats water, we heat water in the kettle for our cuppas, and most domestic central heating systems work by pumping heated water around the home.

A big telly only uses about 400W to run, if you switch all the lights on at once, you'll typically use less than 1kW. Phone chargers etc, despite the media campaign a few years ago, use next to nothing. A small kettle often runs at about 3kW, and if you use an immersion heater (like we do at our house) you practically need your own power station.

With all that in mind, while I understand the drive to go to solar energy, I don't understand why all the emphasis is on photovoltaic cells. They definitely have their place, but in sunnier areas, I think solar water heaters make a lot more sense than we as a nation give them credit for.

But all that's old hat now. For new builds, I don't understand why we don't go the same way as some scandinavian parts, they're big on ground source heat pumps, dragging heat from a metre under the garden, effectively a giant fridge in reverse to extract heat and concentrate it, and use it to heat the house.

 

I've heard of this heat pump Idea.
Dont you need about an acre of land in which to bury the pipes just to heat one house?

 

Apparently not. Apparently the typical suburban garden is more than ample nowadays. The details of the science go over my head, but in principle its a criss-cross arrangement of pipes carrying some liquid or other in vapour form, picking up heat from the ground (the liquid has a very low freezing point, so it can even draw heat from frozen ground). Its pumped round and condensed. When you force the vapour back together in a condenser, all the collected heat is released, goes into a thermal coupley thingy, and heats a water tank.

The pipes are a metre or more under ground, at a depth where seasonal temperature variation doesn't typically reach, and much deeper than you're likely to disturb as you tend your garden.

It uses power for the pump, but apparently the typical amount of energy drawn from the ground as heat is about four times as is used by the pump, so in effect you get the equivalent of a 4kW immersion heater for 1kW of electricity.

The downside, for existing properties, is of course the fact that you have to dig up the whole garden to a metre's depth or more. That's not going to be very practical.

For new builds, the pipes can go below the foundation, which has to be dug anyway.

Another simple yet ingenious thing that seems to be catching on is the much more practical air source heat pump. Exactly the same principle, but they draw heat from the air. They are ugly though, being about the size of a washing machine, with a big fan in them to draw air in. They're also not quite as efficient, but I guess a bit of clever design could incorporate one without it being ugly. Last time I checked, you could get an air source heat pump installation for about £3k, and I must admit I was tempted, but was put off by the ugly appearance. If I can think of a way to make it discreet, I may well go for it.

 

No. And there is an air source heat pump that will take the latent heat out of the air down to about -30c

 

Oh to live in Italy in the summer
On the beaches they have beach huts with showers
The water is heated with a long hose pipe curled down on the roof
Gallons of hot water all day from 0800 to 2000, WELL in 20 gallon burst at a time anyway

Local Pikies free electricity is to remove the voltaic cells on the top of speed signs and parking meters and install on roof of vans/caravans
We used to have loads of signs on the A92 flashing slow down if traveling over 60mph, as this road is through the middle of nowhere, the signs are now blank

Damn it I was wanting one for my laptop but non left

Jack McH

 

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