A Gloomy Outlook For Solar Power In The UK
A timely letter in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday:
SIR – Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, is planning to offer grants for solar panels and heat pumps worth up to £13bn in an attempt to create “zero-bill homes” (report, December 30).
The World Bank has produced a report (Global Photovoltaic Power Potential by Country) which compares the solar panel potential of 230 countries. The UK was rated 229 out of 230 countries; only Ireland was rated lower.
Mr Miliband must know something about solar panel potential that the World Bank experts have missed.
Lord Clanmorris
London W8
And in the real world, all of Britain’s solar farms only managed to generate 401 GWh last month, barely more than one percent of total electricity generation:
Image source: solar.sheffield.ac.uk
The image below is a screenshot from the Gridwatch website, and shows where the UK’s electricity is generated.
Looking at the solar dial (upper row of the small dials, middle of the seven), we can see it is producing 2.95gw, which is just 6.25 percent of our current demand:
It is also interesting to note we are importing almost nothing through the five Interconnectors at the moment.
Image source gridwatch.templar.co.uk
Header image: The Guardian
Editor’s note: we musn’t forget Elasticband is only doing this to save us from our own extinction if the planet gets any warmer, and part of that means a large reduction in electricity usage, no matter what the cost to the economy, or the population. Its either that or we all die.