Search Results for: western australia

Larger Solar PV Systems Eligible For FiT Incentives In Regional QLD

solar power system size limit increase

Solar panel image: B137, CC BY-SA 4.0

Thousands of regional Queensland households and businesses with large solar power systems installed will now be able to receive a solar feed in tariff (FiT).

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Major Solar Inverter Milestone For ABB In India

ABB inverters in India
After passing a 5GW supply milestone, ABB says its inverter products are present in around 40% of installed solar projects in India.

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Will A Solar Hot Water Timer Save Or Lose You Money?

hot water timer

If you have solar, is adding a simple, cheap timer to your electric hot water system worthwhile?

Lately my life has been a lollapalloza of solar electric hot water heating.  I’ve looked at more ways of heating water using solar electricity than you can poke a stick at.  Or at least I have if your poking arm is weak and flabby and easily fatigued. [Read more…]

Solar Powered Eco Hub Proposed For Karratha

Producing food from the desert with solar energy

Image: Sahara Forest Project

Western Australia’s City of Karratha has provided in-principle support for three business proposals that could see land at the site of Karratha Airport transformed into an eco-hub.

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Solar Hot Water Diverters Beat Batteries On Energy Storage

battery vs hot water cylinder

If you want to store your solar energy, should you put it in a battery or in your hot water cylinder?

 

Update: Compare all the hot water diverters available in Australia here.

How A Diverter Can Give You Solar Hot Water And Store Energy At A Lower Cost Than Batteries

A solar hot water diverter is an electronic device that sends surplus electricity from your rooftop solar to your electric hot water cylinder.  This reduces, or even eliminates, the need to use grid electricity to heat water.  Under the right circumstances diverters can save you money and allow you to store energy at a cost lower than batteries.

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How To Use a Fronius Smart Meter To Solar Power Your Hot Water

fronius hot water diversion

Note to installers: Don’t wire directly in to bathtub or the duck will die.

Over the past week or so I’ve been politely prodded  by a plethora of people pushing me to provide information pertaining to solar hot water diverters.

A ‘hot water diverter’ is a box of power electronics that that sucks up your homes’ surplus solar electricity and diverts it to an electric hot water system instead of exporting it to the grid where it would earn a feed-in-tariff.  If the whole system is well designed and installed it will  greatly reduce or even eliminate using grid electricity for water heating. [Read more…]

What Does The Reduced STC Price Mean For Solar?

Solar salesperson

STC prices dropping means solar prices have risen. What has that done to solar payback times?

We were warned.

We all knew this was coming.

But who among us was prepared for the recent tumble in the price of STCs that lower the cost of rooftop solar?

Well, I was. [Read more…]

Unapproved Solar Panels In Clean Energy Regulator’s Crosshairs

Non-compliant solar panels - Australia

CER crackdown on non-compliant solar panels

The Clean Energy Regulator has announced it is targeting installations of unapproved solar panels for which STC’s have been claimed – and has already taken its first scalp.

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WA’s City of Kwinana Saving With Solar Power

Solar panels

City of Kwinana Installs More Renewable Energy Capacity | Image: Public Domain

The City of Kwinana in Western Australia recently installed 384 solar panels on the Darius Wells Library and Resource Centre.

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Solar To Help Cut Queensland Police Service Electricity Costs

Solar powered police stations in Queensland

Leanne Linard MP And Assistant Commissioner Brian Wilkins | Image : QPS

Solar panels to be rolled out on the rooftops of 40 police stations in Queensland will put a dent in QPS’s $13.5 million (and rising) annual electricity spend.

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