Wind, Solar, Wave/Tidal and Hydro are all well and good as alternatives to Coal, Gas Deisel and Nuclear but the renawables only work when there power source is in play.  Eg Turbines with no wind do not run the National grid.  The other thing to consider is the lack of redundancy.  As a casing point the Porth Wen Solar Farm in the north Anglesey which is owned by EDF Renewables had it's output reduced after storm Darragh.  Other factors to consider are or should be why we buy in power from abroad? 

Renewalables on the National Grid need to be backed up by very large battery storage sites also connected to the grid this would allow us to store a certain amount of the energy on lets say a windy day to be used on a calm or windless night.  The battery storage would also allow for the turbines to be constantly working rather than what sometimes happens is they are turned off from generation as too much power at that time is being generated.  The same ethos applies to large scale solar PV farms

People also need to look beyond the GreenWash for the lack of another word or cliche.  Yes the UK has reduced the amount of coal fired power stations but is real terms all that has happened is coal fired power has been replaced for gas powered

What needs to happen in the UK is that Engineers need to drive the UK power policy not politicians.  The UK government needs to set up a department for energy that has more engineers working in there than administrators or politicians. 

Sergio Fernandez said:

Other factors to consider are or should be why we buy in power from abroad? 

International connections do seem to be proving useful in balancing wind power - while a good sized high pressure system can occasionally  be large enough to becalm much of the UK at the same time, it's very unusual for them to be large enough to becalm the UK, Ireland, Western Europe and Northern Europe at the same time - so while it's sat over us we can import, and then when it's moved on and becalming someone else we can reciprocate. We already have cables to France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium and Denmark.

  - Andy.

The interlink to France was put in with the channel tunnel and over the last few decades the amount of Mega Watts from France to the UK is a lot higher than what some people might expect.  Conversely how much power have we exported to France, very little.  Then there are the transmission lines from Scotland to England which lack the capacity so there is a limit on how much can be sent from Scotland to England.  The UK are far to reliant on foreign energy, we need to produce our own and store our own and consumer our own

Sergio Fernandez said:

Yes the UK has reduced the amount of coal fired power stations but is real terms all that has happened is coal fired power has been replaced for gas powered

We haven't merely reduced the number of coal fired power stations.  The last one was shut down earlier this year.

Hello Sergio:

I watched a youtube video yesterday on the damage caused at  Port Wen Solar Farm with smashed solar panels due to storm Darragh.

It also highlighted storm caused damage on wind turbines.

It mentioned that if this power generation operation had been nuclear it would have not been damaged and would have worked for 70 years without such problems 

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay FL USA

Hello Sergio:

I watched a youtube video yesterday on the damage caused at  Port Wen Solar Farm with smashed solar panels due to storm Darragh.

It also highlighted storm caused damage on wind turbines.

It mentioned that if this power generation operation had been nuclear it would have not been damaged and would have worked for 70 years without such problems 

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay FL USA

If Port Wen was nuclear, they would still be building it.  They only started building in 2022.

So it was only built in 2022 and within 2 years it was seriously damaged by a major storm.

The guy who made the video about the damage claimed that storm events like Darragh can be expected at that location about every 5 years and that all claims that they will last for 25 years are bogus.

The other point he made was that the amount of sunlight falling on the solar panels each year at that location is fairly low.

So your point is that the current UK construction industry is incapable of building any major project!

Based on the HS2 project, I think I agree with you!

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay Florida  

This raises an interesting question. How do you clean up a broken Solar PV system?

As long as there is daylight the panels will be generating electricity. There will be broken panel and cables at several hundred volts. Some will be floating with respect to ground, some may be grounded to the metal frames. 

Could the work be carried out under the sort of live working procedures that the electricity suppliers use? Intact individual panels could be disconnected using the conenctors, that look to be reasonabley safe against contact. Brocken panel and cables would be more of a problem.

for large area installations - not seen a decommissioning, covers that look like fancy tarpaulins seem to be the preferred round here, and for as much of the time as possible separating the panels into small (hundred volts) sections. It may not reduce the hazard to zero but the available current and scope for damage is vastly reduced relative to connecting in full sun or having exposed ends of a long chain.

Mike.