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5 Misconceptions About Solar Power

Converting to solar power doesn't cost an arm and a leg. — Converting to solar power doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

1. Solar Power is Expensive.

This could not be any further from the truth and myth-busting it is easy. The price of solar panels is falling, dramatically, as the demand and amount of importers is increasing. The statistics from the Department of Energy & Climate Change also reported that 50% of all installed solar panels across the UK are residential. If other people are doing it, surely it cannot be that expensive? You also get money back via the Feed-in-Tariff issued by the government for each unit of energy you create. That’s right: you get paid!

You don’t have to convert your whole house to benefit either. If you want garden lights, security lights, or gadgets, a lot of these can now be powered by solar energy. In the long run, even if you only change a few things to solar power, you will save money on your bills each month. It all adds up.

2. Solar Power Doesn’t Work at Night.

All solar powered items come with batteries. Why? Because the sun isn’t around at night. The solar panel charges to the batteries which then power the light or item at night. Eventually the batteries will need replacing but usually they’ll last a very long time (saving you more money!)

3. Installing Solar Powered Lights is Expensive.

You don’t need to hire an electrician to install solar lights or solar kits. You can do it yourself and usually in under an hour; depending on the light you choose. You also don’t need to tap into your mains or drill holes through your house to get the mains wiring outside because solar lights are usually self-contained units with only one wire to the panel. Easy peasy.

You might prefer to hire somebody if you’re like me and worry about falling off a ladder but that choice is yours. The rules (Part P of the planning regulations) include full details about this rule.

Another point to consider if your solar light is an LED light: the bulbs won’t need replacing as often because they last that much longer. (Some quote up to 50,000 hours light-time.)

4. Solar Power isn’t Reliable.

This may have been the case when solar power first hit the markets but technology has since improved. Solar panels are better, the batteries can hold more and be changed less often, and the lights are now using the most up-to-date LED technology.

Yes, I had a Pet Rock as a teenager. I even put boggle eyes on it.

5. Solar Power Won’t Last.

This one is an opinion rather than fact based. However, when you look at the statistics, it is hard to believe that this will be a fad that will die out like all of the rest. Governments all around the globe are starting to spend a lot more on renewable energy as we race towards the future. Scientists are exploring new ways that solar power can help us and how far it can go. More importantly: we are starting to think about a greener future as the Eco-movement grows!

Unlike some other fads that I’ve seen in my time!

Also, the sort of solar panels we use degrade less than 1% per year. This means that in 20 years you should still have at least 80% of the performance you had in the first instance.

Sources:

Planning Portal: Electrical: Part P

Statistics on Increased Demand for Solar Power

The Analysis on The Department for Energy & Climate Change DUKES 2013 Report

12 Tips to Reduce The Performance of Your Solar Lights

We often have people telling us our solar lights are too bright or work for too long and that they don’t want to offend the neighbour by their garden being lit up all night long and are fearful of planes landing in their back garden. So we’ve put together a few tips on how you can reduce the performance of your solar lights or even stop them working altogether:

How to Achieve The Worst Possible Performance of Your Solar Lights:

1. Under a Bush

Solar panel Under a bush or in a tree. Any bush or tree will do but the best reduction in performance is achieved by thick foliage conifers are the best trees for reducing performance as they keep green all year round.

2. Next to a Fence or Wall

Solar panel next to a fence or Wall – best reduction in performance is achieved by putting the light immediately adjacent to a solid fence or brick wall, if you place the light at the base of a brick wall and on the north side you should be able to get your light to stop working in the winter months.

3. Solar Panel Under a Car

Parking your car over the top of the solar panel will stop all light getting to it and should result in the light not operating.

4. Solar Panel Facing North

Facing the solar panel in a north direction reduces the performance significantly.

5. Solar Panel facing the Floor

If you want to stop your light working you could try directing the panel downwards facing the floor.

6. Disconnect the solar panel from the Light

A light with no power will never work if you are able to disconnect the panel from the light you will remove all energy and completely disable the light from working some lights have the batteries separate from the panel so you may need to drain these down before complete failure is achieved.

7. Solar panels behind glass

This is a great way to stop lights from working as not only are you restricting the amount of light the panel will get by the shadow effect you are also blocking the UV rays as modern windows are designed to prevent the energy required for solar power getting through.

8. Solar panels in a conservatory

Not as effective as a window sill as less shadow effect however you still have UV protection so should be able to reduce the performance of your solar light significantly.

9. Solar Panel Under Snow

This is like putting your solar panel in a shadow; performance will be reduced but unfortunately a good quality solar product will still work a little in this situation.

10. Solar Charge by Moonlight

If you only try and charge your lights on bright moon lit night the light will fail, make sure you remember to bring the light in before dawn and lock it a way in a dark cupboard during the day though.

11. Solar Panel in The Arctic Circle

This is a good way to reduce the performance of your solar lights but that is all it will do the further you get from the equator the more successful at stopping your light working will be.

12. Solar Panel Underwater

This will pretty much guaranteed failure of your light because not only is it difficult for UV to pass through water but the water will also seep into your panel and destroy it from within. This will of course mean you will never be able to get your light to work again.

Walkie Talkie Skyscraper in London Melts Jaguar Car

Okay, so we may be exaggerating here! But this did actually happen … Witness the power of the sun! Go Solar Power!

The Walkie Talkie

The new 37-storey London skyscraper (aka “Walkie Talkie” because of its shape) has been reflecting sunlight which has melted parts of a Jaguar car parked on a nearby street: Eastcheap on Thursday afternoon. It only took two hours to melt parts of his car including the wing mirror and badge. The total cost of damage £946 in repairs.

The Owner of The Jaguar

Mr Lindsay (the owner of the car) said he “Could not believe” the damage. “You can’t believe something like this would happen. They’ve got to do something about it. It could be dangerous. Imagine if the sun reflected on the wrong part of the body?”

The Developers

The developers have apologised and paid for repairs. They left the following note on this windscreen: “Your car’s bucked; could you give us a call?”

In a joint statement, developers Land Securities and Canary Wharf said “We are aware of concerns regarding the light reflecting from 20 Fenchurch Street and are looking into the matter. As a precautionary measure, the City of London has agreed to suspend three parking bays in the area which may be affected while we investigate the situation further.

Sources:

‘Walkie-Talkie’ Skyscraper Melts Jaguar Car Parts

Solar Power In The UK Passes The 1GW Milestone

The UK has reached the grand milestone of 1 gigawatt (1GW) in demand for solar PV panels. Using year-to-date data, and despite the 46% decline in the second quarter, the solar power in the UK is currently on trend to smash the current record.

Solar PV Demand Per Quarter 2013 in MW — Chart showing solar PV demand per quarter in 2013 in megawatts

Why The Sudden Drop?

Why the 46% decline? There’s a bunch of reasons but lets briefly touch on a couple:

The cut in the Renewable Obligation Certificate incentives on 1st April 2013. This is less impacting for the end users and more about the companies who provide power. It led to less ground-mounted solar PV panels.
The European Commission increased the import tariff on China made solar PV panels. This meant it was more expensive to import solar PV panels.

On the whole, we’re not helping ourselves! But what’s more interesting is that it’s the little people who count more.

In The UK Currently:

Cumulative solar PV panels installed in the UK (at the end of June 2013) currently stands at 2.71 gigawatts. The largest percentage being residential installed panels! It’s the Joe Blogg’s of the UK with solar PV panels on the roof, shed, in the garden, anywhere possible.

Installed Location of Cumulative Solar PV Panels in the UK

In the first half of 2013 alone the UK has installed a whooping 106 solar PV panel farms. More than half of the new solar farms have an installed capacity of over 5 megawatts with 8% boasting over 10 megawatts.

Sources:
Annual Demand for Solar Power in UK Passes 1GW Milestone
UK Solar Power PV Demand in Quarter 2 Declines

Space technology heads back to earth

The Differences:

Whenever you see footage of a satellite out in space chances are the solar panels you’re looking at are not the same type of panels you see on roofs or in gardens back here on earth. The PV (photovoltaic) solar panels we have been using here one earth since the 1970s convert roughly 15% of the sun’s energy into electricity. The CPV (concentrated photovoltaic) solar panels often used in space are able to convert up to 44% of the sun’s energy into electricity which makes them three times more efficient.

Why The Solar Panels are Different:

CPV panels are more efficient because they use optics to focus large amounts of sun onto wafer thin photovoltaic surfaces to generate more electricity than traditional PV panels. Put simply, imagine setting up a parabolic telescope, pointing it at the sun (not something we recommend) and then sticking a highly efficient multi-junction solar cell in the eyepiece – that’s basically CPV.

Efficiency gain is just the beginning of the good news. A recent report by IMS Research suggests that although the upfront cost of CPV panels will be more expensive, CPV will cost 30% less than PV over the lifetime of a system because CPV produces three times more electricity. CPV panels will also be up to 3 times smaller than equivalent PV panels which will be great news for houses with small areas of south facing roof.

Solar Panels and The Future:

Large CPV solar power stations are already being developed in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. Residential CPV is still very much embryonic, but there are companies blazing a trail with experimental designs. If all goes to plan you might just see some CPV systems appearing on houses near you by 2025.

How Is The UK Re-Charging?

The DUKES 2013 Report

Last month the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) released their Statistical Press Release: The Digest of UK Energy Statistics (aka DUKES) taken from 2012. It has a lot of graphs and numbers but what exactly does it mean?

I’m here to provide a closer look and point out some of the interesting trends.

Renewable Energy on The Up!

This graph shows the gradual increase of renewable energy produced by the UK from 2004 to 2012. The UK only became interested in renewable energy in the mid-1990’s. The news is good! Each year has shown an increase and each year it has been above the target set by the government.

The percentage of UK Energy Produced by Renewables

But It’s Not All Good News …

However, the target set for the government is low compared to other countries. Each time we’ve surpassed that target it has only been by 0.1%, which is hardly breaking any records. Germany, for instance, has just broken its monthly solar power generation record (again). In July 2013 they logged 5.1 terawatt’s hours of electricity. (To put that in to perspective we only got 1114.2 gigawatts from renewable sources!)

Installed Capacity of PV Per Country — The total capacity of Photovoltaic panels per country.

Quote From Clean Technica:

“In terms of total solar power capacity per capita, Germany crushes every other country. At the end of 2012, it had approximately 400 MW of solar power capacity per million people, considerably more than #2 Italy at 267 MW per million people, #3 Belgium at 254 MW per million people, and #4 Czech Republic at 204 MW per million, and #5 Greece at 143 MW per million people. The US came it at #20 with about 25 MW per million people.”

Notice how we don’t even feature on that list? I know we’re a small country but we could be doing more. It’s certainly spiked upwards but it’s hardly the runner-up to winning the medal, let alone the gold seeker!

The Good News

There is good news in this muddle of information. Offshore wind generation (which is the UK’s second largest renewable source currently after biomass) has increased by 46% in 2012 and had a greater load factor than gas. (33.7% from wind compared to 30.4% from gas.)

The Final Word And Going Forwards

Slowly things are changing. It’s not just about turning off the television or light bulb any more. It’s about moving forwards and growing with the changes happening around us. Perhaps the UK government should review their plan and set more aggressive targets for renewable energy so we can try to catch up on the swift progress being made elsewhere in Europe.

Sources:

Germany Breaks Monthly Solar Generation Record, 6.5 Times More than US best, from Clean Technica

The Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) 2013 – Press Release

Do solar panels work when there is no sun?

Do solar panels only work in summer? Can solar panels work in winter? Does solar really work in the UK? I hope that by answering these questions I can make things a little clearer and hopefully shed some light on how solar works. An important part of the answer is the type of solar panel being used. There are many different varieties of solar panel available for generating solar energy “electricity”, but these are generally found in one of three guises; amorphous, polycrystalline and monocrystalline.

Amorphous panels

Amorphous solar panels are most commonly found on smaller solar products that are designed with a shorter life span and low energy requirements. A huge advantage of amorphous solar panels are they need very little light to generate some energy, this enables them to work in shaded locations and means that they are very easy to position anywhere and deliver some light. The disadvantage is they are very inefficient and so need to be more than twice the size of the other panels to deliver the same energy; or to look at it another way, generate less than half the power for the same physical size. The result of less energy means the product has to be more efficient with what it consumes and so in regards to a garden light the bulb will be dim. Products that use Amorphous Solar Panels would be decorative path lights or lights that hang from trees in partially shaded locations.

Polycrystalline panels

Polycrystalline panels are basically bits of scrap monocrystalline panels that have been recycled. Although they will never be as efficient as the monocrystalline panels in direct sun, they do get very close and the fractured nature of the construction makes them more efficient in changeable whether conditions. Although more expensive than amorphous, polycrystalline panels deliver more energy for your £’s. The disadvantage is that in very low light conditions they will not be able to harness much usable power – positioning of these panels is very important to achieving the best results. Products that use polycrystaline panels would be more utilitarian in nature where bright light is required for longer periods and in open spacious locations like solar security lighting and feature lighting.

Monocrystalline panels

Monocrystalline panels are the most efficient panels. They are designed to give maximum energy from minimal space and have the greatest life expectancy. Unfortunately they are the most expensive. Due to the cost they are rarely found in smaller applications such as home and garden lighting and would be more at home in a solar farm in the desert . The disadvantage is that they do not perform well in cloudy or darkened conditions.

Monocrystalline solar panels are ideal for larger home energy systems and solar farms.

Summary
All solar panels will perform better in open south-facing locations that get direct sunlight. Amorphous panels will work best in shady or cloudy conditions, but will not compete with monocrystalline or polycrystalline panels will when the sun comes out. Monocrystalline panels are better than polycrystalline, but are more expensive.

So do solar panels work when there is no sun?

No, but all solar panels perform best when the sun is at its best and that is in the summer. Can solar panels work in winter and does solar really work in the UK? Yes, so long as the size and power of the solar panel is relative to the thing it needs to power. Take solar lights for an example. Cheap solar lights that have a panel the size of a postage stamp will struggle to work at the best of times. High quality solar lights with bigger panels can work reliably reliably in UK winter time so long as they are well located.

Something will have to give…

A recent industry study by Kronos, Germany’s leading solar farm developer, suggests that Britain only has a handful of brownfield sites sufficient for large solar panel farms which puts a fresh dent in the governments pursuit of its renewable energy targets. Salvation is possible, but it does not have a pretty face.

In July an application for a 199 panel farm in Land of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Berkshire was approved. Kronos themselves are currently working on proposals that would see a 250,000 panel farm spanning 100 acres of agricultural land in Hampshire which would generate enough power for 30,000 homes. Conservationists are concerned that the Kronos report signifies a loosening of the cork that is currently preventing the solar farm genie from leaving its bottle and blighting the green fields of Britain. Resistance to renewables is not new of course, opposition to windfarms has been well documented in recent years and there are currently around 300 windfarm action groups in the UK.

Nuclear is seen by some as the only catch-all solution, but doubt has been cast on the commercial viability of the latest EPR reactors that will be the cornerstone of Britain’s privatised modernisation programme. There is also considerable uncertainty regarding regulation of the nuclear industry and nuclear waste disposal. Resistance is strong here too. Both the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament are opposed to new nuclear power stations.

Hydraulic fracturing, or Fracking, has recently made headlines despite being commonplace in the North Sea since the 1970s. Now the drills are making their way inshore serious concerns have arisen regarding earthquake risk and water contamination.

Against this backdrop of opposition there is the looming prospect of a power deficit in the UK where demand is stronger than ever. In June 2013 OFGEM issued a warning stating that the risk of power blackouts in the UK within the next 18 months has doubled since a year ago. In that year Britain’s population, which is now the fastest growing in Europe, increased by 420,000 which is two and a half times the increase experienced by Germany. In 1970 the energy consumed in British homes represented a quarter of Britain’s total consumption; it is now a third thanks to the increase in housing stock which is still regarded as woefully inadequate.

It is almost impossible to find a form of mass power generation, renewable or otherwise, that does not come loaded with controversy and opposition. The time at which an unstoppable force (Britain’s power needs) meets an immovable object (the resistance to virtually all forms of mass power generation) is fast approaching and something will have to give.

The Solar Electric Car – Just Gets Better

No sooner had I finished writing the article on Green GT’s Solar Electric car did I come across more images of the developments they have made.
Wow it is simple I am converted where do I sign up I want to buy one!

And apparently the intention is to race in Le-Mans as soon as 2011 – I will say it again Wow! – it seems amazing that from electric power which can be recharged for free from solar, harnessing the suns power can then power a Le-Mans racing car.
I did notice a lack of solar paneling on these images but I am sure that is just so it looks pretty in the pics.

Further confirmation of this cars impressive performance is it is meant to have 350-400 bhp which means that 0-62mph is achievable in less than 4secs – Unbelievable!
One of my questions answered though.

Solar Electric Cars at Le-Mans? It will never happen!

When asked the question – would i drive an electric car my initial thought is of a milk float; not exactly the best vehicle to impress the girls.
Then I was shown these pics:-

Surely this was a joke a car that had a top speed of 5mph jazzed up to look like a race car, but no this car can supposedly go 170mph! I of course want to read more – I now had all the questions how quickly does it get to this speed? How long can it be powered for? Could i drive from one end of the country to the other without any fuel? Top car Manufacturers Audi have already shown Le Mans can be won by diesel power will solar electric be the next winning Le-Mans car?

This Solar powered electric car comes from the team at Green GT and it’s an impressive car on paper. The race-spec carbon-fiber chassis holds two liquid-cooled 100-kilowatt (about 148 horsepower) motors that the Swiss gearheads claim put 1,475 pound-feet of torque to the tarmac at up to 100 mph. That figure rolls off to 590 pound-feet beyond the century mark and stays there as the car approaches its claimed top speed of 170 mph. The juice comes from a pair of 30-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion polymer battery packs. All told, the car weighs 1,896 pounds.

If that’s still not green enough for you, the guys at Green GT have installed Flexcells solar panels on each sidepod for extra charging. The whole shebang is brought to a quick stop with Brembo brakes mounted within lightweight magnesium wheels.

The plan is to test the prototype through the summer and begin series production once they’ve sorted everything out. The goal is to build 20 to 25 cars and possibly launch a European race series for the car. Ultimately, the firm hopes to race against its fossil-fueled counterparts in the LMP2 class at Le Mans.