Categories
building regulations

Blog 2 : Change Building Regulations and generate more power

Have you ever looked at the acres of industrial and residential roof space and wondered why that is not being used to generate power using solar panels? It is difficult to understand particularly when in some cases we are covering good agricultural land with solar farms.

So what is the potential opportunity if we just consider new builds, where it is possible to mandate the use of solar roof space through changing building regulations.

We are building around 200,000 residential buildings each year. The average home uses around 3.7KWhr 1] of electricity per year so solar panels generating c.4KW would provide the majority of the requirement. Even if we assume only 70% of the new builds incorporated this level of solar panels this would be equivalent to 0.56GW of power that could be generated either for use in homes or sent into the national grid.

According to one estimate 2] the annual industrial new build level is equivalent to 18million square feet of space. Assuming this equated to 9 million of useable roof space for solar panels then this could generate another 0.12GW of electricity.

In total then the opportunity is to generate c.0.68GW of electricity through changing building regulations and after 10years at 6.8GW it would be the equivalent to seven gas fired power stations.

There is a concern that solar panels on roofs spoil the look of the house. That is not the case with good design. Solar panels can now be integrated into the roof line 3] or also solar tiles, which look like roof tiles, can be used.

This is a great opportunity to not only to generate electricity close to the facilities where it going to be used (reducing transmission losses) but also creating new jobs in solar panel engineering and battery manufacturing.

Categories
Climate Change Fossil Fuels

Blog 1:  Why some Fossil fuels are needed to combat Climate Change

The UK government policies to move towards Net-Zero emissions by 2050 depend on the electrification of  transport, home heating and industrial processes. So the secure generation of electricity is an essential requirement.

During the recent cold spells in the UK the electricity grid has been heavily dependent on gas-fired power stations to satisfy the demand. For example on the 12th December 2022 [1] of the 44GW of demand 2.7% was provided by wind and solar power whilst over 70% by gas and nuclear powered stations. Renewables such as wind and solar are an important part of the energy mix but they cannot meet the demand when there is little wind on uniformly cold and hot days.

So in the near future we will need gas-fired power stations to meet the demand during these periods. How can we do this and reduce the emissions? One way is to use Carbon Capture [2] technology, where carbon dioxide emitted from power stations is captured and stored or reused. This is a well proven technology which needs to be a key part of the energy investment program in the near term.

Until we have some other energy form which can replace gas to provide reliable on-demand electricity then we must retain it and invest in it to reduce the emissions.


 

Categories
Climate Change

Blog Introduction

Hi, this is a personal blog (see Profile) on Climate Change. It is not about the actual and predicted dangers. I do fully accept those. This blog is about engineering solutions, those that are being deployed now and could be in the future. It is also about plans. In particular those based on the UK’s aspiration to achieve Net Zero by 2050 (i.e. where there should be at least a balance between those environmentally damaging gasses emitted into the atmosphere and those extracted from it). Without realistic plans and investments we will not get there!

I welcome any comments on my blogs and will respond.

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