Proposed Sookhome Solar Farm

[Westmorland]

The Parish Council are working with Sookholme residents in opposing this proposal to build a solar farm at Sookholme

full details here

http://www.chad.co.uk/news/local/solar- ... -1-7474397

[Caz]

I sincerely hope they don't get plans passed for another solar farm. They're springing up all around us and we get no local benefits in the shape of lower priced energy. All we get is blots on the landscape. The Cuckney solar farm was supposed to be screened from view but you can see it from all around Warsop. It really does spoil our lovely countryside.

[mikeC]

I don't understand why these solar farms are all being put onto prime agricultural land, when we are surrounded by brownfield sites that nobody seems to want.

[Caz]

I think that might well be down to cost. These solar farm companies want to get land at the lowest price. Prime agricultural land can't be built on so it's not worth as much as brownfield land, which can be developed. Any land that can be developed has to be worth more. Farmers who own agricultural land in green belts can't sell or rent their land to developers and for some reason solar farms are not classed as buildings per se, I suppose it's due to them not being permanent fixtures.

I have a real concern about what is going to happen to all these solar panels when they reach the end of their useful life. Where are they going to dump them all?

[BigAl]

What else is the country to do now it has no coal mines and the population is growing. Where would you like to get your electricity from, there would be an uproar when it's turned off and you can't use it. Or do you prefer to wait 20 years for the new nuclear power stations to come on line ? That is if the government have not fallen out with China and France by then.

Wind and solar are certainly the cheapest options and if the government keeps its hands off the profits as they do in other countries they do supply power a lot cheaper to households.
It is the same with gas and oil, whats going to happen in a few years when the fields start to run dry ?. Need to look ahead or it is going to be very expensive to buy from elsewhere and then there are no, or very few facilities in the UK to store the stuff.

In answer to your question Cas, when they are finished with the panels they grind them down and reuse them the same as is done with glass.

Sorry peeps but i saw this happen 30 years ago in Germany, people were against it there at the time. Now they are loving it and paying a lot less for their fuel and electricity. Its cleaner and cheaper than fossil fuel. The wind farms and solar fields are not such an eyesore as things have developed around them and they have been placed in mostly non-populated areas. It all takes time.

I look at it this way, its for my grandchildren and their needs and a cleaned world for them to live in.

[Caz]

Yes, Al but as you pointed out on another thread, Germany had the sense to site solar panels along motorways, which don't cause a fuss and I think is a more sensible idea than taking up arable land. There's no point having energy if we don't have food and we won't have food if we can't grow it. OK, we can import it but that takes energy and transport causes pollution. New build houses don't have solar panels on their roofs! Why? Because it costs too much.

I totally disagree about solar being cleaner. Their production takes energy (usually coal fired), causes a lot of toxic waste (in other countries of course) and they have to be transported here = energy and pollution. Furthermore, their disposal isn't as easy as grinding them down like glass. They have components that need separating, which costs money, produces waste and takes a fair amount of energy. As yet we don't have wide scale recycling of them. The whole process hasn't been thought through properly.

I'm not against solar and wind power as such. I'm just against the haphazard way it's being rolled out. It was a quick win solution and we'll pay the price. The same happened with coal when we struck North Sea oil and gas!

[BigAl]

No matter what system of power is used its the same Cas, rigs have to be manufactured and transported as do wind turbines. How much is the construction of the new nuclear stations going to cause with all that being made out of country and shipped in, including the workforce when you read the small print, . Its a lose lose situation where the only winners will be the government and the big companies involved for maybe the first 10 years then the general public will start to see the benefit.
Wind, water and solar power are just as clean as nuclear, not as powerful i grant you, but i personally think solar and wind are the lesser of two evils .

Solar panels have their components removed and the glass is ground and melted and its all recycled. As you say it can not be done within the Uk and will incur more expense. There are 2 facilities in Spain that i know of and one in France and i believe there are a couple under construction elsewhere. Its big over here and when i drive across the country i pass solar panel farms bigger than the area of Warsop parish. Then again my electricity is only 87 euro every 2 months. ( Hope now you can see where i am coming from ) Agreed as in Germany the "farms" are along side motorways and here they are up in the mountains and in the inland planes where it too hot for growing most things. and mostly away from large habitations. I am sure this could be the case within the Uk seeing as its a small island with a all round coastline and lots of tidal areas for use, hills in Scotland and Wales and some smaller ones in England for the wind farms. I agree with you that its not been thought through properly by the idiots in power. but they are certainly looking to make a huge profit from it all.

Just thing Cas, you can go and sit on one of the panels at Sookhome or the one at Meden Vale and get an all round suntan ready for the bikini photoes on the town hall balcony

Have fun

[Caz]

Singing from the same hymn sheet Al! But no matter how many solar farms sprout up, our energy bills don't come down. Surprise, surprise!

Desperate measures by desperate Governments, I'm afraid and the solar companies don't care what land they use as long as they're reaping the financial rewards. Though the government are coming round to the fact that more stringent measures are needed with wide scale solar farming and they may eventually get round to controlling it.

In the meantime, it's up to local people to speak up and regulate the growth of solar farms in their area and that's what this is all about.

[mikeC]

''..Its big over here and when i drive across the country i pass solar panel farms bigger than the area of Warsop parish...

I'm not surprised - you get sunshine over there

Solar energy in the UK has been massively over-sold. We installed solar panels on our house about ten years ago; at that time I calculated that they would pay for themselves after about eighteen years. Since then the payback has been reduced and reduced, and now I doubt if the costs will have been covered after twenty-five years, by which time the panels will need replacing anyway. I am typing this at 6pm in reasonably bright conditions, and the panels are generating a massive 31 watts

[Caz]

Mike, I wondered how you were getting on with your solar panels. I remember having a conversation with you when they were installed and you said time would tell whether they were as good as they seemed. I really had hoped you'd be impressed.

I know quite a few people who've had solar panels because of the saving on their bills, but they report that they're not as impressive as they were led to believe. People do want to do their bit for the environment and the sales people play on that as well as the temptation of lower energy bills.

[Tomas Drouty]

I had a guy come to quote for solar panels on my house. He explained how much I would save ... it didn't take me long to work out that he meant the savings would be based on me having every light switched on and every appliance going full whack - the more 'juice' I used - the more I'd save. In order to do my bit for the environment, I'd have to use a lot more electricity than I would ordinarily use. Consequently, I did not place an order!

[BigAl]

Yes Mike we do see a bit of the sun

When i was last home i saw a lot of houses around with banks of panels on the roof. Are there linked directly to the grid or are there storage facilities within each house ? I have never looked into it.
I have seen them however on a lot of campsites, camper vans and caravans pull up and set them up, a bank of 3 small panels on the top of the van or on a board beside it, wired into a "battery pack" 2 or 3 linked together and they have electricity enough to run all their appliances and some to spare for when they are mobile. I believe that is what they were originally for, Just wondered if they work on the same system.

[mikeC]

When we installed our solar panels, I wanted to have some kind of storage facility, but was told it would not be practical; I don't know whether such a facility is now feasible, but most UK installations feed direct into the National Grid, and then the owner gets paid for the total energy generated. This pay-back tariff seems to get revised on a regular basis - we are now on at least the third tariff in ten years - and each time the allowance is reduced! I would be much happier if we could be self-sufficient; if we could store the energy we generated during the day and use our own energy at night I reckon we could do without the National Grid for 80% of the year...

[Magic]

That's been an issue with pv packages really. Some sales people have been quoting overly optimistic values not performing proper site surveys. The number of panels installed on roofs facing away from the sun most of the day is perplexing. If the panels are installed at correct orientation and inclination then payback for a grid tied system should be in the region of 20 years without any FIT - with a replacement inverter expected in the mix.

I've been using a testbed off grid setup for a few years, 320Wp (really more like 260Wp in this country) of panels and a battery bank. Get about 1.5kWh per day during the summer, this time of year more like 500Wh and nothing much in the depths of winter (although the panels aren't on the roof and are in shade when the sun is low - pv really needs direct sunlight to produce decent amounts)
I'd estimate on a full size system you'd break even on cost vs using the grid but won't be returning any profit. Plus there is quite a bit of work to do too - for instance battery maintenance, battery replacement, load balancing (both to not overload the inverter and match current usage to generation).

Incidentally, the 25 years lifespan of pv is to 80% of rated output and unless you need to maintain generation density you can leave them in place and they'll likely still be working at the 50 year mark, though efficiency will slowly drop.

It's my hobby and I enjoy it but until energy storage gets better it's a bit of a niche.

[BigAl]

Now here is a good idea
http://www.africlandpost.com/africas-la ... city-mall/