Discover why Finn won’t turn on heating in SolarQuotes’ office. The pair also chat about SwitchDin’s little box of tricks, Tesla Megapack, Enphase and more.
Solar Homes Clusterf**k
00:07 – Ronald and Finn are rugged up to save on heating costs thanks to the mess created by Victoria’s rebooted solar rebate. While Finn is joking about the heating, he’s not about the situation – there are many solar businesses in Victoria in a terrible position.
The Victorian Government may have set out to help the residential solar power industry – without being asked to – but it is instead destroying it.
The effect of the Victorian Solar Homes rebate shemozzle is bad enough, but Minister for Solar Homes Lily D’Ambrosio’s comments last week regarding the damage being done just rubbed salt into the wound it inflicted.
“This is a significant change in the way the solar industry operates and we’re working with the sector to help them adapt – but we make no apologies for making it cheaper and easier for families to install solar and take control of their energy bills,” Minister D’Ambrosio is quoted as saying.
Some of that “help” has included providing a struggling solar business requesting assistance information on how to lay people off. The Minister’s “no apologies” response didn’t sit well with Finn.
“Well, you should make some f***ing apologies – people are losing their homes and businesses, when all you have to do is tweak the program,” he states.
Nor Ronald.
“I don’t care, do any face-saving shit you need to preserve your ego – just fix the problem.”
Minister D’Ambrosio claims the Government is not setting a cap on solar installation activity in the state, saying there are other opportunities for selling solar – such as to those not eligible for the rebate (just 10% of households) or commercial-scale projects (that have their own risks).
As Finn points out:
“If you want to be good at installing residential solar, quite a good strategy is just to focus on residential solar … The smaller guys who just wanted to do residential and do it well are on the verge of extinction.”
Finn then shows a graph demonstrating how residential PV demand has fallen off a cliff as a result of the rebooted rebate. Figures indicate that in July, the amount of solar installed was little more than the 3,333 rebates issued. This is the level the sector was installing back in January 2018; well before the first phase of the rebate in August last year.
“The numbers don’t lie,” says Finn.
The situation is also driving up the price of solar, with companies needing to whack on extra in order to cover the costs of administrative burden involved with the Solar Homes scheme. Everyone is losing due to the Andrews Labor Government’s stubbornness.
UPDATE: The Smart Energy Council and Solar Cutters announced yesterday they will be holding another Victorian Solar Rally at 11am Thursday; this time outside the Premier’s office at 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne.
“The Victorian Government needs to hear loud and clear that their Solar Homes Program has been an absolute disaster and must be fixed immediately,” said the Smart Energy Council.
Further details about the Save Solar Rally can be viewed here.
SwitchDin’s Little Box Of Tricks
23:01 – Finn chats about SwitchDin’s “Droplet” hardware and software technology that translates the languages various batteries and inverters use so they can all communicate with a central controller. The idea is to enable anyone with a solar power and battery installation to participate in a Virtual Power Plant (VPP), microgrid or both. SwitchDin has been selected by Horizon Power to provide its technology to accommodate high levels of small-scale solar and batteries that will be part of the Onslow microgrid project in Western Australia.
Tesla’s Porta-Potti Bigger Battery
11:40 – The pair discuss Tesla’s Megapack large-scale energy storage solution, which Ronald thinks looks like a row of high-end portable toilets at Glastonbury. Tesla’s Megapack offers up to 3 megawatt-hours (MWh) of storage and 1.5 MW of power – a big step up from the Powerpack (50kW power and 210 kWh storage per unit).
Best Review Of The Week
12:58 – As chosen by SQ team member Ned. The best review selected was for Easy Being Green in New South Wales. The reviewer purchased an 8kW SolarEdge panel/optimiser/hybrid inverter system along with an LG 9.8 kilowatt hour battery. The customer was provided all the information and options he needed by the company and the installation process went smoothly. Finn and Ronald commented the price the reviewer paid was very reasonable.
A Stellar Q2 For Enphase
14:41 – Enphase had a huge second quarter this year, shipping approximately 1,283,680 microinverter units compared to 675,000 in Q2 last year. While Finn is an Enphase shareholder and loves Enphase hardware, he’s not a fan of the monitoring software.
“It’s really hard to work out if your solar system is doing what it should do,” he says. “I always advise people get Enphase and Solar Analytics monitoring”.
Finn commented Enphase microinverters add to the cost of a system, but installers have reported reliability of the latest generation has been excellent.
The Economic Impact Of Climate Change
17:43 – Finn and Ronald discuss Ronald’s monster article on Moody’s report on climate change, which states the world may see $100 trillion in related economic damage by 2100. Ronald says it could be far higher as the report omitted aspects that couldn’t be calculated.
“.. the increased risk of conflict, increased risk of internal conflict, refugees, extinctions – loss of biodiversity; all sorts of things haven’t been included.”
Moody’s says we’re not going to have more than 2 degrees of warming on the current path.
“The bad news is that could still kill hundreds of millions of people,” says Ronald.
Feed-In Tariffs, GST and Ergon
20:30 – This article resulted from a query from a Queensland Ergon customer who discovered the solar feed-in tariff set by the state’s competition regulator doesn’t make provision for GST, while Ergon indicates it does. Our subsequent enquiries with Ergon regarding the issue were ignored. The situation also highlights the struggle to get accurate information from electricity retailers, which often have incorrect info on their web sites.
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