Thoughts On Solar Energy
On my trip to Wales on Wednesday, I was surprised at the number of houses and buildings in the valleys that were sporting solar panels.
I was surprised because according to the general view of the Welsh weather, there doesn’t appear to be enough sun. Although to be fair, Wednesday was a day of clear skies and a warm sun.
The cynic in me, asks whether the Welsh government is giving out a big subsidy or there are a lot of aggressive and ultimately successful salesmen about. But as to the latter, the Welsh have never struck me as particularly gullible. They also have a reputation of being rather careful with their money.
So, I have to come to the conclusion that the economics of solar panels must be getting better.
Here, in Central London, you don’t see too many solar panels, although Blackfriars station is roofed with solar panels. Wikipedia says this.
In January 2014 the Blackfriars Railway Bridge became the world’s largest solar-powered bridge having been covered with 4,400 photovoltaic panels providing up to half of the energy for the station.
Blackfriars station is a station that it is a good place to put solar panels.
1. It is an all-electric railway with no polluting smoke from diesel engines, that might damage the panels.
2. The platforms are a long low horizontal building with quite a large roof area.
3. Because of its position on a bridge, Blackfriars station is probably not a prime candidate for building offices or housing on top of the station.
4. Stations are also designed for the long term and I doubt that any major work will be done at Blackfriars for several decades.
I think we’ll be seeing several other stations being given solar roofs if the economics are right. Not all stations have magnificent Victorian train sheds like Kings Cross, Liverpool Lime Street, Paddington and St. Pancras or are candidates for serious oversite development like Euston, Liverpool Street or Marylebone.
Even Sainsburys are getting into the solar game. With supermarkets and other sheds, the adding of solar panels can help to make the stores less dependent on the grid, but I doubt many will last as long as Blackfriars station without a complete rebuild.
It would seem to me that large commercial applications, will have one major effect. They will bring the prices down.
Coupled with technological improvement like this one, we could be entering a virtuous circle for solar energy, as the shorter the payback time, the more likely a company, organisation or individual will invest.
Solar energy as a local power source has a few advantages.
1. As it produces electricity that can be fed back into the grid and the control systems can be very sophisticated, it is a very efficient way of generating and distributing electricity.
2. The drive is on for electrical equipment like lights, washing machines and cookers to use less electricity, which means people are getting used to pay to save energy, thus making the decision to cut energy bills further by installing solar panels easier.
3. Battery technology is getting better and it won’t be long before the sight of small solar powered units which can power the office-in-a garden or other remote sites become very common.
4. There is nothing mechanical to go wrong, as there is with anything to do with the wind.
The only problem that at present seems to hinder the installation of solar panels on buildings, is the attitude of some councils. Getting a better attitude is partly due to better design and sighting, but a bit of government push would help.
Does My Roof Make Me Ill?
Read this article on the BBC web site and then look at the pictures of the roof that Jerry built.
The BBC article says this.
He said there were simple measures anyone could take – whether living in a well-insulated home or not – to keep heat levels down, such as keeping windows closed during the day to trap cool air and opening them at night.
Fitting shutters to windows and painting exterior walls white – both common sights in Mediterranean countries – would also help, but were unlikely to be widely adopted in the UK due to the relative rarity of heatwaves.
Couple this advice with the actions of a friend, who lives in her house with a flat roof and gets it painted silver every few years.
My roof, is virtually matt black and is therefore a wonderful heat absorber, which it then just radiates into the house.
I will be doing two things.
In the first place, I’ll be getting the roof fixed and then painted in a reflective colour.
But the most radical thing I’ve going to do is put up a sunshade over all of the flat roofs. One roof is probably about 4 x 7 metres and the other is about 4 x 5 metres.
They will of course help to pay for their own installation, as they will be solar panels.
As the roof is flat and they will be invisible to everybody except the police helicopter or the Air Ambulance, I don’t think anyone has any grounds to object.
If the roof is making me ill, it should at least help to solve the problem.
Pay-As-You-Go Solar Electricity
This system from Eight19, got a big plug in the Sunday Times today.
I think the company has got something here, as it can provide low-cost lighting to all of those places in the world that are off-grid.
The article shows how in places like Kenya it can be used to provide lighting and mobile-phone charging at a very affordable cost, by combining good solar technology with simple systems based on scratch cards and mobile phones.
But I think it has other applications,where you need a small amount of power in a difficult to get to place. Remember that even in the UK, we have a surprising amount of sunlight most of the time. But of course not now!
The Anonymous Widower 