It feels like such a waste to have energy from the sun beaming down on us (well, occasionally; I live in England), but not to have solar panels and batteries deployed widely, to capture it.

[larsmb@mastodon.online]

@neil But large scale solar plus wind is already the cheapest source. So everyone will benefit unless politics distort the market (or allow it to be distorted).

[chris@abraham.su]

@neil I mean, you just mentioned the big issue with UK solar.

[ryanteck@fosstodon.org]

@neil It's more the amount for selling it back that's a bit annoying.

We have panels but no battery. A battery would be nice as then we could store some of our excess rather than sell it back.

But we only get 16p (dropping to 6-12p soon depending on our provider) whilst our neighbors that are buying it will be at that 25-30p a kWh roughly.

There'd be some more incentive for people to get them if they got more for selling back I think.

[dragon@toast.dragon2611.net]

@neil I'm waiting to see what the rules on plug-in change to.

Solar panels are cheap, getting someone onto the roof isn't espcically as i'd doubt i'd manage more than say 4 of them on it.

Also the guidelines around where they should but the batteries is a problem if you're space constrained as they now don't want them in lofts on on escape routes (which is most indoor locations lets face it)

[yorkshiregeek@mastodon.social]

@neil
we recently got a new build house, and it has a minor solar setup with no battery storage.

I honestly was expecting it to be nothing that an exercise in government bureaucracy and another fee for the legal team to take.

Much to my surprise even in the North of England on a rainy day we are often not using any electric from the grid.

We are still waiting to be set up for the selling the extra (since November) but the rates for what we supply to what they then charge others for it

[wordshaper@weatherishappening.network]

@neil The push for small scale balcony solar will, hopefully, help that some. Some people are still disadvantaged but at least it's fewer people so that's a good thing.

All the rooftop solar is also removing a lot of load from the grid, so there's an indirect benefit too -- the less load there is the less need for the expensive generating capacity which potentially can push electricity prices down for everyone. (Maybe even to free for some time periods, which is awesome)

[andycarolan@social.lol]

@neil And sadly, NIMBYs often kill proposals for solar or wind farms.

[tommorris@mastodon.social]

@neil More community solar (and wind/other renewables) would be fantastic. Would love it if blocks of flats could get solar installations retrofitted on their roofs more easily, and have the benefits accrue to residents and local community.

(The ongoing leasehold/commonhold reform proposals might be an opening for this.)

[mactonex@toot.community]

@neil I would like to see the government buy a few hundred million solar panels and put them on every house in the country that can take them, for free. Throw in a battery and an air sourced heat pump as well. Let people use the electric for free, and buy back the surplus. Start with the poorest households, then move onto businesses, factories, solar canopies over car parks etc. The long term savings would be enormous.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@chris Some days are better than others?

[lonm@social.vivaldi.net]

@Mactonex @neil Even better than buying them - make a nationally owned solar manufacturer, then once the fab pipeline is built and our needs delivered, other countries that are late to the game can buy panels and expertise from us.

[smsm1@mastodon.green]

@neil the more solar the cheaper electricity prices will become. Especially in the middle of the day. I'm on Octopus Agile tariff and get really cheap electricity on the sunny and windy days.

[penguin42@mastodon.org.uk]

@neil I think there's some councils fitting solar to council houses, so that does help others as well. Still subsidising can help all - it lowers the amount that needs to be generated, making it less likely to be burning gas, thus lowering everyones prices. It particularly helps with aircon use as well since aircon and solar tend to happen at similar times.

[mactonex@toot.community]

@LonM @neil good idea, that would take a couple of years at least, so in the meantime we could buy a few million in and get started while we build manufacturing capacity. We would probably be limited in what we could install by the number of installers available. Need to train them up too.

[taf@bsd.network]

@neil For a decent amount of time today solar covered more than 50% of the electricity usage in Denmark. The potential is huge.

[pwaring@social.xk7.net]

@neil It also seems unfair that fee-charging schools can probably afford to buy solar panels as well, whilst publicly-funded schools struggle (my former high school has an enormous roof area which seems ripe for generation to offset power consumption, and during the summer would actually export a lot since there are no kids around).

[tony@toot.hoyle.me.uk]

@neil The wholesale cost of solar panels is about £85 each.

The installation cost has not dropped to reflect the reduction in cost of materials. Councils could definitely get that price down by using their own installers. There doesn't seem to be much will to do it though.