
Solar outstrips coal in past six months of UK electricity generation - iamflimflam1
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/04/solar-outstrips-coal-in-past-six-months-of-uk-electricity-generation?cmp=oth_b-aplnews_d-2
======
pjc50
Excellent news. There's a bit of a thumb on the scale because of the
seasonality of both solar and UK demand, but it shows that the feed-in-tariff
regime was an effective way of getting solar buildout.

The other factor is that EU directives (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Combustion_Plant_Directi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Combustion_Plant_Directive)
) are hard for the old 50s coal plants to comply with, and they're operating
at the end of their lives on imported coal since the dismantling of the UK
coal industry.

There is also the slightly bonkers scheme to run Drax on imported wood.

I always mention
[http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/](http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/) when the
subject of energy comes up on HN, as it's such a great resource and a neat
little web toy. But it doesn't show solar because there's no central live
metering. Currently 60% gas, 20% nuclear, 5% coal, the rest wind and imports.

~~~
toyg
Comments on TFA mention this site for solar monitoring:
[https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/](https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/)

(Note: it doesn't work well with Safari, use Firefox)

"Serving 11.3 % of GB demand". Not bad at all, for a cloudy island famous for
all-year rain.

~~~
pjc50
Thanks for that, a nice addition to the data.

I think climate change has, for the moment, been 'kind' to us in reducing the
famous rain. The downside is the south of the country is now short of water in
summer and parts of the uplands are prone to flooding ...

~~~
stevetrewick
Sigh.

> _Annual mean precipitation over England and Wales has not changed
> significantly since records began in 1766. Seasonal rainfall is highly
> variable, but appears to have decreased in summer and increased in winter,
> although with little change in the latter over the last 50 years._ [0]

> _The results suggest that there have been trends towards more protracted
> high flows over the last 30–50 years, but that this could be accounted for
> as part of climatic variation rather than climate change. There is no
> statistical evidence of a long–term trend in flooding over the last 80–120
> years. Thus, although climate change could be influencing floods, direct
> analysis of flood records does not yet provide proof._ [1]

> _The adjusted record shows no trend in reported flooding over time, but
> there is significant decade to decade variability._ [2]

> _A rising population, more households and greater wealth have led to an ever
> greater demand for water, putting the limited supply in the south of England
> under stress._ [3]

So no, if we like an evidence based approach, climate change has not had any
measurable effect on precipitation, flooding or water shortages in the UK.
These are basically seasonal variations exposing infrastructure weaknesses.

[0] p12 : [http://www.ukcip.org.uk/wp-
content/PDFs/UKCP09_Trends.pdf](http://www.ukcip.org.uk/wp-
content/PDFs/UKCP09_Trends.pdf)

[1]
[http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/360/1796/1327...](http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/360/1796/1327.short)

[2]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2014.950581](http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2014.950581)

[3]
[http://catchments.nerc.ac.uk/issues/crisis/index.asp](http://catchments.nerc.ac.uk/issues/crisis/index.asp)

------
jsingleton
Good news. Now we need to deploy more grid scale batteries or other storage.
We have the technology (just as we do for electric vehicles). It just needs
scaling up and that's now a political/economics problem.

Solar doesn't show on the UK grid stats [^0] but it does on the French one
([^0]/france). There's an app that shows what this means in terms of CO2e
[^1].

I wrote a piece on electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells recently [^2].
Another option could be to synthesize methane [^3] using the Sabatier reaction
(as NASA does on the ISS [^4]). If this is burnt with CCS (underground storage
or to grow plants in greenhouses) then it would remove carbon from the
atmosphere.

[^0]: [http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk](http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk)

[^1]: [http://gridcarbon.uk](http://gridcarbon.uk)

[^2]: [https://unop.uk/on-electric-vehicles](https://unop.uk/on-electric-
vehicles)

[^3]:
[http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/mars_presentation.p...](http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/mars_presentation.pdf#page=40)
(slide 40)

[^4]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Internationa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#International_Space_Station_life_support)

------
jbb555
Good. The problem of course is that you still need the coal generation
capacity for winter, and if you hardly use it other times, it becomes really
expensive for the capacity it's providing.

~~~
lostboys67
And its still subsidized which is great if you own a house with a south facing
roof and have a few grad to spare - you used to be able to get around 8%
taxfree guaranteed for 20 years.

------
ChoHag
What has outstripped coal for baseline production?

------
Theodores
There used to be millions of coal miners in the UK before Thatcher, millions.
Can anyone imagine the renewable sector hiring so many people, working long
shifts and doing physically hard work? That coal mining is now done the global
capitalist way but there are people still digging coal. A switch to coal is
valuable in that people no longer have to have such a risky occupation. It is
a shame this is not seen as a benefit and that it is all about CO2.

~~~
simonh
There hadn't been a million jobs in coal mining since the 1920s. By 1979 there
were about 200k coal jobs left. The tax payer was subsidizing coal to the tune
of £1.3 billion a year, just under 1% of total national GDP, not including the
increased costs to power and steel industries that were prevented from using
cheaper alternatives.

When Arthur Scargill appeared before a Parliamentary committee and was asked
at what level of loss it was acceptable to close a pit he answered “As far as
I can see, the loss is without limits.”

Coal was fatally wounded in the 70s when the industry became more heavily
subsidized, less productive (by 6% in 5 years) and failed to implement any
meaningful modernization or reform programs (Plan for Coal). By the 1980s it
was just too late to save it.

~~~
stevetrewick
How refreshing to come across someone who understands the economics and
doesn't just blame Thatcher.

~~~
neximo64
It helps alot with these things to read the newspaper from the older times
when the issues first came about. There's lots of reason lost in history books
and on the information we would typically read up on.

Last week i was going through 1880s articles, and got reason to why banks
aren't 'unlimited liability partnerships'. The realities were, they were in
the early 1880s. Then one Scottish bank failed and the courts went after
widowers and simple retail investors who owned the shares to get claim back
assets for depositors for the failed bank. Apparently taking money from
widowers then was absolutely terrible. They allowed banks to become limited
liability companies shortly after.

Not the best to repeat that today, as bad as limited liability banks can be,
it would be worse for them to sue household investors to reclaim deposits,
particularly when they can't enforce accountability in the company, being such
small investors.

Today if the idea ever caught hold, that old 1880s newspaper would shed light.

