Towing a T/A with an EV - real world

This is about the nearest post I’ve seen of ‘common sense’ for a while. With all the hysteria from entrenched sides this is a ‘whoa slow down’ perspective FC👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻. Where are the Fossil fuel shaped top up stations, the ones a truck, a Cvan tugger & Car can just drive into like the linear Fossil fuel stations(ease of use)🤷🏻‍♂️. The likes of Shell, BP, Exxon etc are making multiple £$Billions with minimal forward planning or even acceptance of an EV world. They’re not convinced how can the rest of us be convinced. Our(& many) Govt’s are stood at the back kicking stones around whistling whilst confusion reigns🙁

"I listen to a lot of material from Fully Charged. They bring in a lot of industry experts from a whole range of areas, but their fields are generally either academic with engineering application, or entrepreneurial, breaking new ground. And then I look to see who they are sponsored by too."

Hi CT, It was the "entrepreneurial" that caught my attention. last October I visited a number of solar parks around the UK and had some interesting conversations with the technicians who operate these sites.

These were wide ranging but, in a nutshell, the general consensus was that the biggest driver for investment in solar was as a money making venture and now that the profit potential was affected the investment might suffer.

I was also made aware of the fact that, whilst the output from a site could be increased, due to advances on panel design/technology, they were restricted to their agreed output so could not benefit from these improvements in design/technology. 

My concern is the loss of food producing land for solar farms when there are innumerable large industrial roofs that could accommodate solar without jeopardising our food supply.

I visited 9 sites, none would be used for arable production and 7 were stocked with sheep-the company even employ shepherds to manage the flocks.

The issue re site output was discussed after I asked why a site, which was having replacement panels installed, seemed to be short of panels in the completed parts compared to the existing parts.

I was told that, not only are they not allowed to exceed their agreed National Grid input, but that there are penalties if they do.

CY - the lack of a requirement for all new industrial "sheds" to include solar is, IMHO, criminal. The additional build cost would be offset by the long term solar gain, and as you say the reduction on impact on land would be marked. Retrofitting to existing buildings is more expensive - but again worth the effort in the long term. 

AandJ - I use the term "entrepreneurial" in the sense of technology pioneer, rather that profit led, but it is true that the two go hand in hand. As to investment in solar (or wind farms) for profit, it is inevitable in a privatised generation market. And I would MUCH rather have investors making money out of green technology and generation than out of gas or coal (or wood chip) generation. Let's face it, none of the UK generation is run at cost or at a loss or out of a sense of altruism. It is all privately owned and run for profit.

Indeed - I have personally invested in rooftop solar (back in 2012) to reduce my carbon and energy footprit, and to reduce my long term costs. More recently I invested in a wind farm (via Ripple energy) which will generate my annual grid electricity requirements, and reduce my electricty bills through sales of the generated electricity to the grid.

I tend to agree, why cover land with solar when we have such a small percentage of solar panels on domestic housing? I don't know about where others live but we live on a small estate of 35 houses and as far as I can tell only 2/3 have solar panels. If there was more Government incentive to help homeowners we could surely produce a lot more electricity? Also help when it comes to charging EV's.

David

Never mind it’s going to be and astrological event that’s finally going to get us. 

I agree with your sentiment David but it would appear that using house and factory roofs would still be nowhere near enough. Solar derived power in the UK only represents 4% of our requirement, and that is including from all the existing massive solar farms. When we were travelling by train through Ghent in Belgium it was noticeable how many houses had solar panels on the roof. It wasn't exactly pretty but neither is a massive coal fired power station. On a new housing estate near us they are building houses in which the solar panel is the roof so it is far less obtrusive so perhaps we are starting to go down a logical route. There was an excellent TV series recently by Guy Martin about power supply in the UK It was a really fascinating series.

Unfortunately there is still a lot of NIMBYism about. I have a friend who complains constantly about wind farms, even those with just one or two turbines. He ought to have lived where we used to which was about 5 miles west of the Ratcliffe on Soar power station. On a cloudless morning we didn't see the sun for several hours because of the plumes of smoke and condensate from the cooling towers.

My attitude is let those that don't use any electricity at all complain about the sources of power. All others must put up and shut up.

And still we do nothing about the 24/7/365 100% reliable tidal power. Neither has anything been done about planning permission being conditional upon fitting solar arrays to all buildings. It's just lip service to green coupled with a nice little earner for the 'right' people.

Totally agree with CY,s post . I suspect too many of our elected MP,s have their noses in the troughs of the fossil fuel companies.