If you’re interested in getting low-cost solar panels installed, check out SELCE’s group-buy offer, in which neighbours commission solar panels together, and the economies of scale enable a negotiation around price. The average rate for a domestic roof is around £5K, but SELCE (South East London Community Energy) are offering a price closer to £3K for a rooftop array. If you’d like to how solar panels work installed in your home, drop me a pm and come to Duncombe Hill, very near Blythe Hill Fields on Wednesday 23rd at 2pm, or Thursday 24 at 8pm. A householder with solar panels is happy to show people his house and discuss the installation and his experience. If you want to know more about the scheme, consult SELCE’s FAQs doc, downloadable here: https://solarblythehill.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/socialpowercommunity-pv_faqs_v9.pdf
Solar Panels on sunny hills? Yes Please!
Unless I am confused solar panels without a significant battery storage facility only profuce electricity when the sun shines?
When I turn on the lights at night, cook,watch TV anc bathe there is no sun hence no solar power?
So unless you have a real use for electricity during daylight hours I dont understand how it is useful.
Hence the huge battery farm installed in Australia by Elon Musk’s firm, to store the energy produced.
I’m pretty sure anything you produce and don’t use during the sunny daytime is fed in to the grid (essentially your meter runs backwards i.e you’re lending it to the grid) then at night you’re just using grid power. You only need to store it for an off-grid solution.
Even without storage, solar power takes daytime load off the grid and avoids fossil fuels being burnt.
But you’re right: Elon Musk’s municipal battery arrays are where the future lies, and are changing the world for the better already:
The principle is right but Musk is not the only game in town. Check out Vanadium Flow for instance. Expensive outlay but much more environmentally friendly long term (the reaction is 100% reversible). Only practicable for commercial use currently though.