Biggest Solar Farm In Wales Planned
May 13, 2024
By Paul Homewood
Meanwhile Wales Online inform us that a new solar farm will power 100,000 homes:
Maybe somebody ought to explain to those 100,000 homeowners that they will only have electricity for a few hours a day in summer, not even that in winter.
If it goes ahead, the project will receive over £150 million in subsidies, based on current prices. That’s £1500 for each of those lucky homeowners.
No wonder NextEnergy are keen to get to get involved.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Do these solar plants work in the rain?
Yes, but poorly – the capacity factors are significantly affected – tbh, any solar above the 45th parallel, is inefficient
Socialism gone lost in the Duracell performance stakes – Light’s gone out. Just heard something about our COMPETING WITH GREEN Cromarty Firth ( & Inverness Port idiots): Port of Ardersier ( Also in the FIRTH FYI) is getting over £100Mill. to make more Ponds for the Herons … and so on it goes ….
Maybe it’s like all those views ( Only thru’ the Camera Lens) of the / AN AURORA , lately. So what are all those ECO GONKS Looking at, and through which kind of Lenses ?
May I recommend Energizer batteries?
Warren Buffet/Berkshire-Hathaway bought Duracell. Closed the Lancaster, SC, plant and moved the production to Asia. Quality is noticeably down. I had been a customer for decades.
Having tried a number of varieties I prefer Duracell Procell labelled “for professional use only”, made in Belgium myself.
Strange I should read your comment, GC, just after I’ve had to email Duracell after a new AA battery I’d just put in my mantle clock nearly burnt out! If I hadn’t notived the clock had stopped ten minutes after changing it I hate to think what could have happened after I left the room. As it was, the battery was so hot I couldn’t touch it but managed to get it out before it went ballistic. That’s a first in all the years of using Duracell so sent off a stiff email to them. Be interesting to see what they say…
The ‘power 100,000 homes’ lie again. Wrong by a factor of about ten when heating and BEVs are included.
Wales, rejoice!
And a whole lot less than that, especially in winter or at night
Sunshine hours winter average will be in the region of 2 hours a day. Not much of a region 🙄
Yet again, they don’t know the difference between power and energy. No wonder the country’s energy system is in a massive mess.
Any industry that depends on taxpayer subsidies for survival is a house of cards. Withdraw the subsidies and the whole edifice will come crashing down.
It’s that % of subsidies going into personal bank accounts that should concern us
Both this story and the one below reminded me of two supposed instances many decades ago of senior American personnel (one of them an Admiral charged with trying to limit the activities of the Japanese) who had the brilliant idea of scribbling down ideas that came to them in their sleep.
In one case this idea turned out to be “the entire universe is permeated with a strong odor of turpentine”; the other, more succinct but just as much use was “the skin is mightier than the banana”!
What was going through the minds of whoever thought floating solar panels in the Indian Ocean or similar installations in less-than-notably-sunny Wales were a good idea appears to be remarkably similar.
The arguments against have been so well-rehearsed here as on other sites that going over them again is futile except to ask if there is anybody anywhere who has bothered to do the maths. Or in this case the physics. Whatever the hypothetical benefits of solar power (and they do exist in limited circumstances) the genuine pollution and emissions of CO2 in the winning and working of the raw materials needed exceed any savings made in the emitting of CO2, always assuming, etc., etc.
Presumably, as with the trans obsession, we will eventually reach peak idiocy. I can’t wait!
Or at night?
someone needs to ask the developers how much of an average homes electricity will be supplied during the daylight hours of the winter quarter and how much during the same period during the night.
the way the proposal is set out is very misleading and will baffle the average council especially as they will want to be seen to be green
As a professional Electrical Engineer and HV Project Manager in the power generation & distribution se others for 40+ years, I can tell you, it is perhaps a capacity factor of 6-8% in dark, cold winter and zero at night
I know about the zero at night of course and would hope those ruling over us know that as well
that max 8% is pitiful so with the very long period of darkness or half light most homes won’t be able to power anything much more than a microwave. Forget heating, kettles, lightning, let alone ev’s
the only way it can be improved would be if the panels directly tracked the sun
Correct, however auto tracking raises the cost significantly – that’s why many wind & solar parks don’t have storage as part of the install,mit would simply be too expensive to build
I did write to and ended up in a telephone conversation with the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) over the claims made by a wind farm that they could power “x million homes” when in fact, because their power is intermittent, they cannot actually power anything. However, although the ASA agreed, I was told that the ASA could do nothing unless the claim was made directly to retail customers in order to sell them electricity.
Kudos John – it’s the same false claim suppliers make with ‘100% renewable electricity’ – the fraud knows no bounds and no one is policing it because they’re all in it together – the Marxist deconstruct, the regression and crush of capitalism
in their planning application they must be making that wild claim.
perhaps a suitable letter to the head of the council with a copy to the local newspaper setting out the facts and costs might give the council pause for thought before granting permission or perhaps investing themselves
On the other hand, no one should be trusting the government to do their thinking for them. Case in point is evidence.
A society expecting government to save them is doomed.
Restoring nature and mitigating the impact of climate change are top priorities for this government. We have already demonstrated this by our decision not to go ahead with the M4 Relief Road, which would have meant developing on part of the Gwent Levels and we are continuing to look for further ways to protect this important landscape. The Gwent Levels are vitally important – not just to this part of South Wales – but worldwide. We will work to protect them. This work includes looking at how the land acquired as part of the M4 project could be used to support the enhancement of the Gwent Levels.https://www.gov.wales/gwent-levels-vitally-important-south-wales-and-world-we-will-work-protect-them-climate-change
The Welsh Govt should know climate change is a dynamic, natural entity, it cannot be controlled, or stopped, no matter how many billions you throw at it – however, the % syphoned off to feather nests, is the concerning aspect
A senior Welsh government minister has insisted that controversial donations to Vaughan Gething’s leadership campaign will not affect her decision on a planning application by the donor’s business.
Mr Gething, who became first minister and Welsh Labour leader last month, received £200,000 from Dauson Environmental Group.
The same company, which is owned by a man twice convicted for environmental offences, hopes to build a solar farm on the Gwent Levels.
However, because it is classed as a “development of national significance”, it would need Welsh government approval to go ahead.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgxw11dvne3o
Yes, they use that ‘national significance’ to get around planning criteria – it’s basically a blank cheque
Future Energy (Llanwern) is a different outfit to Dauson Environmental Group, Gething’s donor, who also want to build a solar farm:
https://nation.cymru/news/why-solar-plants-can-sometimes-damage-the-environment/
Gwent Wildlife Trust planning manager Mike Webb is spearheading the Trust’s campaign to stop further developments on the Gwent Levels, a sensitive wetland landscape to the south east of Newport.
Discussing the issue in a podcast with BBC Springwatch presenter Gillian Burke, Mr Webb explained how an existing solar plant at Llanwern had polluted the reens (water channels) on the northern part of the Gwent Levels and destroyed a lapwing breeding colony.
There are more proposed solar plants in locations not far away – another close to the current Llanwern site; one at Craig-y-Perthi near Pontypridd; one known as Magor Net Zero; Rush Wall solar park, also in Gwent, and one proposed by Dauson Environmental Group at Wentloog, near Cardiff, which donated £200k to Mr Gething’s Welsh Labour leadership campaign and whose main director David Neal has received two suspended prison sentences for polluting the Gwent Levels.
The 400MW (power) means nothing to individual domestic use, which is metered in kWh (energy) – if the solar park could produce 400MW for an hour (400MWh), then it could, in theory, supply those 108,000 homes with 3.7kWh each, in that hour – if each of those homes flicked on their 3kW kettles, that’s 81% of their allocated one hour of electricity used, in about 3 mins of kettle boiling – providing they do little else electrically, they shouldn’t run out! Of course if they are on smart meters, the meter could easily auto remote switch them to a punitive tariff to nudge them away from using anything else (ToU), or indeed if grid stability was threatened, just auto remote switch them off completely – of course that’s not how grid works and the home owners would continue to pull what they needed from grid sources, including fossil fuel & nuclear thankfully
Based on my own Leccy bills (slightly rounded down for ease) my home requires 300 kWhrs a month – let’s call it 10 kWhrs/day. So, if they’re going to power 100,000 homes the average daily requirement is around 1,000 MWhrs a 24 hour day, every day. Hmmm…
3600kWh is the average 3 bed home annual usage used by Ofgem and others, so you are around average consumption
That such a solar farm can exist is entirely dependent on other sources of electricity being available. These 108,000 homes will still be paying for these other sources. This is bad news for Newport; they will now have to also pay for a solar farm . . . the biggest in Wales.
Solar is supplemental; it replaces nothing.
What is the difference between load factor and capacity factor?
Load factor is usually applied to coal, gas & nuclear power plants, whereas capacity factor is used for renewables – both are simply plant efficiency metrics – how much was actually generated in a set period vs how much could have been generated if all worked as designed
Thank you.
Got a hundred acres spare?
https://lumifyenergy.com/blog/are-solar-farms-worth-it/
Paul I have a pure gem of a reply to an email I sent to the Met office. Rather than put it initially in the public arena how can I forward it to you privately? You have my email address (@gmail.com) so perhaps you can forward me one to reply to.
Ray
Meanwhile Wales Online inform us that a new solar farm will power 100,000 homes:
Notice as with all these SCAMS they ONLY mention homes to big up the pathetic “planned” output. If they were not just carpetbagging shysters seeing millions of pounds of few questions asked tax payer money they would be honest and include business and then you can cut that number by 75%.
Secondly are they going to use the legendary Spanish generation model which produces elektrikery 20 hours a day? What happens in the winter when it is dark for very long parts of the day and then dull dark grey the rest on the time?
Excuse my naivety but sunshine and Wales are not to words I would usually put into the same sentence.
Clearly for the developers the prize is the subsidy. More money to buy gold thread to weave the Klymutt Emperor’s clothes.
We is being ‘add!
Will these Solar panels be from the cheaper Chinese Slave labour produced ones (98%) or will they chose from the more ethically sourced more expensive ones ?
The cheap ones of course that come with brown envelopes under tables
Wales the sunshine state …the emirate of the UK
Mis-selling on the grand scale aka outright fraud. Island Green Power (50% owned by Macquarie of Thames Water fiasco notoriety) have just dumped the Lime Down Solar “Park” on North Wiltshire – described as “500MW capable of powering 115,000 homes”.
None of this would be happening but for this so-called Tory Govt rigging the planning system in favour of the green scammers – above 50MW capacity solar projects are now a ‘critical national priority’. As solar is approx 10% thermally efficient, I’m investing in woolly jumpers for the winter.
Another 1062 panels have recently been approved on Anglesey.
https://www.northwaleschronicle.co.uk/news/24045768.plans-1-062-solar-panels-approved-anglesey-council/