http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/bright-idea-as-solar-power-sites-identified-1-3230432
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
Solar panels in country park?
(32 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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An application came up in front of my local council this week, and was rejected unanimously. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-25325442
I'm guessing the developer is going to appeal to a higher authority.
There are certainly places in Mid and East Lothian with better sunshine figures than Chorley despite the higher latitude so I'm not surprised to hear of plans up there too.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Councillor Chas Booth says the country park won't make the cut. Suggesting the quarries and tips will get them, which is better. But then he is quoted praising the Harlaw hydro. But cited as saying it is in Bonaly when it is in Balerno. Might be the paper that got that wrong.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Why not, they have littered most of our local countryside with wind farms, why not start in the cities with these too? Put them in between the turbines?
Posted 11 years ago # -
"they have littered most of our local countryside with wind farms"
I think that's a slight exaggeration...
I prefer them to pylons (but realise that you're likely to get both!)
Can't really see blankets of solar panels improving the visual environment.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I think that's a slight exaggeration...
Lots in West Lothian at Woolfords, others around there too.
Wee have them in Fife, just at Cowdenbeath, they are spreading towards Burntisland.
One in the middle of Dunfermline (OK, in the industrial estate)
Can see them now in the foothills as you approach Stirling.
Ayrshire hills have them too.
Borders on the coast near St Abbs.None in the immediate vicinity to Edinburgh I don't think? Don't know about E lothian. Probably only just a small sample above.
Not saying we shouldn't have wind farms, but actually towns and cities would maybe be a better place for them, most of them are pretty ugly places anyway. Keep the country side unspoiled.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Keep the country side unspoiled"
Nice idea, but that's hardly going to happen unless there are more restrictions on agricultural buildings and fields of plastic!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Posted 11 years ago #
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Wind farm grants being withdrawn. Spread should slow. They are nicer than banks of solar panels?
Posted 11 years ago # -
PV cells are hardly the most environmentally things to create and then decommission.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm not up to date on how efficient they are nowadays, but last I looked even if they were in Tunisia they return much less than a turbine, per quid invested, let alone the other costs as Kappers mentions.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I like wind turbines.
The rest of my family hate them with a passion (I can't remember a weekend with my Dad where he hasn't got on to ranting about them).
But in my mind I'm right, they're wrong.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I like turbines too but they are not the solution to energy crisis?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Posted 11 years ago #
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"but they are not the solution to energy crisis?"
Is anything?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Cold Fusion? Mean time a more balanced mix is no bad thing. How ever I think I've lectured at length the futility of any kind of Solar Power this far north, but to recap its not about the lack of sunny days its more about the very low quality of the sun we do get.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm not up to date on how efficient they are nowadays, but last I looked even if they were in Tunisia they return much less than a turbine, per quid invested, let alone the other costs as Kappers mentions
Efficiency is a very, very slippery word when it comes to talking about power generation. It tends to mean whatever suits the agenda of whoever is making an argument for or against something. Off the top of my head for a wind turbine it could mean:
Aerodynamic efficiency - % of kinetic energy in the air stream that can be extracted by the blades - there's a hard limit of about 60% to this.
Mechanical efficiency - % of energy captured in the blades that makes it to the generator - typically very high (90%+)
Generator efficiency - % of energy delivered to the generator that ends up as electrical power...
All of which is very interesting (I'm sure!) but I imagine you mean capacity factor, which is the amount of energy you get in a typical year of operation compared to the energy you'd get if the turbine was running at maximum power for the entire year. Scotland is fortunate as our turbines have among the highest capacity factors in the entire world - IIRC something like 30% for onshore, 45% offshore and there's a farm out in the western isles that make a record breaking 59%.
For reference your typical fossil/nuclear plant is 80%+, though this is because it has to have routine maintenance and also due to repairs/safety shutdowns.
...Right, where was this going. Yes you're spot on, wind returns vastly more for your investment as it's now such a mature technology. Solar in this country is not entirely useless but is never going to contribute much. My head is full of solar incidence angles, anisotropic sky radiation equations and all manner of other stuff about solar power that would likely make this reply more rambling than it already is so I should probably stop here.
Not saying we shouldn't have wind farms, but actually towns and cities would maybe be a better place for them, most of them are pretty ugly places anyway.
Thing is wind farms aren't plonked down on a whim though some people would have you believe otherwise. You ideally need at least a solid year of recording wind data before you can analyse whether it's worth building them given the wind profile. Unsurprisingly it turns out the best places are the tops of hills and moorland and the worst places are in towns and cities. Those tiny turbines you see odd places around town are ironically enough completely useless at generating power - in fact you'd struggle to even repay the energy it took to make them before they wear out.
Keep the country side unspoiled.With respect, I've always found this position to be utterly incomprehensible to me. 'Unspoiled countryside' hasn't existed on these isles for, what, 10,000 years? The only reason we're here is because we have relentlessly bent the natural landscape to our own uses. Farmland, dams, roads, railways, airports, oil refineries, factories, pylons...all this and it amazes me people can point to windfarms as being out of place.
its not about the lack of sunny days its more about the very low quality of the sun we do get.
To put it concisely, this is basically right.
To put it in a long and boring manner, the problem is that solar in summer here is actually very viable while solar in winter is genuinely hopeless. The maximum amount of solar energy you can get on the earth is around 1000 W/m^2 (watts per square meter) and as expected this would be under a clear sky with the sun directly overhead. How much do you think you get on a clear summer day here, this far north?
900 W/m^2, only very slightly less than on the equator. Yes there's cloudy days etc but if you built loads of panels you could generate pretty big fractions of our summer power demand. Enough to shut down a considerable amount of fossil plants.
Come the winter, 2 things happen. Firstly power demand is much higher, and secondly and not surprisingly the amount of solar radiation is abysmal. You'd struggle to get 100 W/m^2 even at midday. The 18 hours of night at midwinter doesn't exactly improve the situation either.
Is anything?
Nuclear.
<Runs away>
Posted 11 years ago # -
Why not just over the wind turbines in solar panels? ;-)
Posted 11 years ago # -
Is anything?
Maybe the thorium reactors, if they get it mature enough to build. Unfortunately thorium suffers from not being part of a weapon ecosystem so government investment is noticeable by its absence (comparatively). But it looks very promising.
Solar clearly has a long way to go in efficiency improvements. That's good news, in a way...don't write it off just yet. I get the impression we may yet see many more iterations of significant innovation in solar tech. It's not too far off being viable without subsidy, even in these climes.
I suspect that wind turbines have proven popular because the mechanical and electrical engineering required is very mature and commoditised.
The other aspect to consider (with the slightly cynical hat on) is that micro-generation is never going to be popular with utility companies or the government because of their potential loss of revenue.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
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"
http://www.apple.com/ipad/life-on-ipad/balancing-work-at-new-heights
Posted 11 years ago # -
Is anything?
The only real long term solution is nuclear.
Of course there is a massive short term gap that needs to be addressed, and wind, and solar (at domestic level), and wave, and 'clean' coal* needs to play a part.
Or we all need to consume much less energy. Which isn't going to happen whilst we still all live in energy inefficient tenement housing in our cities, and inefficient pre2000 housing in our towns (at least the latter are easier to make efficient).
*This needs to disappear in time, as does your gas central heating.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I like wind turbines too but Emperor Salmond has gone off them onshore and on them offshore so our unspoilt countryside should be safe for a bit.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Useful summary there.
"The only real long term solution is nuclear"
But only in a perfect world where waste storage is secure - and doesn't cost more than the value of the electricity created in the comparatively short life of the actual power station productive time.
And where there is security of raw material supply.
And general security generally.
And...
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm firmly in the nuclear camp. A handful of concrete bunkered power plants verses the whole of rural Scotland littered with windfarms. No contest. Donald Trump is right on this one.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"A handful of concrete bunkered power plants verses the whole of rural Scotland littered with windfarms."
Fine, but where is that proposed (plan rather than geography) - and costed?
Posted 11 years ago # -
And where there is security of raw material supply.
And general security generally.
The scientists among us will no doubt know better, but there was an article on the BBC website recently about testing on a new material which could be used to power nuclear power stations, can't make bombs from it, and the half life is infinite times less that current materials.
It lives in Canada too, can't see us falling out with them, but yes, energy security a major issue.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Nuclear power as it would be currently installed is the ultimate in short term thinking, we leave a massive problem not just for a couple of generations but for (likely) the rest of our civilisation.
The question is not how do store the waste but how do you leave a warning on the side of the can for a culture which will likely never have heard of English or French or Russian.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Baldcyclist yeah think that's the Thorium reactor mentioned further up the thread.
Posted 11 years ago # -
A handful of concrete bunkered power plants verses the whole of rural Scotland littered with windfarms
You can completely change the sentiments of that argument by changing just a few words;
A handful of concrete bunkered power plants verses the whole of rural Scotland
litteredelegantly dusted with windfarms.The argument that windfarms are "litter" "a blight" or "ugly" is entirely subjective and the percieved appearance of something is probably the worst way to base such an important decision as the future way to power the nation. Just because you can't see CO2 emissions or the nuclear waste headache doesn't mean they aren't there and they aren't a far more massive problem than the visual appearance of our otherwise artificial landscape.
The highland shooting moor is an entirely unnatural part of the Scottish landscape, but we live with them and have grown to find them aesthetically pleasing by and large.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"
Plans for £5.4bn Argyll Array offshore wind farm near Tiree dropped"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-25364699
Posted 11 years ago #
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