Is it OK to put East and West facing panels on a single input inverter?
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Enphase Battery Is Impressive But Very Unlikely To Save You Money
The Enphase AC battery. image: Enphase
Until now, if you have been one of the highly intelligent and undoubtedly good looking people with a grid connect solar system and you wanted to add batteries, you were looking at spending at least $10,000.
But that will no longer be the case in August when the teeny tiny $2,000 Enphase AC Battery becomes available in Australia. [Read more…]
Solar + Flywheel Microgrid Saves 400,000 Litres of Diesel Annually
Solar has been installed with a huge flywheel to smooth its output in WA. The result is a town that is 60% solar powered, and a 400,000 litre reduction in annual diesel usage. Great Aussie innovation!
We’ve all seen the success of solar energy in our cities and regional towns. Australians are voting with their rooftops for clean, green solar power and the trend is increasing as solar reaches grid parity. But what of communities in our vast Outback? What of our small remote towns currently reliant on polluting fossil fuels such as diesel? It is here that microgrids, solar energy and the Outback are coming together to create a new, cleaner energy future.
In doing so, these microgrids for remote communities are giving the country a glimpse of a new way of accessing energy. [Read more…]
Will the Solar Council’s campaign in Canning help bring down a prime minister?
Will Abbott’s war on solar hurt his party’s prospects in Canning?
The heat is really on in Western Australia with the entry of solar energy in the Canning by election campaign. The seat which was recently vacated following the untimely death of then sitting member Don Randall, has become a focus for those looking for an indication of the electorate’s opinion on the government’s performance.
The previous incumbent was a popular representative and enjoyed a healthy margin in the opinion polls. However this has been whittled away in recent times due to the federal government’s incompetence, intransigence or bad luck, depending on your political point of view. [Read more…]
Are millions of solar roofs making solar farms pointless?
Are solar roofs making solar power stations uneconomic?
Utility scale solar, or solar farms, are fields of PV panels which generate electricity that is fed directly into the grid. Currently we don’t have much of this in Australia. Over 99% of our solar capacity is point of use which is mostly on rooftops and the juice it does produce is first used to power the household or business it is on top of and then after that the excess is generally fed into the grid. [Read more…]
Royalla solar farm shows states, territories need to step up on renewables
A field near Canberra, yesterday.
We had a mini solar energy revolution in Australia this week: the opening of Australia’s largest solar farm at Royalla, near Canberra.
Funded by Spanish renewable energy giant Fotowatio Renewable Ventures, the 20 megawatt solar farm is monstrous by Australian standards. Comprised of 83,000 solar panels — which will be enough to power 4,500 homes — the farm is a major step forward in the ACT government’s plan to source 90 percent (yes you read right) of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. [Read more…]
Solar power users left fuming at betrayal in the West
This numpty thinks he can rip up 75,000 commercial contracts!
It was a grim atmosphere here at the SQHQ bunker earlier this week as Finn popped his head around the corner to deliver the news of the solar power betrayal in the West.
He was talking of course of Premier Colin “The Backstabber” Barnett and his chair sniffing mate “Two-up” Troy Buswell to slash the feed-in tariff in Western Australia from 40c to 20c in the next year. The decision, which (call me cynical) coincides with attempts to bend over backwards for the state’s fossil fuel giants, will affect 75,000 WA households that installed solar from mid 2010 to 2011 on the promise of the 40c level. The cuts renege on a 10-year agreement to maintain solar feed-in tariffs in WA. [Read more…]
WA Labor on solar power: trick or treat?
Is WA Labor’s idea to let Joe Public buy solar on government roofs a goer?
How serious is the West Australian Labor Party’s offer to open up the state’s renewable energy market should it win power in this month’s election? Superb, groundbreaking idea to include all in the solar power revolution? Or as one of our Facebook Page readers succinctly put it; is it a case of “promises, promises”? [Read more…]
Bob Brown and solar energy: the Senator’s real legacy
Bob Brown – photo credit flickr:james_tCA
As Greens leader Senator Bob Brown bowed gracefully out of politics this week, news of the latest milestone in the construction of Australia’s largest solar farm shows he is leaving Australian politics a far more supportive place for solar energy than he found it.
Despite some sniping from political enemies both in and out of Parliament (including a predictable diatribe from a well-known Opposition wingnut saying that Senator Brown’s legacy will be the carbon tax), opinion from commentators was that he was that rare political animal: an honest representative with a clear vision. This was particularly so on renewable energy. [Read more…]
What is solar tower technology?
News that the Perth-based renewable energy company Hyperion Energy is planning to build a solar tower in mid-west Western Australia sent your correspondent scurrying to the research files this week.
According to the company website, Hyperion have purchased a 127,000 hectare site near the town of Tuckanarra. The site is near mines and an airport and is judged to have a low risk of natural disasters such as earthquakes or cyclones. Chiefly though, the main advantage of the site for the location of a solar tower is the “horizon solar radiation of 2300MJ/m2” (read huge), according to the company.
The theory behind the solar tower technology sounds simple enough. A flat, large expanse of a greenhouse-like material is spread around the base of a tall tower. When the sun heats the air under the material it rises (remember your science?) and as such has only one place where it can go: the central solar tower (see diagram). The hot air is forced through the narrow space of the tower where it causes a wind which turns a number of turbines inside the tower.
Hyperion points to three key advantages of solar tower technology over other forms of tapping the sun’s energy.
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