April 2011


solar power 15TH YEAR


Right way to go on


by Chris J Verney, Barum Solarheat


EVERYONE has suddenly woken up to the income available from the Feed-in Tariffs introduced by the previous Government, payments being made at 41 to 43 pence per kW/hour for all electricity exported to the National Grid.


Although financially


beneficial to the consumer, there is only a small benefit to the grid. Very little exported electricity assists the grid on systems below 5kW because much of the energy is lost at the first transformer and powerlines.


Contrary to Energy Minister Chris Huhne, I am in favour of larger grid-connected three phase and some single phase R/E systems, and feel this is the right way to go. Unfortunately, big business combines and the farming community have seen an opportunity to make money by building solar farms in almost any location or building that is situated close to a grid connection. I can only assume the grid connection would be directly connected via expensive transformers and safety switchgear to the high voltage 11 or 33kV three-phase network.


I foresee problems. *What happens if a solar


farm operator goes out of business? Who then would be responsible for guaranteed continued operation? *Solar power by its very nature only operates in daytime hours (max of 10 hours at best in any 24) and relies on sun or daylight to produce electricity. Records show that most of the output is at its best during the May to September period in the UK, with new higher outputs of up to 1000kW/hours per kW of PV installed being possible. A 30 per cent increase can be achieved by the use of tracking devices. *A 5-megawatt PV system could in theory produce maximum output of five megawatts in midsummer at midday. However, when a storm cloud appears at say 12.15pm the output is drastically reduced to maybe 10 per cent of the peak output. How do the grid-connected load monitoring computers handle this sudden change? Can someone tell me?


It really needs someone in


charge who has a technical background to make some important decisions. I only hope Mr Huhne has taken the time to consult with those who run our grid system before making any major ‘political’ decisions. By the time this is published, we should know.


South West Building & Construction 23


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