Technology and nature come together to do their bit fighting climate change. :-) The ideas behind West Solent: - it's a cooperative (owned by members of the local community, rather than some greedy corporation) - it generates low-carbon power - it's a functioning ecosystem, reclaimed from a former landfill site, complete with grass and wildflowers, grazing sheep (saves a bit of lawn mowing), a composting toilet, and they're looking into keeping bees on the site too! My attempt at depicting the cash flow. The intersection between Investors and Customers should perhaps be larger - around half of the ~500 investors (members) live within 30 miles of the solar farm. If you're only going to watch one video on the West Solent website, I'd recommend the chairman Anthony Woolhouse's 2-minute spiel. Here's a demo panel they bring out to show the kids... ... and some shots of the inverters, which are what I was really there to see. (I'm told geeks are cool now, shut up.) For more details, see this neat diagram on the West Solent website. The inverters take the DC voltage (always positive) that the solar panels generate, and convert it to AC (alternating positive and negative - like what comes into our houses) so that it can be fed into the distribution network. Here you can see the transformer (that green shipping container thing), which steps up the AC voltage from 400 V to 11 kV, ready for distribution, and the pylon where the network connection is made. The cabling on-site is all underground. I've not got pictures of the distribution boards or the SSE substation shown in the diagram linked to above (basically lots of switches and circuit breakers inside boring green boxes, so any faults that develop can be isolated and fixed). It's kind of funny, the output of the transformer has to go all the way to the site entrance where the substation is, then all the way back to the pylon - because SSE wants easy access to their substation, and charge extra if you place it too far from the entrance. .__. ...and off that power goes, to local homes. The satellite dish next to the transformer is for transmitting data to a remote monitoring station in London, so that any faults can be detected quickly and no one has to be here day and night like at a regular power station. Here's a broken panel. There was a storm, and though that didn't do anything to the panels, it caused part of the metal support structure to buckle and topple forward, and this panel hit the ground. The glass is non-shatter so it still feels smooth to the touch despite looking smashed. The panel doesn't perform nearly so well with all that cracked glass scattering light around, though. Proof that renewable power need not blight the landscape! (And as our tour guide Roger said, "Proof that you don't have to be French or Chinese to build a power station in the UK!" - but more on Hinkley C in a future post - there's way too much to say about it.)
But the day wasn't over yet - after a fascinating DMC (deep and meaningful conversation) with my tour buddies over a pub lunch, Roger then introduced me to Anthony, the chairman of West Solent Solar Co-op, and then Anthony invited us to tea at his eco-home! It's got ground-source pumped heating, pre-fab insulated panel walls, rooftop solar (of course), the works. It'll be interesting to see what the bills look like at the end of the year. ;-) Also at tea were Uli, a German Green Party politician, and John, a mutual acquaintance of him, Roger and Anthony. Talk ranged from the traditional roots of the cooperative model of ownership, how it should appeal to Conservatives as a 'Big Society' mutual-aid not-dependent-on-the-State kind of idea, to John's work with trades unions, convincing them that they would do better by their members not to dig in their heels to protect steel-workers and coal plant operatives, but rather to promote the renewable energy industry as a source of decently-paid new opportunities, to encourage re-training and to protect the interests of renewable energy workers. The idea of a twitter account for West Solent was mooted, but none of us were sure what a solar farm would tweet about. It would be like the lamest addition to the Weird Sun pantheon. Anyway, I'll soon be working with Roger and Anthony on a bit of data analysis. It sometimes happens that solar farms have more panels installed than the size of their connection to the distribution network (since the panels rarely work at their maximum - especially in this rainy country!) - so on the sunny occasions when more power could be produced than can be sent to the Grid, that power just doesn't get produced. With some energy storage on-site, however, we could push those solar farms to their full potential. The question then is how much storage do you need? How/when should it be operated? And how much of an increase in revenue dare we hope for? Watch this space...!
3 Comments
8/7/2023 06:55:02 am
It was very interesting and very knowledgeable. We want to support people that do great work, people that are known in society as someone that has worked hard, given their time, their dedication, their life, to doing something great for those around us. We want to support those that support us, that create the world we live in, that make it the great place that it is.
Reply
7/9/2023 11:52:26 am
What an enlightening article on solar energy! It brilliantly showcases the potential of harnessing the power of the sun for a sustainable future. Thanks for sharing this informative piece that inspires us to embrace clean energy solutions
Reply
28/9/2023 04:07:58 pm
I'm truly impressed by this article on solar power! It explains the benefits of renewable energy in a clear and concise manner, making it easy for anyone to understand. Thank you for promoting sustainable solutions for a brighter future.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Susan's BlogIn which I scribble words about energy, the environment, climate change, and other science things. Views expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of the CDT staff or sponsors. Archives
August 2019
|