From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Miliband has also announced he will spend £200 million of taxpayers’ money on solar panels for schools and hospitals:
Hundreds of schools, NHS trusts and communities across the UK will benefit from new rooftop solar power and renewable schemes to save money on their energy bills, thanks to a total £200 million investment from the UK government and Great British Energy.
In England around £80 million in funding will support around 200 schools, alongside £100 million for nearly 200 NHS sites, covering a third of NHS trusts, to install rooftop solar panels that could power classrooms and operations, with potential to sell leftover energy back to the grid. The first panels are expected to be in schools and hospitals by the end of summer 2025, saving schools money for the next academic year.
Great British Energy’s first investment could see millions invested back into frontline services, targeting deprived areas, with lifetime savings for schools and the NHS of up to £400 million over around 30 years.
Estimates suggest that on average, a typical school could save up to £25,000 per year, whilst the average NHS site could save up to £45,000 per year on their annual energy bill if they had solar panels with complementary technologies installed such as batteries.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/great-british-energy-to-cut-bills-for-hospitals-and-schools
Miliband is bragging that school budgets will be boosted because of these saving. This however is a sleight of hand – it is merely using taxpayer money in GBE to pay some of the school costs, instead of allocating them to the Education Dept.
The obvious question is this – if solar panels are so cost effective, why don’t schools themselves pay for them out of their own budgets?
The answer is equally obvious – they are not cost effective, as Miliband’s own press release admits. Note this sentence:
“lifetime savings for schools and the NHS of up to £400 million over around 30 years.”
But solar panels won’t last thirty years, or anything like it. If they are lucky, they might last half as long before they become a liability.
And over 15 years, they will only just manage to pay back the original investment, never mind cover finance costs. DESNZ savings are also based on the cut in energy bills, but nowhere do they seem to have factored in maintenance costs, which will eat into these. No business would consider wasting so much money in this way.
Overall, it does not look like the taxpayer will see any return at all on their money.
And all for what? The solar panels will inevitably be made in China, with a massive carbon footprint from the coal power used to manufacture them.
When GBE was first set up, we were assured it would soon be turning a profit. How can they do this though, when they are handing out £200 million without any obligation for it to be paid back?
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Miliband announced this literally 24 hours after the solar panels at Heathrow proved to be utterly useless.
I hope the sun is shining when I am in intensive care in a solar-powered hospital.
Don’t worry. Miliband will have backup in place, just like he did at Heathrow. Well, maybe that’s not a good example.
There won’t be a diesel backup for the hospital as that’ll be forbidden, so hopefully the battery backup won’t burn up during surgery. Well, there will always be candles.
All Surgeries will be done by Candle Light and will not allow for anesthesia
Anasthaesia will be done with a boxing glove to the chin, one suspects…
Our children won’t know what Anesthesia is
A bottle of whiskey and a board to bite on, like the old days.
The NHS will surely be using good Scotch whisky.
I’ll bring my own Irish whiskey, thank you.
Sorry, should have read more replies. Didn’t mean to duplicate Dred’s reply.
It’s just a matter of time that your politicians discover retroactive abortion as more cost effective healthcare, especially of the poor.
Retroactive abortion? Great idea, during Roman times, including those in Britain, fathers were allowed to kill off their children up to the age of majority which was about 12 years in those days. But Scissor, you are likely too old to qualify.
Any savings the schools make on their energy bills will be used by this government as an excuse to give them less money. And it’s doubtful whether, this far north, they will ever get full payback on their “investment” in these low-quality panels. Low quality? Well everyone knows that governments always buy the cheapest…
At night as well?
The UK lies between 50 & 60 degrees North latitude. Map
Fog is one of the most common weather conditions in the UK,
particularly throughout autumn and winter, Met Office
Fog? That really depends on where one is located.
Rain is way more common, the Met Office is an expensive joke.
However, modern solar panels work on overall daylight not on sunshine. so yes there is a diminution in performance but it is not serious. The real problem in the UK is the government’s obsession with ever more electric cars. The UK (and the ROW too) just does not generate enough electricity to allow electric traction for all. Worse we in the UK have lots of terraced housing without any off street parling where cars can be safely charged. Silly ideas like trying to stop petrol cars in a few decades just cannot work.
https://nrgcleanpower.com/learning-center/do-solar-panels-work-on-cloudy-days/
10-20% ain’t nothin’ but it ain’t much either.
Solar panels are most effective between 10am and 2pm at anywhere near nameplate. Solar panels are markedly less effective from 8am to 10am during ramp up and again from 2pm until 4pm. Solar panels are ineffective from 6am to 8am and 4pm to 6pm and not capable of functioning from 6pm until 6am (at night) when they have ZERO free fuel available
sounds like they match the school day almost perfectly.
Perhaps if you only function between 10am and 2pm on sunny days but not so good for Hospitals that function 24/7/365
10% is pretty close to zero compared to 100%. That is the way I understand numbers. Try paying 10% when you pay your taxes.
Last I heard was that the new, more efficient solar panels can convert a third of the energy that falls on them to electricity. Theoretically. They typically manage about 25%. And then only when the sun is at the optimal angle, which is just a couple of hours either side of noon. And on the best sunny days the efficiency drops by around another 5% because they don’t work too well when they get hot. Not to mention that the UK is just about the worst place in the world to put solar panels.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/01/23/uk-worse-place-in-world-to-put-solar-power/
What am I missing?
You tilt them into the sun, unfortunately that way they catch the wind as happened in hurricane Harvey pulling off some roof. Spent a few days in a trailer with couple of solar panels in Kerhonkson New York, about 60 miles NE of Matamoras, New Jersey. It was nice to have the day length but if you put enough on the roof for much electricity it would blow the tires.
Missing?
Snow
Snowstorms
Hailstorms
Dust and debris
Storms in general
0 days of effective sunlight in November – January
If you think UK is less than perfect for solar power – look to Norway.
If the amount of energy being produced is insufficient to energize the power inverter, then the output of the system is zero.
Put in another way, if the voltage being produced is less than your line voltage, at the minimum current required by the power inverter, then no power will be produced by the power inverter.
Additionally, the power consumed by the power inverter itself, is fairly constant, regardless of the amount of power being produced.
“Modern” solar panels don’t put out squat in foggy weather. As a result, my Pacific Coast solar generator at 37 degrees north latitude took far longer to pay off than advertised and then my Solar provider went bankrupt.
Now, I only have to pay $650 dollars for a “new” internet reporting module connected to a “new” internet website to learn just how much I am “saving the earth” by eliminating CO2 in the atmosphere.
So we’re now back to paying more for less as the system has aged past its halfway point.
20% of sun’s energy still reaches earth on a cloudy day. But max solar panel efficiency is 24%, currently. So instead of 24% in full, overhead sunlight, you would get 4.8%. That sounds like a pretty serious diminution to me. Ymmv.
The capacity factor for UK solar averaged 10.2% in 2023. It will decline as more solar panels are added because they end up having to back off for voltage and frequency control priorities at lunch time.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/555697/solar-electricity-load-factor-uk/
The evidence is clear that adding more intermittent generation to any grid increases the retail cost of electricity. Of the top 20 nations by GDP, Saudi Arabia has 2% WDG penetration and energy costs USD0.05/kWh. Germany at the other end has 45% penetration and energy costs USD0.40/kWh. UK is catching up to Germany rather than even trying to get close to Saudi Arabia; the benchmark for energy costs..
Ahhh! “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness…” as Keats had it.
Tourists in the UK: Sun? What sun?
The Sun
https://www.thesun.co.uk/
There won’t be many tourists when most of the landscape is covered with wind and solar “farms”.
Especially with 15 minute zones and vehicle exclusion zones all over the place
Miliband said that the panels have to be made in China because UK companies don’t have “that kind of market share.”
They have no qualms whatsoever
Labour MPs block ban on Chinese solar panels ‘made by slaves’ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/03/25/labour-mps-block-ban-on-chinese-solar-panels-made-by-slaves/
They’re saving the world! The slaves should be happy to be contributing, the UK Labour politicians say.
History is not going to be kind to these delusional UK Net Zero politicians. They carry on as though Net Zero is still a viable plan. Only in their fevered minds. They can’t admit they are wrong, so they will continue down this failed pathway.
The Temperature Data Mannipulators have driven millions of people insane, including those in leadership positions. Their Temperature Lies have done enormous damage to Western Democracies. They are enemies of the People, indeed, enemies of the whole World.
Slaves: The
willhave nothing and will behappyslaves.The modern Labour Party is beyond redemption.
And to think that the you Brits were the leaders in ending slavery…you did it with your Navy-we had to do it with our blood. Now it’s OK?
There goes Miliband, doubling down on stupid.
The UK needs new leadership. If the UK sticks with these bozos, they are sunk.
It’s not good when your leaders are Delusional.
It’s even worse when every single one of them is deluded, and that is very much the case.
Perhaps a “Vote of No Confidence” in Miliband is needed then they could install real leadership from Palpatine.
This is understating the negative consequence. Any additional solar adds costs to the grid. It makes the power supply system less efficient and the retail costs go up. The schools and hospital may initially get some relief from the high energy costs but it is a Ponzi scheme that those without solar panels or wind turbines pay for. It is also inflationary so all the other costs go up. Eventually it is a lose lose situation for the country.
China would not be ,making solar panels for the rest of the world if it made economic sense to add them to any grid. The Chinese grid is at saturation with the weather dependent generation at around 17%. Going higher than this level adds significant burden on the rest of the grid.
It’s only enough for 1 in 200 schools.
A single bean in a hill of beans.
First of all, one traditional optimization criterion for a money flow is the part that sticks to the hands of middle-men. Second of all, there’s power group dynamics: open any floodgate too wide at once, and you won’t get to be its gatekeeper.
«Only the best get to participate in this
kickback schemegreat innovation. How do you prove to these people you are among the best, you ask? That’s the trick, yes. You are in luck! I just happen to have an acquaintance there who said…» etc etc.Labour have got themselves in a real mess with the idiot flywheel. £200 mil for solar panels on schools and hospitals when the facts on the ground are…
“Britain’s school concrete crisis could cost over £150M
School leaders are calling for the complete replacement of many of the affected buildings, which were constructed in the 1960s and 1970s
https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/britains-school-concrete-crisis-could-cost-over-150m/
“It would cost £11.6 billion to fix UK’s crumbling NHS hospitals
The bill for essential repairs across the NHS estate climbed to almost £12bn last year, with trust leaders saying hospitals are “falling to bits”.
https://inews.co.uk/news/health/nhs-cost-billions-hospital-maintenance-backlog-2809273
Labour has no plans to deal with the real problems at all. Maybe they’re hoping the solar panels will hold the buildings together?
One could speculate that the mass of the solar roof panels will exacerbate the concrete problem.
That £200M investment works out to £400,000 per school and £500,000 per hospital spent to save An average of £33,000 per.site per year. And Solar Panels DON’T LAST 30 years before they need replacement to their Initial costs will double with their projected savings halved accordingly
Part of the calculus that is missing is the annual decline in efficiency and annual increase in cell failures. One can not plan on 33K per site per year for every year. The savings will decline steadily even if base rates are constant.
As mentioned above, maintenance costs are not included. If a cell is replaced, it subtracts from the annual savings. When the custodians go up on the ladders to clean the array, those costs subtract from the savings. When a custodian is injured (ladder work is a hazardous operation), the lost time and medical costs decrease the savings, not to mention the possibility of higher insurance rates.
All valid points!😎
The interest cost on borrowing 200M at 4% for 30 years is a whopping 144M. Subtract that, along with 30 years of maintenance, repair and replacement costs, from their “projected savings”, and everyone would be money ahead if they simply buried the money in the ground.
There have been cuts elsewhere to Education programmes, this money had to come from somewhere. In a government of dreadful people, Miliband is down there with the worst of them.
Story tip
Just Stop Oil says it’s giving up on protests. In an email to supporters the eco-terrorists claim “initial demand to end new oil and gas is now government policy, making us one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history. We’ve kept over 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the ground and the courts have ruled new oil and gas licences unlawful.” Ed Miliband to thank for that one…
https://order-order.com/2025/03/27/just-stop-oil-we-will-stop-protesting/
Declare victory, and leave the field.
Don’t tell people how much additional expense you have added to their lives by promoting Net Zero insanity.
The schools in BC Canada all have solar panels paid for by grants. I still pay school tax.
Where do the billions of profit from power sales to California go? /s
You forgot to add maintenance costs. If those panels aren’t cleaned on a regular basis, the amount of electricity generated will drop a lot.
In the UK, solar panels operate at about 10% of capacity because of the nation’s northern latitude with all of the other night, snow, etc disadvantages. This is truly dumb.
Worse still, peak demand is in the winter, when the entire solar fleet produces, on average, less than 0.25 GW across some weeks (23/12/2024).
If fact the entire fleet is functionally useless (<1 GW) for 4 – 5 months each year.
Fair weather power.
The TRUE cost/kWh of Wind/Solar is obtained if you add the A to Z factors
HIGH COST/kWh OF W/S SYSTEMS FOISTED ONTO A BRAINWASHED PUBLIC
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-cost-kwh-of-w-s-systems-foisted-onto-a-brainwashed-public
By Willem Post
.
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S systems, the less efficient the other, traditional generators, as they inefficiently counteract the increasingly larger ups and downs of W/S output. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
.
W/S systems add great cost to the overall delivery of electricity to users; the more W/S systems, the higher the cost/kWh, as proven by the UK and Germany, with the highest electricity rates in Europe, and near-zero, real-growth GDPs
At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.
UK and Germany have hit the wall, more and more hours each day.
The cost of electricity delivered to users increased with each additional W/S/B system
.
Base-load nuclear, gas and coal plants are the only rational way forward, plus the additional CO2 is very beneficial for additional flora and fauna growth and increased crop yields to feed hungry people.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/we-are-in-a-co2-famine
.
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt:
1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50% (Community tax credit of 10 percent – Federal tax credit of 30 percent – State tax credit and other incentives of up to 10%);
2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off of the entire project;
3) Loan interest deduction
.
Utilities pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixedoffshore wind systems
Utilities pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
Utilities pay 12 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from larger solar systems
.
Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect distributed W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more W/S systems are added to the grid
.
The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in de-growth mode.
That economy has been tied into knots by inane people.
YOUR tax dollars are building these projects so YOU will have much higher electric bills.
Remove YOUR tax dollars using your vote, and none of these projects would be built, and YOUR electric bills would be lower.
Paul – I think you’ve missed the second, larger, part of the swindle. On top of paying for the panels, taxpayers will also have their energy bills increased to pay the Feed In Tariff that will go to the schools – for years. FIT is ‘paid’ by redistributing money from non-owners of panels to owners of panels.
Is Milliband invulnerable?
Got to keep Chinese slaves in work
Solar performs very poorly in Northern Europe. It won’t save anything. The price of electricity will be so high, that when the sun refuses to shine, grid electricity will cancel any solar gain, if there is any at all.
I have installed 12 Led panel lights in my house. They are wired directly to matched solar panels and work as ‘light by wire’ skylights without the thermal deficiencies of conventional skylights. Some have wireless off switches. For schools this sort of setup could work well. They cost a fraction of real skylights.
What a joke, if solar panels were truly a money saver Milliband wouldn’t be forced to pay for them. If they were effective and affordable these schools and hospitals would already be using them and on their own dime When you look up crackpot in the dictionary it has Millibands picture there.
Solar Panels in England make as much sense as refrigerators for Eskimos.
I guess no one does basic economics anymore. £200 million invested at a modest 6% would allow one to make monthly withdrawals of £1,199,100 for 30 years, totaling £431 million. That’s assuming the schools and NHS aren’t on the hook for the initial £200 million. If they are, the effective interest rate would be a more acceptable 9.5%.
All that assumes the project comes in at budget, produces power per expectations, lasts for thirty years, has no additional costs or associated costs, and no removal costs. Personally, I would tell them, forget about the panels. Put the money in an interest-bearing account and let me have the interest – forever.
SLAVE LABOUR?
Meanwhile in the UK House of Commons this week, the Labour government REQUIRED its MPs to vote down an amendment to the energy bill currently going through parliament. The amendment sought to legally prevent GB Energy from using any products, including solar panels, from being procured with taxpayer funds, that involved slave labour in any part of their supply chain.
With the widespread use of slave labour by the communist government of China as part of its genocidal campaign against the Uighars, this amendment would have forced GBE to shop elsewhere. Due to China’s illegal 100% subsidies and the slave labour workforce, solar panels made in other countries are unsurprisingly much more expensive. So, to promote “green” energy, and mask the trust cost of the madness of Nut Zero, the UK’s socialist regime is turning a blind eye to slavery. This is quite possibly the most disgusting piece of public administration in the UK since the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
“Meanwhile in the UK House of Commons this week, the Labour government REQUIRED its MPs to vote down an amendment to the energy bill currently going through parliament.”
So what happens if a Labour MP doesn’t want to vote that way?
Will the promised savings be in the same category as Ed Miliband’s promise that our household energy bills will go down by £300 a year?