Hundreds of Australian community groups have scored federal government cash for energy efficiency projects, including solar panel and battery installations.
Community groups often run on the smell of an oily rag – perhaps not the best idiom to use on a solar energy focused web site. Electricity can be a major expense, diverting funds from the important work they perform. Power bills have become an even greater challenge for many during the pandemic as demand for their services increased.
The Powering Communities Program, applications for which opened in March last year and closed in July, set out to provide all 151 Federal electorates with $67,700 each to fund small energy-efficiency related projects. Not-for-profit community organisations were invited to apply by their local MPs, who then with the assistance of a committee representing the local community nominated projects.
Grants of between $5,000 and up to $12,000 were available for projects; with no co-contribution required. Recipients were announced yesterday and around 980 community groups received grants.
“Local jobs will also be supported through the energy-efficiency measures funded by the program, which includes projects like installing solar panels and batteries, replacing lighting with LEDs, and upgrading air conditioners, hot water systems or refrigerators with more efficient models,” said Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor.
Solar Power A Star Attraction
Solar power systems were a very common project to appear in the winners list, with 545 mentions. Battery storage also put in a good showing, with 72 mentions – at times combined with solar panels.
$12,000 can buy a pretty big rooftop solar system capable of shaving thousands of dollars off a group’s electricity bills each year, and for many years. A 10kW solar system costs in the range of $8,000 – $13,000 at the moment, depending on installation location and the type of components used.
These projects are going to generate a significant amount of activity in the short term as they are required to be completed by 30 June 2022.
The full grant winners list can be viewed here.
Harshing The Warm And Fuzzy Buzz
Of course, no Morrison Government announcement of this nature at this point in time would be complete without putting the boot into the Opposition, and Assistant Minister Wilson (unfortunately) didn’t fail to deliver.
“The Morrison Government is focused on empowering community groups, businesses and households to be part of our journey to carbon neutrality,” he said. “Unlike Labor’s tax-first approach, our focus on technology is helping to lower Australia’s emissions, while also reducing electricity bills.”
So, where did the grant money come from? It’s pretty safe to assume taxes were involved to some degree.
That unnecessary comment aside and credit where credit is due, the Powering Communities Program is a great initiative.
Minister Taylor appeared to be in a brighter mood when announcing the winners after his recent episode of wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the proposed early exit of Eraring Power Station, a coal-fired emissions-spewing clunker that Origin Energy wants to close in 2025. This is seven years earlier than originally intended and largely due to downwards pressure on wholesale electricity prices from renewables.
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An article spruiking solar seems as good a time as any to point out that alternative to solar are still required – today being a perfect example.
Around noon today, if it were clear and sunny, solar should be providing whatever your inverter is rated for i.e. 5kW per hour or 10 kW per hour. Since it’s dark and rainy, solar is only providing 100 W or so per hour! (And that’s with a large system). That’s not enough to even cover basic appliances and so today will be one of the highest power use days in months (ever?) not because there’s a lot of power actually used, but because there’s next to no solar happening.
I could say thank goodness for coal, but the above is probably already ‘controversial’ enough to set some folk to frothing. :-|)
I see rooftop solar output has plunged in Sydney to about 6% of what it would be if it was clear. This is unusual. Generally it doesn’t go under 10%. The good news it should improve this afternoon. For the state as a whole, it’s not too bad with rooftop solar producing about two-thirds what it was at this time yesterday.
What we’ve got at the moment here in QLD is verging towards an extreme weather event (measured in terms of rainfall).
My system only generated 2.66 kw for the whole day, due to dense cloud cover and rain most of the day
Comparing this to my daily Feb figures for the years since Dec 2017, there’s been a general pattern of one or two exceptionally low days in Feb each year, along with intermittent periods below average lasting 3 to 4 days.
Overall though,my total monthly output for each February has been reasonably consistent within a band of 714 to 822 kwh.
In relation to coal, nuclear etc. recent international events highlight the fact that having a ‘firmed’ system heavily based on those is completely useless if it means that a country’s entire grid, (or even just the grids for one or two major cities) can then potentially be brought down with a few well-placed missiles, or through remote sabotage via cybersecurity attacks originating thousands of kilometres away.
“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst” is an ancient adage which now seems very applicable in these uncertain times.
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Des Scahill,
“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst” is an ancient adage which now seems very applicable in these uncertain times.
IMO, we aren’t preparing for the worst – many people are still in denial (on many things).
The former Australian Chief Scientist (from Nov 2008 to Mar 2011), Professor Penny Sackett, told the Independent Planning Commission NSW (IPCN) at a public hearing on Feb 18 (from the transcript on pages 8-9):
Transcript: https://www.ipcn.nsw.gov.au/resources/pac/media/files/pac/transcripts-and-material/2022/narrabri-underground/220218-narrabri-underground-mine-stage-3-public-hearing-transcript-day-2.pdf
Professor Sackett’s Presentation Slides: https://www.ipcn.nsw.gov.au/resources/pac/media/files/pac/projects/2021/12/narrabri-underground-mine-stage-3-extension-project-ssd-10269/public-hearing-presentations/220218-penny-sackett.pdf
I totally agree with you Geoff that “many people are still in denial (on many things),
Thanks for including those links – I’ve read the full transcript of the hearing, and the current scientific evidence fully supports Professor Penny Sackett’s conclusions. I’d certainly recommend that others read that transcript too, and draw their own conclusions.
According to this Moscow Times article, climate change consequences have already severely impacted Russia,
See: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/11/02/how-is-climate-change-impacting-russia-a75469
To quote from the article: “This melting is already reshaping the landscape of the tundra and is expected to cause significant damage to human settlements and key energy and transportation infrastructure. And as permafrost melts, it releases long-stored greenhouse gases like methane, triggering an accelerating feedback loop of warming.
President Vladimir Putin recently told his government to come up with a plan to counter this threat, which is projected to cost the Russian economy billions of dollars by 2050.”
Professor Penny Sackett’s submission of course relates to Australia in particular, however it also draws upon the state of affairs in other countries to make it quite clear that
(a) Australia is certainly ‘punching well above it’s weight’ in terms of polluting the entire planet
(b) Past inadequate action in dealing with the problem simply means that the problem grows bigger at an exponential rate, which in turn has the effect of bringing an earlier date point for the occurrence of catastrophic. consequences. That earlier date point was recently around 2035, but is now heading rapidly towards 2030.
(c) Because ‘tipping points’ have now begun to be reached some of those impacts can no longer be avoided, no matter what we do, and as the number of tipping points increase so too will the flow-on consequences..
Forget any attempts to blithely slowly paddle a canoe towards 2050 on mostly untroubled waters while debating choices as whether or not to add a ‘coal burning’, methane, or blue hydrogen motor to its stern in order to speed up progress.
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Des, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst is great advice. The current ‘extreme weather event’ you refer to is an example how a power system could be tested.
Those relying on solar + battery can usually probably get away with just enough capacity to cover dusk to dawn and maybe a little extra. The current event however is what, Day 2 of negligible solar generation with the BoM site predicting at least one more day of heavy cloud and rain and I heard someone mentioned a new low forming. For anyone completely offgrid, or with an apocalypse proofed system in one of the areas that’ve lost power, that’d be what, enough battery capacity to cover 4 nights and 3 days with negligible recharging via solar generation? That’s very very expensive!
I agree that a fixed\centralised grid relying on coal, nuclear, hydro etc power is more vulnerable to enemy nation attacks than solar systems on every roof, but the grid can’t handle full decentralisation, and night – or heavy cloud\rain events, tend to provide little solar. Then too there’s the ongoing issue of grid failures. IF batteries ever drop to a price that they’re viable (perhaps 40% of current price?), then a battery in every home with solar might be possible. Of course grid connections will get really expensive if that’s the case since retailers won’t be selling electricity so much as security. Oh that fixed\centralised generation will probably still be required for big industry. Not sure you could power an aluminium smelter just off household generation – at least not with current limits.
George, anyone off-grid will have power supply redundancy for longer periods of poor insolation as well as for periods of system downtime, maintenance or repair. Typically that’s a generator. There is no need to overspend on storage.
They will also have quite a different energy consumption profile compared with a typical McMansion. Off-grid homes focus on building in energy efficiency measures from the ground up and especially ways to reduce consumption considerably. They also often have alternative means of heating, cooking and managing water.
My own off-grid backup system will easily get us through a Winter night and in the daytime the off-grid solar is generally plenty to keep essential loads running and recharge the battery. If it’s not (e.g. if the weather is still very poor), then the generator can run for a couple of hours and that will supply enough charge to the battery for another 8-10 hours of backup.
Can I quote you on that? 😀
I agree it’s unusual, but my guess is no improvement before Sunday – and that’s assuming no powercuts.
If I’m wrong, well I can post a solar update. Current solar generation is … 49 W per hour, current solar yield for today is … 0.784 kWh.
Perhaps by tonight I’ll have produced enough to boil an egg?