Lakes and reservoirs will be covered with solar panels under Ed Miliband’s plans to quadruple the use of the technology in Britain. The Telegraph has the story.
Mr Miliband is hoping to make it more difficult for locals to object to bodies of water being covered in the panels and to the erection of telegraph poles in rural areas.
The plans are part of the Government’s new “solar roadmap”, under which an area more than three times the size of Birmingham will be covered in solar panels in the next five years.
Ministers believe the strategy will mean the equivalent of seven million more homes are powered by solar electricity by the end of the decade, and claim it will cut energy bills by £500 a year.
The Conservatives called the plans “mad” and said they were “exactly what we have been warning of all along”.
The plans include new “canopy” solar panels to be built over public car parks, and more farmland to be used for generating electricity.
Renters could also be able to install plug-in panels on balconies or rooftops, allowing them to save money on energy bills for the first time, after Mr Miliband launched a safety review.
Mr Miliband is concerned that the planning process is a “burden” to landowners hoping to cover lakes with solar panels, and is exploring “levers” that would make them harder to oppose.
The Government hopes that by 2030, an estimated 0.4% of the total land area of the UK will be covered in the panels, up from 0.1%.
That would equate to 376 square miles, or more than three times the size of Birmingham. …
The plans are likely to be controversial with countryside campaigners, who have complained that solar panels “dramatically alter” views of rural areas.
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Does this go hand in hand with a banning of watersports.
Also the mass killing of waterbirds,fish, marine biology and plant life by removing light,oxygenation and nutrients from mass bodies a of water!
Quote from the RSPB website: “We carry out conservation on a large scale, protect and restore habitats, and save species from extinction. We’re living in a nature and climate emergency, and we won’t stop whilst the threats persist. ” (my emphasis).
Presumably, therefore, they’ll endorse this proposal from Mad Ed in exactly the same way they endorsed the building of wind turbines. So, sod the raptors (and bats) and sod the waterbirds. The cult of climate change is deeply embedded in too many institutions.
It’s sad that those who worship the climate don’t love nature (or humanity).
They know neither.
They’re eugenists D Attenborough being the prime example. Horrible horrible people totally anti human.
Too right👌
“… conservation on a large scale, protect and restore habitats, and save species from extinction.”
But, but… thanks to us allegedly increasing CO2 content in the atmosphere, satellite images show over the last twenty plus years that an area the size of North America has “greened” that is, new vegetation growth has established itself particularly around deserts – which are shrinking – creating habitat for fauna too.
This vegetation fixes topsoil and water in the ground, dead material rots down to nourish the soil.
Isn’t that large scale, protecting and restoring habitats?
So what is the threat? Well if the lunatics get their way, and if it were possible, reduce CO2 to 1990 levels, all that new growth would be killed off and the fauna living in it with it. Isn’t that doing the opposite to what they claim to be their aim?
These nitwits don’t know much do they? Their ignorance is a danger to life.
but, but but, we have to save the planet! Mad Ed Tinybrain is an idiot well beyond the idiotness scale.
Words like straight jacket, key, lock, throw and away spring to mind.
All life is expendable in the quest to “save the Planet”.
It will make angling difficult! On the other hand, lead weights chucked onto the solar panels might be a good idea.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha, oh how we laughed and laughed as we used our last candle…
I’ve read that birds are already killed by landing on solar panels they mistake for stretches of water. So now we’re going to cover lakes with the darn things. I guess those claiming they want to save the planet regard the loss of ducks and geese, etc an acceptable by-product.
Ridiculous and unscientific virtuesignalling nonsense. The angle of sunlight at mdday in December is around 22 degrees, so even if the sky were clear and cloudless, panels floating flat would be barely 1/3rd of nameplate output. In addition to the harms Dinger64 sets out.
… and the chemicals leeching out into the water?
1/3 of nameplate over a day is the June yield. the december yield, and even at the right angle , is about 1.5-3% of nameplate. But clearly I am not arguing with your point. it is 100% valid. and valid for almost all solar in UK: the lack of sun in winter makes it rather nonsensical.
Yes you are right – my point expressed was simplistic dealing with instantaneous outputs. Averaging the output over a year is more realistic to give total kilowatt hours output over an 8000 hour year is the realistic metric. Installed at northern temperate latitudes and with cloud and mist light absorbtion, not to say rain and snow, bird poop and dust cover of panels, external air temperature derating, you are lucky to get average winter day output in the %ages you specified. I designed a solar powered installation in the N Sea which had to run 24/7 telemetry and navigation lights. It was 15x overrated but it worked, just!
And it needed 4 large truck batteries to store enough electricity overnight to power a low powered flashing nav night for successive January freezing nights.
Unfortunately PPE and Classics don’t run modules on simple engineering maths. And those who do know the numbers in the Green Blob probably lie to preserve their jobs as Jack Watson recently indicated
‘seven million more homes are powered by solar electricity by the end of the decade’
But not 24/7 of course since solar is even worse than windmills for efficiency and with the legendary Duck Curve most solar comes when there is no demand. Allow too much solar on your give and Viva Espania will be guaranteed.
Looking forward to the long, dark winter nights – one of those crisp, still, cold, starlit nights nights that will be probably the last thing many pensioners see as they freeze to death in their electrically heated homes of the future.
These projects are always announced in the height of summer, never in the depths of winter when demand is highest and solar PV output is virtually zero
They can go ahead with the car park ones as far as I’m concerned, I’d rather the seagulls unloaded on those than my newly-washed car!
Yes, as long as the car park is well lit at night. Predatory people love the dark under a canopy.
“Ministers believe the strategy will mean the equivalent of seven million more homes are powered by solar electricity by the end of the decade”
That’s impressive – those panels must be really efficient to enable you to watch Coronation Street at 7pm on a winter evening.
It’s easy. You just take the maximum rated output under ideal conditions (cloudless skies, no accumulated dust or debris, ideal temperature, angle of inclination etc.), average it out over 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and tell people that’s what they’ll get. What could possibly be wrong with that approach?
Indeed- at the minimum level of consumption
Journalists who parrot this stuff are unworthy of the title
Yes it doesn’t sound quite as impressive when put as ‘…the equivalent of seven million homes will be powered for a small part of the day, mostly in the summer, IF the sun is shining clearly and it’s not a bit overcast (like it is in the UK much of the time)’… snappy eh!
Water and Electricity – what on earth can go wrong?!!!!
Now you’re making me think they should be putting these panels on the Channel rather than inland lakes…
Nah. Salter’s Ducks. They won’t stop generating at night.
Perhaps in some sort of wall like configuration… with gates for official traffic? 😉
indeed, might as well add some battery storage while they’re at it…
There are already some reservoir floating ones, such as this batch 51°23’48.6″N 0°23’38.1″W near Walton-on-Thames. A but different c.f. the hand sketch shown, with the groups of panels mounted at a suitable angle to optimise the performance. Probably owned by Thames Water, but not certain of that.
As an aside, why no BTL on the Tim Davie article??
Solar panels get hot, they will raise the temperature of the water and kill wildlife. I think if this isn’t another wind up or fairy story, a legal challenge using the Wildlife and Countryside Act will prevent it. We aren’t even allowed to cut hedges while birds are nesting, I can’t see this utter insanity being approved.
The panels will be targets for vandals anyway.
You could fit an awful lot of solar panels on Lake Windermere.
This what ideology does to people.
First he’ll have to allow some reservoirs to be built.
But just a minute. PV cells contain some nasty chemicals – is putting them in contact with our drinking water supply wise?
Ditto lakes – poison the aquatic life, and blocking sunlight from bodies of water has detrimental effects on its ecology.
Environmentslism is a strange thing – it’s almost as if environmentalists don’t know anything about it.
pure evil
Presumably, if these solar arrays “float” as shown, will the water supply pipes be closed to stop the reservoir level reducing?
If you look at this on Google maps you can see a reservoir floating one: 51°23’48.6″N 0°23’38.1″W near Walton-on-Thames. Looks like they are mounted on specialised floating framework, and no doubt there are some underwater DC cables out to whatever the rest of the kit is that can cope with varying water levels.
That’s a real one, rather than a hand sketch on an image!
The nice photoshopped depictions haven’t considered how the panels are to be cleaned of dust grime and bird poop. Let alone how a technician is going to access a panel in the middle to faultfind and replace. Without cracking all the other panels to get there and then falling under the panels and drowning. The Japanese have an installation in which 20-30% of area is taken up by walkways and flotation. Safetyism might come to our rescue in the UK
All Reform has to do is publicly declare that when they enter government they will withdraw all taxpayer subsidy for net zero projects and energy tariff contracts. Nobody is going to invest in this lunacy with that as a possibility.
Easier said than done. For example: Feed in Tariffs were a subsidy scheme set up in 2010 to encourage and support new renewable energy projects. The scheme effectively closed in about 2021. They are a binding contract lasting 20 years from the start of generation, so the last payments could carry on being made up to 2041, and they are index-Linked to the RPI. I’ve seen FiTs paying almost 30p/kWh for electricity which can IN ADDITION be sold to consumers for between 15 and 25p/kWh. Very profitable…
FITs (and other subsidies like ROCs) are a contract with a government department, and if any government (including Reform) think they can just walk away before the 20 years is up…
FITs are paid for through our electricity bills, so they are a form of Green tax.
We elect muppets and are surprised when we keep getting muppetocracy…
Aren’t you referring to domestic solar?
Commercial wind and solar are subsidised via Contract for Difference (CfD) and Constraint Payments which are periodically reviewed.
These can be withdrawn. In fact some wind contracts have not been taken up because the CfD strike price (price guaranteed irrespective of market price) isn’t high enough.
As for “contracts”, taxation.
Why despoil the countryside. Start with all public buildings first
As an open water swimmer I can assure you the lakes are cold enough as they are. They are unsurvivable for the majority of male swimmers without specialist wet suits. Imagine what will happen to the marine life in and on the lakes. The lakes are a home for insects, dragon flies, fish, otters and they are a watering hole for many species.
When you’re already insane, is it possible to become even more insane?
Mind you, they’ll make very easy target practice for anyone inclined to carry out a campaign of sabotage.
Governments in the UK have become very adept at finding ways to keep watch on normal people going about their legitimate business. (I know that at one stage we were claimed to be the nation with the most CCTV cameras.) I imagine these installations will be surrounded by cameras, and probably fences too, to stop people (and consequently some wildlife) getting near the lakes and reservoirs.
Peak Insanity?