Comments on: Wind turbines could raise third of island electricity

By: Tokyo News

Tokyo News — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:19:12 +0000

So would solar power….

or a nuclar plant….

shut up old man

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By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:32:31 +0000

I think you’ve hit a good point here.

First of all, we need to make sure we are as effecient with energy as possible, so improve insulation, use lower energy bulbs, not leave the telly on all day just because you can etc. etc.

Alternative forms of heating are also worth investigating like air or ground source heat pumps. These operate on a principle similar to a fridge and can move (being fairly conservative) around 4 times as much energy as they cost to run (i.e. for 1kwh of electricity you can get heating of approx 4kwh).

Cut down the demand, then the energy generation solution can be modified accordingly.

As to solar power, I’m not a fan – photovoltaic cells use a lot of very unpleasant substances as well as a lot of energy in their manufacture. Keep it simple, a big magnifying glass boiling some water to drive a turbine is how solar should be done!

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By: Guern 48

Guern 48 — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:10:41 +0000

The only people to gain from a wind farm are the manufactors and installers,the UK have many that are turned off due to faults and lack of wind,mind you if they were placed outside any States building there would not be a problem as there is plenty of wind comming out of it.

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By: islander

islander — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 10:02:48 +0000

will need planning permission from Environment committee where to place them.They must blend in with the horizon and not interfere with penguin breeding rocks,shipping lanes and Alderney`s views

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By: Bazza

Bazza — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 08:31:43 +0000

Personally i was and still am interested in alternative energies. We went down the route a couple of years ago of getting quotes for our modest dwelling.

There was / is a complete lack of independent local advice. GEL seemed not to be interested and even when pressed further they advised us to speak to one of their partners, a plumber suppliers who could only provide a leaflet. And that would mean ditching our new gas boiler and fitting a rather large combination model.

GEL did suggest an air model where you extract heat from the air around it and then use that to help heat the property. However that would have meant installation of a new 3 phase cable at great disruption to neighbours and ourselves to replace what we all have at present.

GEL did offer to prove some foil behind each radiator on the property if we did order from them. Sad really and not what i expected.

I can see logic though as i felt then and still feel that if their sales of electricity units drop because of people doing down this route then they would have to put up the unit cost. That’s what i feel. They are playing at it instead of throwing themselves completely into it.
Quotes from heating suppliers for solar and PV came back with outrageous figures at least twice UK cost of 12 -14 K pounds and that would only provide 50% of our energy needs. Getting closer to 80% would mean us spending 14-18K pounds. Still not good enough so the idea was dropped.

The island needed a strategy for energy yesterday, so today, to safe guard ourselves we desperately need to implement energy policy TODAY. I like the idea of a wind farm north of the island. I can imagine sight seeing boat trips to them in the summer. New enterprises.

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By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 21:53:28 +0000

Incredibly useful though

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By: bcb

bcb — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 18:29:11 +0000

Heard it all before Ed. boooooring

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By: Peter

Peter — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 15:27:09 +0000

If you built a Teslar coil in your garden and connected the surplice from your solar panels to it, you could in theory run your immersion heater from them. Think of the saving from the electricity board. Unfortunately the establishment would come down heavily on you because of the monopoly situation at present.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_coil

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By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:58:09 +0000

In a spiritual sense, the fact that the human race continue to carry out lucrative industrial ventures with little concern for the supreme value of the environment means that, if we encounter a dire fate as a result of chronic climate change, we will be merely met with poetic justice.

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By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:47:11 +0000

As the Stern Review righty states, if we do not pay the price now (pecuniary) then we will encounter a profoundly burdensome expense (ecological) during the forthcoming decades and centuries. Surely members of the human race, the most sophisticated product of the Earth’s evolutionary line, have the ability to overlook their narrow self-interest, be more altruistic and do more to avert future calamities (anthropogenic disasters that is). Those uninformed bigots ought to align both their lifestyle and world view with that of a changing environment- hopefully that will enable them to achieve some sort of spiritual enlightenment.

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By: Ernie

Ernie — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:31:30 +0000

Okay that’s probably understandable. I was just checking if the excess can be sold back to GE but I wonder why they should refuse to accept it at such a low tariff. Power is power whether it comes from the cable via France or through the excess of someone’s solar or windturbines. Not that I have possibility of doing it but important to know the process of how and what islanders can do.

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By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:54:15 +0000

You have to offer it back to the board if they will accept it, which is set at a very low tariff. You cannot by law sell it direct to your neighbour for a realistic price or any one else.

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By: Ernie

Ernie — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:05:02 +0000

So what you’re saying Peter is if a home owner or land owner wants to fit a load of solar panels and generate renewable electricity on the island, there is no mechanism to sell the excess back to Guernsey electricity, the law forbids it? Sounds daft to me

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By: Yvonne Burford

Yvonne Burford — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:58:40 +0000

Agreed, there are many large industrial buildings with south-facing roofs which could support sizeable solar arrays. A large aircraft hangar for example could produce 200MWh per annum. I estimate the costs of producing electricity this way to now be about 12p per kWh including amortising capital costs over the life of the panels. Cheaper than you can buy the electricity from the grid but dearer than the price they will buy it from you at the moment. Viable if you have an immediate use for it (like the airport probably does!)

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By: Yvonne Burford

Yvonne Burford — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:50:05 +0000

Have checked with RET at Commerce and Employment and the figure is actually 7.3m/s which is closer to what I would have expected. Still a useful resource, but 24% lower than the initial quoted figure of 8 m/s.

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