Messages posted by : AllyG
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Hi Snowbandit,
I'm glad to hear you're safely out of the clutches of the gambling casino's :lol: So you wouldn't rather have a job as a bunny girl, or whatever they call them these days, in Las Vegas? :wink: I'm sure November will come around pretty fast, and best of luck with your new job and career :D Ally |
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Dave,
The payback time for my hypothetical domestic British PV solar system was 6 years, when I used the Cashback Calculator provided by energysavingtrust.org.uk http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generate-your-own-energy/Cashback-Calculator I entered that I was going to produce 7300 kWh/year (maximum potential 2kW per hour from my 18m2 PV solar panels) from an under 4kW retrofit which I was going to install between 15th July 2009 and March 2012, and that it was going to cost me £20,000 to install the system and I wasn't taking out a loan, and I would be in the house most of the time during the daytime so I was only going to export 25% of the electricity I generated. And it came back saying that they would pay me 41.3 pence per kW for 25 years, I would generate a gross profit of £3,570 p.a. the payback time was 6 years and the lifetime benefit would be £85,672. The gross profit was made up of: Income from generation tariff = £3,015 Income from export (they pay an extra 3 pence per kWh)=£55 Fuel bill savings = £500 Total = £3,570 I think this new system of paying out as you go like this (Feed-in Tariffs) only started on 1st April 2010. Before this they used to give you a grant. And it's the electricity companies that pay you the money. It is of course only an estimate, because for all they know my roof might collapse and the solar panels might all get smashed up, although I believe they do specify that you have to use a registered installer who will presumably survey the roof first. Their phone number is 08450 767634 Ally |
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Thanks Pablo, the opportunity cost of investing in the solar PV system and not in something else is exactly what I meant. But it would be rather difficult to calculate. SwingBeep said the lift was only 500m long and I don't know what the vertical rise is. I looked at the operating hours of the lift, and SwingBeep was quite right - it is shut for most of the time! It is only open from the 19th December to the 14th March, and its operating hours are; 9-30 to 12-00 and 13-00 to 16-00. I have never seen a ski lift before that shuts for lunch :shock: Ally |
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Brucie, It was the solar panel part of the lift that I had estimated would pay for itself in 6 years, not the whole lift. They needed to build a new drag lift anyway, which they would have had to fund through the profits associated with it (from tourism, lift pass, whatever ...). I got lost in all that German, but SwingBeep said that the solar bit of the lift was going to cost 420,000 Swiss Francs, which is £253,000. I had another go at that electricity price calculator, and put in 18 kW and 'integrated' for the sort of solar system (I am only guessing here) and this time I was rewarded with an electricity price of 62.5rp per kWh which equates to 38 pence per kWh. It is designed to produce 90,000 kWh per year, so it should generate an annual gross income from selling the electricity of £34,200. And, if it works the same as the British system, they also get the electricity they use for free. The lift is estimated to use 22,000 kWh which at 10 pence per unit (I don't know how much Swiss electricty costs but maybe someone will correct me here) is worth £2,200 p.a. So gross income from electricity generated by the solar panels would be £36,400. £253,280 divided by £36,400 is 7. So, yes I was out by a bit. According to my slightly dodgy calculations it would take 7 years, not 6 to pay for the solar part of the ski lift, and that's only if you ignore the cost of borrowing the money or the loss by not being able to invest it elsewhere. It would be nice if someone involved in the Tenna project would step in and give us the real figures, so I wouldn't have to keep guestimating. Ally |
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Bandit,
I am sorry for the slight diversion, but I was so horrified to discover that half the money I pay for my petrol goes on duty and VAT. The Swiss price for diesel is only 0.2 Euros less than we pay here at the moment, according to http://www.aaireland.ie/petrolprices/ so, I should think they must have fuel taxes of their own. I don't know, however, how much Tenna would have to pay per litre for diesel to run the lift motor because I don't know how their tax regime would apply to this particular use of diesel. So I can't compare the running costs for solar and diesel. But I'm sure they must have spent a great deal of time working all this out, and that in their particular situation the solar panels were the best option. The U.S. is the cheapest on that list - only 0.66 Euros per litre for diesel. Ally |
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I'm not sure that vegetable oil would be suitable for a motor running a ski lift.
http://www.vegoilmotoring.com/eng/frequently-asked-questions How do converted vehicles perform in cold weather? As vegetable oil becomes thicker at lower temperatures Elsbett recommend blending winter diesel and vegetable oil at temperatures approaching -10°C to allow for normal operation. If the temperature is likely to go down to -15°C then the SVO should be completely switched to winter diesel. Four of our Coastal buses here run on used cooking oil supplied by that company, and they reckon it's about 20 pence per litre cheaper than diesel, although diesel engines in cars etc. do have to be converted to run solely on vegetable oil (cost for a car is apparently £1,200). In the U.K. waste cooking oil now costs about 55 pence per litre to buy (I don't know about Swiss prices), and I think if it's used commercially you have to pay duty on it. I have just seen a shocking breakdown of prices of normal diesel and biodiesel (which is apparently made from vegetable oil but involves the use of fossil fuels etc.). Prices as of May 2009 Diesel Duty = 50 pence Production = 23 pence VAT = 19 pence Retailer = 5 pence Delivery = 6 pence Gross profit = 27 pence Total = 130 pence Biodiesel Duty = 30 pence Production = 70 pence VAT = 21 pence Gross profit = 20 pence Total = 141 pence |
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Tino,
I would say that Gaia is getting more and more into debt because of the way we humans behave, and it is she that suffers, until she gets into such a bad state that we all suffer as well (and possibly become totally wiped out as a species here on earth). And I am just as guilty as anyone else, in fact more guilty than most of the people sharing this planet with me. |
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Pablo,
I don't think they'd get subsidized to sell electricity produced by diesel as it's not a renewable source. And I don't think even biofuel was on that list as a renewable source of electricity. But it's nice to know that you are thinking about energy production now :lol: The U.K. government is very worried already about future energy sources, which is why it has finally agreed to build more nuclear power stations in spite of all the problems associated with them. And why they are also subsidizing green electricity (and digging up our countryside to lay new gas pipelines). Ally |
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