{"id":5867,"date":"2014-03-06T09:19:54","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T09:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=5867"},"modified":"2014-03-06T09:19:54","modified_gmt":"2014-03-06T09:19:54","slug":"a-20-20-20-vision-for-solar-pv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/03\/06\/a-20-20-20-vision-for-solar-pv\/","title":{"rendered":"A 20 20 20 Vision for Solar PV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I've written before about our own domestic solar pv generation (most recently <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2013\/03\/04\/update-on-semington-a-b-c-d\">here<\/a>), which is now some 33 months into its life. \u00a0To put our modest production (an average of around 11 units \/ day) into perspective, the UK's installed solar pv capacity is now (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/statistical-data-sets\/weekly-solar-pv-installation-and-capacity-based-on-registration-date\">23 Feb <\/a>2014) 1.85 GW, and this is rising at an average rate of 7.88 MW \/ week. \u00a0There are now over 513,000 installations with an averaged capacity of 3.61 kW each which suggests that most of these are domestic systems \u2013 our own is still larger than the average. \u00a0How much power they actually generate is another matter, as it depends on latitude, orientation and weather.<\/p>\n<p>It seems to be the government's policy to have 20GW of installed solar capacity by 2020 (see <a href=\"http:\/\/oilprice.com\/Latest-Energy-News\/World-News\/UK-Reveals-Strategy-to-Install-20GW-of-Solar-Capacity-within-a-Decade.html\">this<\/a>). \u00a0That looks a stretch unless we are to see lots of industrial-scale solar farms being built. \u00a0Well, perhaps. \u00a0For example,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.climateactionprogramme.org\/news\/sunedison_to_launch_first_u.k_solar_projects_after_deutsche_bank_agreement\/?utm_source=Green+Media+List&amp;utm_campaign=e12dda3e54-Climate_Action_Newsletter_Feb2014_82_28_2014&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_0a9e15f071-e12dda3e54-47192677\">SunEdison<\/a> is now building 56 MW of capacity, some of it in Wiltshire, much to the distress of the many\u00a0<em>Friends of CO2<\/em> groups, round and about. \u00a0Even so, 20 GW seems a long way off.<\/p>\n<p>Real time data for the UK can be viewed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ukenergywatch.org\/Electricity\/Realtime\">here<\/a>. \u00a0As I write this (about noon on an early, and bright March day), we have the following (rounded up) generation:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000080\">Coal \u00a0\u2013 16 GW<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\">Gas \u00a0\u2013 13 GW<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\">Nuclear \u2013 7 GW<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\">Wind \u2013 2 GW <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\">Hydro \u2013 1 GW<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\">Interconnectors \u2013 3 GW<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\">Other \u2013 0.5 GW<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Significantly, this 'other' includes solar pv, which throws the 20 20 20 vision \/ ambition (ie, 20 GW by 2020) into sharp relief. \u00a0That said, and educationally speaking, these real time data are quite revealing, and worth some study, even if only to see how the fuel mix varies across a 24 hour period. \u00a0Some school somewhere, surely, ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I've written before about our own domestic solar pv generation (most recently here), which is now some 33 months into its life. \u00a0To put our modest production (an average of around 11 units \/ day) into perspective, the UK's installed...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}