UK solar eclipses coal power over month for first time

[GlassBomb]

"Good news everyone!" - Professor Farnsworth

 

Quote

Solar power in the UK produced more electricity than coal across the whole of May, the first ever month to pass the milestone, according to research by analysts at Carbon Brief. Solar panels generated 50% more electricity than the fossil fuel across the month, as days lengthened and coal use fell. Solar generated an estimated 1,336 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity in May, compared to 893GWh output from coal.

 

 

This have all been made possible due to advancements in solar technology, and with the decreasing costs of producing the solar panels. We are still far off from completely relying on solar as our overall source of power, but some are making advancements ahead of others.

 

Quote

Coal power stations are running less often due to age and restrictions on the pollution they produce and a series have closed down in recent months, including Ferrybridge and Eggborough in Yorkshire, Fiddlers Ferry plant in Cheshire and Longannet in Scotland.

 

The government has pledged to phase out all coal-fired electricity by 2025, but on Tuesday a Conservative thinktank called for the shutdown to come at least two years earlier.

 

Well done United Kingdom. Just, well done. It's good to see a nation that is really trying to phase out old and highly polluting forms of producing energy in favor of newer, and a much cleaner form of energy.

 

But the UK aren't the only ones that are improving on their use of renewable sources of energy.

 

Quote

Renewable energy records are also being set in other countries, with Portugal running for four days straight on green energy alone in early May. In 2015, 42% of all Denmark’s electricity was produced by wind turbines.

Investment in renewable energy around the world now far outstrips that in coal and gas plants. In 2015, $286bn (£196) was invested in renewable energy, more than double that invested in fossil fuel power stations.

 

Here is to a future that is much less harmful to everyone around. The future is getting brighter and brighter.

 

Source: The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/07/solar-sets-british-record-for-may-producing-more-electricity-than-coal

[stconquest]

Made me smile, ty.

[M4st4M1nd]

Wow that's an awesome achievement

[Pineapple Wolf]

Doing that with the amount of sunlight we get is pretty impressive I'd say

[Dabombinable]

And to think that the UK is still no where near as well suited for solar power when compared to Australia, and yet manages to actually do better with it.

[FloRolf]

Meanwhile Germany is like

"We have to Change how we get our power to something renewable! What do we do?"

"Mh... i dunno...? Subsidize coal and plan wind energy stuff for 2025 but first shut off all the atomic plants we have?"

"Good idea! Here take that Promotion!"

[Z-Gaming]

Dont go that far... australia is thousands of kms away... if greece even cared, we would produce enough electricity for every citizen, and could even give it to other countries... but for now, lets buys lots of drones worth 4k€ each to find who tries to steal money, but dont check the houses of the politicians... 

[suicidalfranco]

next step: offshore wind farm 

[rm -rf]

1 hour ago, Dabombinable said:

And to think that the UK is still no where near as well suited for solar power when compared to Australia, and yet manages to actually do better with it.

Though the Australian minister for the Environment says that Australian coal won't make a difference to Climate change, and it's an unpopular topic in Australia.

[rm -rf]

1 hour ago, Z-Gaming said:

Dont go that far... australia is thousands of kms away... if greece even cared, we would produce enough electricity for every citizen, and could even give it to other countries... but for now, lets buys lots of drones worth 4k€ each to find who tries to steal money, but dont check the houses of the politicians... 

What do you mean by: "Dont go that far... australia is thousands of kms away..."?

[Z-Gaming]

17 minutes ago, rm -rf said:

What do you mean by: "Dont go that far... australia is thousands of kms away..."?

Yes... it was said that australia could use that cause of the many hours sunlight per day. But these panels are used in UK, why go that far from EU, when greece is in the centre and i assure you... lots of sunlight getting wasted over here...

[Thony]

"The government has pledged to phase out all coal-fired electricity by 2025" 

 

Does it mean they want to go solar panel and wind mill electricity generators ONLY ? Or is coal-fired elec only one of way too many ways to produce electricity while still releasing harmful substances into the air ? 

[alexyy]

33 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

next step: offshore wind farm 

You mean Ireland?

[suicidalfranco]

7 minutes ago, alexyy said:

You mean Ireland?

[CommandMan7]

If the UK, a notoriously cloudy place, can supplant coal with solar, then there is no reason why the rest of the world can't either. Except for the problem of base load electricity, but Nuclear can fill in the gaps I guess. Solar isn't even the most cost effective renewable, and wind energy has far more potential worldwide. 

 

Although it is kind of depressing to see Germany and the UK produce nearly a third of their energy with renewables, and then meanwhile in the US, it's like only 13%. 

[Unhelpful]

I'd be interested to see how long it will take for the farms to break even and profit, I think for my company it's about 6 years, but idr exactly. For this large scale and in that area, I'm guessing the return comes much more quickly.

[TheMcSame]

15 minutes ago, CommandMan7 said:

Although it is kind of depressing to see Germany and the UK produce nearly a third of their energy with renewables, and then meanwhile in the US, it's like only 13%. 

Those figures are irrelevant tbh. I'd wager that the US also generates FAR MORE electricity overall than both the UK and Germany combined. That 13% can quite easily be far more than the 1/3 the UK and Germany are pulling off.

[Real_PhillBert]

11 minutes ago, TheMcSame said:

Those figures are irrelevant tbh. I'd wager that the US also generates FAR MORE electricity overall than both the UK and Germany combined. That 13% can quite easily be far more than the 1/3 the UK and Germany are pulling off.

 

Correct. As of the end of 2015, the US has a capacity of 25 Gigawatts from photovoltaics, while the UK has a capacity of 9.2 Gigawatts from photovoltaics as of Feb 2016. However Germany actually produces more power from photovoltaics than both the UK and the US combined, with ~40 Gigawatts as of April 2016.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany

 

[CommandMan7]

6 minutes ago, TheMcSame said:

Those figures are irrelevant tbh. I'd wager that the US also generates FAR MORE electricity overall than both the UK and Germany combined. That 13% can quite easily be far more than the 1/3 the UK and Germany are pulling off.

Well, let me do the numbers:

 

UK produces 1,280 TWh @ 14.9% Renewable             = 190.7 TWh

Germany produces 1400 TWh @ 32.6% Renewable    = 456.4 TWh

US produces 21,876 TWh @ 13.2% Renewable           = 2887.6 TWh

 

So yeah, the US produces 4 1/2 times more renewables than the UK and Germany combined. The problem is that it also consumes over 8 times more total than the UK and Germany combined. So your data isn't wrong, but it is still relevant how much more non-renewable energy there is per capita in the US.

 

[kuddlesworth9419]

The energy output is tiny compared to coal and oil. The only reason why these solar farms are being built is because the money you get from the government for producing more energy then you put in is very lucrative. You get money from the government if you take say 100w of energy and produce 3 times as much. A heater pump does the same thing. As soon as the government stops paying out all this money all these farms will close down and we will all go back to plain old reliable efficient coal and oil. The only alternative is nuclear, or a thorium reactor but China will do that before us.

[xentropa]

57 minutes ago, TheMcSame said:

Those figures are irrelevant tbh. I'd wager that the US also generates FAR MORE electricity overall than both the UK and Germany combined. That 13% can quite easily be far more than the 1/3 the UK and Germany are pulling off.

Car company A makes 1,000,000 cars and 1000 explode for no reason

Car company B makes 1,000 cars and 500 explode for no reason

 

Would the percentage (a.k.a. explosion per capita) be a better measure for car safety, or would total number be?

 

Germany enacts energy policies that allow 30% of their energy to be renewable

US enacts energy policies that allow 13% of their energy to be renewable....

 

[GlassBomb]

4 hours ago, Thony said:

"The government has pledged to phase out all coal-fired electricity by 2025" 

 

Does it mean they want to go solar panel and wind mill electricity generators ONLY ? Or is coal-fired elec only one of way too many ways to produce electricity while still releasing harmful substances into the air ? 

They want to move away from coal, in favor of cleaner sources. It can be solar, wind, water, nuclear,  amongst other alternatives. 

[Thony]

15 minutes ago, GlassBomb said:

They want to move away from coal, in favor of cleaner sources. It can be solar, wind, water, nuclear,  amongst other alternatives. 

Thank you, this is what i was expecting for an answer

[Uzukami]

Most of the UK's power is from Gas, and the wind energy has been terrible recently.

 

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

[patrickjp93]

22 hours ago, CommandMan7 said:

If the UK, a notoriously cloudy place, can supplant coal with solar, then there is no reason why the rest of the world can't either. Except for the problem of base load electricity, but Nuclear can fill in the gaps I guess. Solar isn't even the most cost effective renewable, and wind energy has far more potential worldwide. 

 

Although it is kind of depressing to see Germany and the UK produce nearly a third of their energy with renewables, and then meanwhile in the US, it's like only 13%. 

The U.S. has a much larger energy demand than the whole of Europe. It doesn't make sense for the U.S. to invest so deeply until solar gets far cheaper, nearly 33% the price/output it is now. We have plenty of hydroelectric and nuclear options on the table. And despite what kuddlesworth says, the U.S. is actually the closest to having a functioning Thorium reactor.