Isle of Eigg Renewable Energy

[r.rackstraw]

Wonderful stories in the papers and on TV yesterday about the green energy scheme on Eigg. The plucky islanders will 'switch on to a new era, with supplies to all housholds coming from renewable sources'.
Great stuff - until you look at the facts.
-This scheme has cost £35,000 per household, nearly all from public money
- Wind turbines, hydro and solar will provide up to 146kw of electricity when the wind is blowing, the rain is falling and the sun is shining. But the canny islanders have taken the precaution of installing 2 huge diesel generators which will supply 180kw

So is this a good use of public money - and if it is can I have some too please. I looked at installing a wind turbine but found that it was hopelessly uneconomic unless I could get massive subsidy or grant.

And what does this say about renewable energy when a scheme in one of our windiest, wettest places has to install more than 100% diesel backup?

[j4bberw0ck]

Yep. Great, isn't it?

The problem with wind power and photocell power and hydrodynamic power is that you can't rely on it. Modern civilisation is 100% dependent on a stable alternating current supply of a given value. Windmills and all these other twirly things can't deliver it.

For heaven's sake let's ditch them and build a couple of modern nuclear power stations.

[NickInTheNorth]

Wonderful stories in the papers and on TV yesterday about the green energy scheme on Eigg. The plucky islanders will 'switch on to a new era, with supplies to all housholds coming from renewable sources'.
Great stuff - until you look at the facts.
-This scheme has cost £35,000 per household, nearly all from public money
- Wind turbines, hydro and solar will provide up to 146kw of electricity when the wind is blowing, the rain is falling and the sun is shining. But the canny islanders have taken the precaution of installing 2 huge diesel generators which will supply 180kw

So is this a good use of public money - and if it is can I have some too please. I looked at installing a wind turbine but found that it was hopelessly uneconomic unless I could get massive subsidy or grant.

And what does this say about renewable energy when a scheme in one of our windiest, wettest places has to install more than 100% diesel backup?

So just what would you have the people on Eigg do?

It is high time they had a reliable 24 hour per day power supply.

As to the cost of £35,000 per household, so what! What do you think the total cost of supplying electricity to virtually every household on the UK mainland would be. And in that please include the total costs of all means of generation and distribution.

I have no doubt at all that they would prefer to have 100% renewables - simply because they are cheaper to operate! However that is not possible. They have some battery storage capacity too, which is the first means of evening out the variations in supply. But they still need something to fill the gaps. Why is it should an issue that the total diesel capacity is slightly higher than the renewables? It was probably cheaper and more efficient to install those 2 than a closer matching alternative.

It should also be added that an alternative that was under discussion at one stage was to run a cable and connect them to the national grid. The cost of that really would have made you mad!

[Riffman]

Well that is not expensive for a reliable supply!

Take the photovoltaic roof on the wick fish sheds.

Cost £140,000

Power on a cloudy day 1.5KW.

That is not much. If I turn my kettle on then I am drawing 1.8KW from the grid and the photovoltaic roof would not be able to supply even that!

At any one point in time our house can be drawing 5-6KW from the grid.

That would mean £560,000 worth of photovoltaics for the daytime, and about £20,000 worth of wind for the night time.

Makes £35,000 seem quite a good bargain really!

[badger]

When I saw this news item I thought - great, why can't we all do that? Didn't know about the generators - not exactly a renewable source. If one man was spending £100 per week on oil to run his generator, what on earth are these costing? Oh well, back to the drawing board.

[Rheghead]

Great stuff - until you look at the facts.
-This scheme has cost £35,000 per household, nearly all from public money
- Wind turbines, hydro and solar will provide up to 146kw of electricity when the wind is blowing, the rain is falling and the sun is shining. But the canny islanders have taken the precaution of installing 2 huge diesel generators which will supply 180kw

So is this a good use of public money - and if it is can I have some too please. I looked at installing a wind turbine but found that it was hopelessly uneconomic unless I could get massive subsidy or grant.

And what does this say about renewable energy when a scheme in one of our windiest, wettest places has to install more than 100% diesel backup?

The £1.6 million scheme combines wind, hydro-power and solar power, all feeding into an island-wide grid serving 60 residential and business properties. It has been funded through residents’ donations and a grant from the European Union’s regional development programme, the National Lottery and the Highlands and Islands Community Energy Company. Maggie Fyffe, secretary of the Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust, which oversaw the plan, said that uninterrupted electricity would make a massive difference.

That £35,000 is now less than £27,000 per property by my maths. And it seems to be 'public money' but only if you discount the money given by private donations, the Lotto, a local energy company and an EU regional development scheme.

The islanders already had diesel generators and now the new ones can be rested until they are required. Has the cost savings been calculated for all the transportation of oil etc?

[spurtle]

I really think that small schemes to fuel communities is the way forward, but wind and solar panels are the last option anyone who was spending their own money, would choose. More reliable heating would be ground heat pumps, or wood burners such as Pulteney have installed.

Incidentally, peat, harvested carefully, is a renewable resource also. An open fire is producing carbon, but it is not necessarily using up irreplaceable resources.
I have two open fires I use, and salve my conscience by planting many, many deciduous trees each year.

Cannot understand why the new generation of homes in 21st-century brutalism style never seem to include a fireplace, leaving people at the mercy of the oil/gas/electricity giants.

[Dog-eared]

Burning wood is only releasing carbon dioxide which was trapped in the wood sometime in the last 25 years, usually.
Planting more trees to replace these helps.
Its fossil fuels from wood that is millions of years old that is the problem.