Luciferase, looking at the graphs of the UK for Jan 2016 it is
interesting to compare the area covered by the solar output.
It is so insignificant that the solar just looks like a vertical
spike once a day around 1200.
The greatest area covered by wind is so much greater that I cannot see
any point in having solar.
I discovered that myself when I read the meter here each hour.
At 8am 200 watts, 9 am 400 watts, 11am 850watts and
12-30 (building midday) 1080 watts, 2pm 800 watts, 4pm 6 watts, in shadow.
Then no output till next morning. So without tracking hopeless,
with tracking they would be a lot better but not much in 24 hours
and that was summer readings.

BTW, I read a report yesterday that the US fracking companies have
been fiddling upwards their Ultimately Recoverable Rescources.
They have done it to keep the capital investors interested.
It forecast an early jump in oil prices when the penny drops.

Gov't subsidy of domestic solar is stupid for the tracking reason and because of good old dust and dirt.

If we're going to sink money into solar we have the space for mass installations, like Spain, where tracking and cleaning are continuous. But why bother as it's not despatchable unless coupled to CO2 emitting gas turbines and/or unviable storage? The only clean energy sources are nuclear and hydro.

I wish Finkel would exercise some courage and scientific nous and say something towards changing the direction we're taking. What chance has the man in the street got of getting across the issue when the Chief-Scientist appears clueless? Snowy 2.0 should be canned before it begins and modular nuclear investigated. forthwith.

"The only clean energy sources are nuclear and hydro.".... proven and despatchable, that is.

Indeed !
It really is time to out of its agony the idea that solar & wind are
the cheapest electricity generators.
The greenies agree that the foundations are part of a wind farm.
So why do they not cost the backup batteries etc ?
Good night !