1.67 Million+ Systems Sticking It To The Electricity Man | Panel Image: Smaack, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
The most recent data from Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator shows Queensland and Western Australia postcodes still entirely dominating the top 10 rankings for total numbers of installed small scale solar power systems.
Not true Malcolm! A typical house in SA pays less per kWh for electricity than any other state except NSW.
Grid electricity is not cheap in South Australia. Here in Adelaide it’s never a happy time when I get an electricity bill. My last quarterly bill was $203 for 389 kilowatt-hours of use. All up, that means I paid over 52 cents for each kilowatt-hour of grid electricity. [Read more…]
The Creator of The Renewable Energy Target. Mr John Howard.
Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, or RET, was first introduced in 2001 by Liberal PM John Howard. It has been almost entirely responsible for getting Australia’s graceful collection of wind turbines erected and getting solar panels on the roofs of 19% of our homes.
However, despite all its success, not many of us know very much about the RET.
This is understandable, as on the surface the topic is fairly dry. But once you get past that desiccated surface you soon discover what lies beneath is actually about as dry as crawling through the Simpson Desert without water for three days and then eating six plain SAO biscuits off a salt flat.
But don’t worry, I’m going to save you from having to experience that yourself. I recently filled in the gaps my knowledge of the RET and I’m ready to present you with all the juicy tidbits of information I gleaned from that dry and dusty landscape.
Feel free not to read on if you are already confident in your mastery of the topic. But before you do that, just be certain you can answer in the affirmative when I ask, do you get RET yet? [Read more…]
WA leads the way for solar power adoption
A recent study underlining the popularity of rooftop solar in WA has given Australians a glimpse into the country’s solar-driven energy future. For a survey conducted by Curtin University that has everyone talking is the one that shows power generated from rooftop solar systems in the state’s South-West Interconnected System (SWIS) produce as much energy as the state’s largest power station.
“We are in the extraordinary position of saying that Perth [SWIS] now has rooftop solar as the largest supplier of electricity, it’s the biggest power station in WA,” said Curtin University sustainability professor Peter Newman to the ABC AM program.
He added that the area currently has 20 percent coverage of solar panels, though this was just the beginning. [Read more…]
CEO of First Solar reacts to Abbott’s latest speech on energy policy
One recurring, if unfortunate, theme of these pages has been the constant spectre of uncertainty in Australian solar policy. We’ve ranted before about why Australia should be led by more forward thinking pollies in both Canberra and the state capitals but bugger it, when you’re onto a good thing, why not continue?
So here goes, Rant #234 about the paucity of Australian solar policy leadership… [Read more…]
Well done Dubbo solar power installers!
Sunny in Dubbo
If you read the mainstream press in Australia, you’d think the towns and suburbs with the biggest average take up of solar panels would be the well-to-do inner city suburbs of our major cities. Perhaps Vaucluse, Toorak or the leafy eastern suburbs of Adelaide?
Obviously they’d be more likely where wealth is concentrated right?
Wrong (as you may have guessed by the headline!). In a sign that solar energy is becoming more accessible to mainstream Aussie folk, a recent survey by the Clean Energy Council (CEC) found the central-west NSW city of Dubbo to have the highest average percentage of houses with solar panels.
Whilst many Australian state governments dither over the solar feed-in-tariff (FIT) issue, China has come charging out of the changing sheds recently with a brand new, highly-polished, national feed-in-tariff system.
They are kicking the world’s ass when it comes to high value manufacturing (where was your iPad made?) and now it looks like they are serious about installing solar power domestically. [Read more…]
Gentailer AGL announced on Friday it has acquired 100 per cent of South Australia’s Virtual Power Plant (SA VPP) from Tesla. So, what are its plans and what next for existing customers? [Read more…]
For years the West has been a sorry state in solar terms. The only networks in town have draconian 5kW limits on inverters, and it makes the rest of Australia give them side eye. Why do the western weirdos hate sunshine?
Thanks to Austrian manufacturer Fronius though, there is now a 10kW inverter option available in WA, all you need is a well-trained installer. [Read more…]
Today’s a big day for Virtual Power Plants (VPPs): a federal rebate for VPP-capable batteries is coming online, while two states are offering incentives that require joining one. So why are multiple layers of government teaming up to tempt you into handing over control of your battery to a VPP operator, and should you take the bait?
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