By Paul Homewood
Silly Jilly has not got any better since she joined the Guardian:
The UK risks being left behind in Europe’s home battery boom because of a controversial tax hike on solar-battery systems, according to a report.
The energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie has predicted that Europe’s home battery capacity could climb fivefold in the next five years as more households plug their rooftop solar panels into battery packs.
The analysts expect that by 2024, annual home battery installations across Europe could total more than 500MW, the equivalent of building a new gas-fired power plant every year.
The report said the battery boom had already taken hold in Germany and would accelerate across Italy and Spain as battery power became more economic.
However, the UK is likely to lag behind its European neighbours due to its “unfavourable” policy frameworks and a VAT increase for solar-battery packs this October.
The UK has blamed EU rules for the VAT change, a claim disputed by Molly Scott Cato, a Green MEP for South West England.
“There is appetite from [UK] utilities and technology providers but the market has no incentives so is lagging behind thus far,” said the report. “The recent VAT increase from 5% to 20% confirmed to begin in October 2019 is not an effective way to kickstart a market with challenging economics.”
The so-called tax hike simply brings VAT on solar-battery systems up the standard level charged on all goods.
If solar technology is so brilliant, surely paying a bit extra in VAT should make no difference at all?
Silly Jilly also claims that the projected increase in solar systems across Europe will be the equivalent of building a new gas-fired power plant every year. In fact, as the graph shows, it is the cumulative capacity by 2024 which will be equivalent to one power plant, and not one every year.
As usual though, she also gets thoroughly confused between CAPACITY and OUTPUT. To compare 500 MW of solar panels with a 500 MW power station ignores the fact the the former will only produce at 10% of capacity, if you are lucky and extremely irregularly.
But what about the economics?
According to the Tesla website, a 5KW Powerwall battery will set you back £7750, plus installation of up to £2800, not to mention a host of other costs such as electricity upgrades. (You will apparently need two Powerwalls if you have EV charging equipment.
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/powerwall?redirect=no
On top of that, of course, you will have to spend thousands more on installing solar panels, so you probably won’t get much change out of 20 grand.
Given that average household electricity bills are around £500 a year, the pay back period would be 40 years, even if you paid no interest on the outlay. At a rate of 5% interest, interest alone would amount to £1000 a year.
The batteries have a warranty of 10 years, but will likely start to deteriorate long before that. It is unlikely that the solar panels will last much longer either, and will certainly need maintenance.
In short, solar/battery systems are a non starter, even in sunny countries, unless heavily subsidised.
Looking at the graph, the current deployment of home battery systems is just over 200 MW. At 5 KW each, this would equate to 40,000 homes throughout Europe, a microscopic number given that Europe has an estimated 221 million households.
Silly Jilly seems to think doubling this number is a “boom”!
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
August 7, 2019 at 07:57AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 
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