tell me why this won't work - community generation

waterwelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119681209#Comment_119681209

Well now you are putting a different slant on it and I get where you are coming from.

For example they are incentiving EVs while ignoring the shortage of battery components and pretending evs are green which they are not.

It still doesn't make PV panels utterly useless in Ireland. During summer it helps us shut more fossil fuel plants off and for longer.

I don't see a lot of government incentives for PV either, the grant is similar to the vat you pay and by the looks of things a diy install will save the grant amount and maybe more, with a realistic payback if it's all done right.

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119680481#Comment_119680481

I'm genuinely surprised at that post that panels are utterly useless at this latitude.

I'm 2 years into my solar plan in an ordinary estate 4bed semi. If seasonal trend over the last two years continues I'll projecting the following for 2023.

9.8MW solar PV generation

This includes 0.9MW over the 4 bad months

88% self consumption

2.4MW into our EVs, about 15,400kms equivalent

Covering house load and hot water demand fully for 8months of the year

Just Dec and Jan will actually be "bad months", I'll still be covering house loads most days

If I was out the country without the amount of neighbourhood shading I have, then all the above would be much better

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119680997#Comment_119680997

If someone wants to have a debate about the technical merits and link in white papers, that's awesome - but if your going to do that.......do try and link in papers which have been published somewhat recently. Using articles which were published in 2009 is hardly a good model to base opinions on. The state of the solar landscape has moved on since then. Here is that same article this time with a date on it ...

"Economic and Environmental Performance Analysis of PV Systems for Dome" by Lacour Ayompe, Aidan Duffy et al. (tudublin.ie)

While the performance of the panels themselves have increased perhaps 3-4% since back then, they are however about 90% cheaper than back in 2009.

Will solar panels get cheaper? (updated for 2022) (thesolarnerd.com)

Looking at the ecomonics today compared to a decade ago is like comparing a lightbulb to a brick. What wasn't feasible in 2008 has no bearing on todays market.

paulbok

Rather than individuals/estates/blocks trying to setup their own supply network, would dedicated investment funds for establishing renewable energy projects not be a better option? Rather than it supplying power directly, investors would get dividends from the power sold to the grid to offset against regular bills.

With the sqM limits about to be finally dropped, it could make sense for say a small town to set up a community scheme and blanket all available roof space with panels, with pro-rata return on investment and roof space made available. Local county council could invest to run public buildings/lighting etc. A hundred or so house and business roofs, schools, community centre, sports clubs buildings would yield a decent area for panels.

I think someone on here was proposing something like that investment fund a few weeks ago, but it would need government assistance, grants and tax exemptions on profits to make it feasible. Getting the public to invest in rolling out significant quantities of renewables would certainly speed up hitting the target's required

blackbox

What the OP is talking about is a group investment.

It might be a better investment to buy some barren land in Spain or some other country with lots of sunshine if you are going to install solar panels. You would need to research feed in tariffs, but you would certainly be generating a lot more electricity per hectare and those hectares would probably be cheaper. Maintenance costs might also be lower.

antoinolachtnai

The whole point is to give regular people access to cheap renewable electricity to use at home

You won’t be able to use that cheap Spanish daytime electricity in your own home.

if you owned a share of a wind farm and a share of a PV farm in Ireland it would yield electricity that could be offset against your electricity bill.

blackbox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119683556#Comment_119683556

The income from the wind farm could be offset against your electricity bill. The grids are all interconnected.

What's the difference?

antoinolachtnai

The Spanish grid is not interconnected with the Irish grid to any meaningful extent.

The little indirect interconnection that exists isn’t coordinated.

Even when there is a connection to France it will be tiny compared to the demand in Ireland.

as a result prices in ireland and Spain won’t rise and fall in parallel.

UID0

Solar panels really shouldn't be used on agricultural land unless they are not having a detrimental effect on land use. An example from the Netherlands is

Dutch grower places solar panels over strawberries (hortidaily.com)

where solar panels are used to provide the shade that was required for growing strawberries. Putting them on houses is useful because the roof surface is already there, and there isn't a requirement for a dedicated grid connection and all of the infrastructure that goes with it.

The costs would not be as simple as 1kWh in from the solar farm = 1 kWh out at the apartment block. There are transmission losses to account for 17.2% (8.6% on generation side and 8.6% on consumption side)(CRU2022089-Electricity-Distribution-Network-Allowed-Revenues-2023-DUoS-Tariffs-and-DLAFs-2022-23-FINAL.pdf). There's also matching of production and use. The electrical market is balanced every half hour, so production in is paid at the market rate for that half hour, and the customer supply companies are charged based on their usage for that half hour. Putting 1kWh in when the price is cheaper does not allow you to take 1kWh out when the price is more expensive.

It would be a better option for the apartment owners to invest in an electricity generation company and put the dividends towards their electricity bills.

antoinolachtnai

Transmission losses are nothing like 40 percent. They are in the order of 10 percent to 15 percent. the figure you are referring to in the statistics is something completely different.

The challenge of balancing wind+PV with demand is much smaller than matching domestic PV. (The initial outlay cost for a kW of farm PV is also much lower)

There are no Irish generator companies on the stock market as far as I know. Even if there were it is by no means clear that profits move in proportion to electricity prices over the long term.

punters could invest in Shell shares sure, but the whole point is to invest to develop green energy, not support fossil fuels

A2LUE42

From a tour of Ardnacrusha a few years ago, it was mentioned during the tour that only 3 turbines were installed, even though it was built to accommodate 4. From a renewable point of view, does anyone know why the 4th can't be installed now?

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119683931#Comment_119683931

it's 40 years since I did that same tour (LOL), but a 4th turbine was indeed installed ~10 years or so after the original construction, bringing it up to 80mw or so. The biggest problem with Ardnacrusha is that while it's an amazing piece of engineering (esp something done in the 1920's) it actually only has a very limited "head" of water, so it's production capacity is somewhat limited.

Citizen Six

I think it was originally designed for six. Three were fitted, then a fourth, later on, which was a different type to the original three.

I'm not really clear on why there is an argument over whether people can form a company to build a solar farm in the countryside. People have formed companies to build solar panels in the countryside and it's reasonable to assume they want their money back along with a fair bit of interest:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/millvale-solar-farm-neoen-ireland-may-2022

The issue is the barriers to entry (a few grand per apartment) and the fact that most owners have no incentive to put the cash up— most apartments are rented out, and landlords by definition invest in property not companies (and don't pay the energy bills so why would they give a crap about how high they are?). The management company as a legal person would almost certainly not have the legal power to buy land & start a solar farm.

The best bet in real life would be for the directors of the management company to get authorisation at the AGM to put solar panels on the roof of the property, with the electricity generated reducing the electricity bill for the common areas and any cash (from feeding into the grid) offsetting the annual management charge. This would have a relatively short payback period, and could potentially be paid for from the sinking fund (and therefore have no finance cost) assuming there actually is one big enough.

Forget about trying to persuade landlords of the apartments to voluntarily give you a few grand to benefit their tenants. (Because anyone who has ever rented in Ireland knows full well that there's not a snowball's chance in hell of that happening). Ask the landlords to let the management company spend some cash in the sinking fund to ultimately reduce their annual management charge.

UID0

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119683883#Comment_119683883

Apologies. I've edited the post. The actual losses are 8.6% during the day on each side of the connection.

Balancing PV+wind with demand works fine on a grid scale basis. It doesn't work if you're attempting to power a block of apartments solely from PV+wind that is connected through the grid. Domestic PV is a much smaller issue because most of the time to the grid it just appears as a reduced demand.

For PV, to increase capacity the area covered has to increase in an almost linear fashion. For wind, the factor is the swept area of the blades and the average wind speed, meaning that what is needed is larger taller turbines. Increasing the capacity of a single turbine does not have as great a land requirement. For medium/large deployments, the initial outlay is lower for wind, but it has a higher ongoing operating cost.

I don't know if there are any generator companies on the stock market, but the OP was talking about forming a generator and customer supply company but limiting it to supplying a single block of flats. I'm sure that if one had a sufficient amount to invest, it would be possible to find a company willing to accept the investment.

Sparkling Gamorreans

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119680914#Comment_119680914

We have District Heating in Ireland too but it falls outside of the CRU's remit, tends to be built on a development/block basis and it seems to result in astronomical charges. I posted about it in another thread. I just got a €233 bill for a 70 sqm 2 bed apartment for July/August that was for a period of no usage aside from the hot water. €25 of that bill was the variable usage of the apartment, the rest were standing or communal charges. I can't switch provider or do anything about it. Until such time as there's a proper regulatory framework from a consumer perspective District Heating should not be pushed in Ireland.

It's been discussed recently in these articles:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rising-energy-bills-no-switching-help-for-apartment-dwellers-stuck-with-one-gas-or-electricity-provider-42004186.html

https://www.buzz.ie/news/irish-news/utility-regulator-energy-costs-pricing-28038804

Also been raised in the Dail and via questions to Eamonn Ryan:

https://twitter.com/RBoydBarrett/status/1572249192575148035?s=20&t=ZSdon5MpLrZce1M8m1C4cg

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2022-05-24/85/

antoinolachtnai

The OP doesn’t want a money return. They want to make an investment in return for which they will get free or cheap energy outside of the tax net, the same as people who consume electricity from their rooftop PV do.

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119683883#Comment_119683883

Put a number on the 'challenge'.

Assume there's no grid, and you're connected to panels & wind that are just sufficient to generate your consumption in an average year.

Tell us how small your battery could be, before you began to worry.

Show us how much a green future costs.

Gerry

A hell of a lot of talk on here.. but its already possible and happening

https://communitypower.ie

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119686377#Comment_119686377

Click on the price increase button and read that, the tariff prices are eye watering and they have to buy the supply because they won't be up and running until Q3 2023 if lucky.

antoinolachtnai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119686213#Comment_119686213

Show us what the saving for the punter would be from having this coverage.

community Power aren’t really doing anything like this as far as I know. They just bill you for your electricity. The consumer doesn’t get any electricity as a dividend or the corresponding tax benefit (as people with PV on their roof do).

Muahahaha

The concept of a community heating scheme is a good one but why would it be solar? It seems that land and battery costs would make it uneconomical.

Id thought of a similar scheme a few years back where I live not with solar but instead using a water to water heat pump. I live very close to a big lake and the heat in fresh water can be extracted and used to heat houses. It would be a perfect solution for about 60 houses locally except for one thing- the ESB own the water in the lake and I doubt they would take too kindly to someone wanting permission to put pipework and a heat exchanger in their lake, extract heat from their water and then spend less with the ESB on their energy bills. Its a pity as it would be a great way for a load of households to get very cheap energy.

Murt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119681947#Comment_119681947

9.8MW! What size is your array?

TheWonderLlama

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119686412#Comment_119686412

They are already up and running for a few years. They have a wind turbine in Co. tipperary somewhere.

I guess they got a lot more people signed up than they could produce power for and they have to go to the wholesale market where they are having their face ripped off by the big boys.

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119687664#Comment_119687664

Two 6kW arrays, I've neighbourhood shading to compensate for, the same setup out the country would give me 11MW

Murt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119694920#Comment_119694920

Ah that explains it. Yeah I've a shading problem in the evening also. A very inconsiderate neighbor has poplars growing. Damn things are about 80 foot high already. Did you have it split across two inverters?

slave1

Yes, 5 arrays facing different directions across 4 stings and 2 inverters

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119694905#Comment_119694905

It is a fright to the Lord. I remember about 2 years ago their prices were on par or a few cents dearer than said big boys.