Solargain https://pure-electric.com.au/ en Nine myths about new energy https://pure-electric.com.au/node/673 <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/fields/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>Nine myths about new energy</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/fields/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span>admin</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden">Mon, 10/15/2018 - 13:22</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/menu/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/menu/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-image--blog.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-image.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--field-blog-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-blog-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field--item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/2018-10/new-energy.png" width="1009" height="476" alt="" class="img-fluid" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p class="text-align-justify">Nine myths about new energy</p> <p class="text-align-justify"> </p> <p class="text-align-justify">I will begin this list with my first introduction to a myth about renewable energy, put forward by the 'pro-nuclear, pro-coal, anti-renewable' advocates circa 2005:</p> <p class="text-align-justify"> </p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em>1) ‘We could never integrate more than 5% intermittent renewables (they meant wind and solar) into an electricity grid.’</em></p> <p class="text-align-justify">Fast-forward to 2015, South Australia is going to be 35% renewable powered next year with a plan to reach 50% in the not-too-distant future. And there’s no reason why this contribution can’t double. Denmark gets 40% of its electricity from wind and is aiming for 100% renewables (that’s <em>all </em>energy including heating and transportation). And after a very slow start compared to neighbouring Germany, the Danes are now going gangbusters installing solar on their rooftops.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em>2) ‘Wind turbines will never pay back the energy to produce them.’</em></p> <p class="text-align-justify">This one’s a real doozy – wind power has some of the quickest energy payback of any technology. Even out of date 'life cycle' assessments put wind power’s energy payback time at five to six months; compare this to a wind farm’s 30-year lifespan (onshore windfarms can last even longer, especially in drier areas) and the truth is that wind farms produce at least 60 times the energy that was required to make them. A new generation of turbines in development by the world’s biggest energy industry technology player, General Electric, will dramatically reduce material inputs for wind turbines and reduce payback time to around two months, thus giving an EROI factor (energy returned on energy invested) in excess of 100.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em>3) ‘The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine; therefore wind and <a href="https://pure-electric.com.au/products/rooftop-solar">solar </a>are unreliable sources of energy and need more back-up.’</em></p> <p class="text-align-justify">Much as it pains me to have to debunk this well-worn myth (without simply saying ‘go look up a company called Tesla’) it just got mouthed by none other than Tony ‘I’m not a tech-head’ Abbott. Perhaps the Prime Minister should seek some technical advice from the Germans and Danes – with higher penetrations of renewable energy than Australia they suffer far far fewer hours of grid reliability issues when compared to the Australian grid. Existing coal, gas and hydro plant in Northern Europe balances wind and solar right up to a future of 60% of total annual energy from those renewable sources, according to studies commissioned by grid operators National Grid in the UK and Energinet of Denmark. But of course, along the way the power storage industry is gearing up to deploy batteries behind the meter and on the grid (by innovating and slashing prices) well before we get anything like 60% penetration of renewable energy on the Australian grid or even before the aforementioned Danes or Germans manage it.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em>4) 'Additional renewable generation has not replaced conventional generation in the usual sense; just adding capacity to the energy mix without forcing the retirement of conventional plant.’</em></p> <p class="text-align-justify">Wrong again. We only have to travel to South Australia to see that wind and solar – which produce about 35% of the state’s electricity with the recent commissioning of TrustPower’s Snowtown II wind farm– have displaced fossil fuel generation. An example of this is the announcement by Alinta Energy that it will will shutter and decommission all its coal-fired power generation capacity at the Playford and Northern coal power stations. Along with these two power plants, the Leigh Creek coal mine and connecting railway will also be shuttered.  This has occurred due to the introduction of renewables and it is only the beginning ... as it becomes clear that renewables are the cheapest source of energy, the decline of the fossil fuel sector will accelerate in Australia and around the world.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em>5) ‘People in the developing world will need to consume energy equivalent to current per capita consumption in the West (about 40GJ per person per year) if their standard of living is to be raised up to be equal to the West.’</em></p> <p class="text-align-justify">This is another mistaken bit of analysis which looks at the gross energy required to deliver services (that make up a First World lifestyle) rather than the services themselves. With improved technology, I have shown that a household in a typical ‘Western’ city such as Melbourne can go from using 114GJ of energy per year to just 13GJ per year (and exporting 72 GJ). This was achieved by switching from gas to electricity for heating, cooking and hot water and installing solar, all of which has an economic payback for the householder above the government bond rate. Further improvements are possible that would more than halve the 13GJ per year that is used, which means a cleverly designed house (and an electric car) along with an upgrade to industry can support a Western lifestyle and consume the same amount of energy as people in Vietnam (which uses ~30GJ per capita per year) or Cambodia (15GJ per capita per year).</p> <p class="text-align-justify">(By the way, the Melbourne volume built house in the case study was a whopping 288sqm.)</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em>6) ‘The rebound effect, or Jevons paradox or Kazoom Brooks, means that energy saved in efficiency will be wasted in other ways.’</em></p> <p class="text-align-justify">Oil companies and gas and electricity utilities don’t like to see customers using less of their products so they’re always out to try and give the idea that any effort put into energy efficiency will be wasted. Economies like Denmark, Germany and the parts of the US have shown how decoupling energy from growth is quite simple when you move away from traditional energy development paths. My previous example, of the house which reduced energy consumption by 90%, occurred with a minimum of rebound (indeed it would be hard to see where the house could waste the 90% of energy saved even if it wanted to). If energy drops for someone’s house and transportation by 85-90% it doesn’t really matter if they have a 5% or 10% rebound the change is still disruptive and should refocus society’s thinking on what is possible.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em>7) ‘Past solar installations in Spain, Italy, Germany and Australia cost a bomb and were a waste of money.’</em></p> <p class="text-align-justify">Wrong; they were an excellent investment for all of the world’s peoples, including the citizens in each of those pioneering countries. Every panel that has been installed has made the next solar panel cheaper. The heavy lifting that Germany, Spain, Italy, China and Australia have done has given the world power that is, on average, cheaper than what is available on the world’s grids and what will in the future be cheaper than power generated from any other source anywhere on earth.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em>8) ‘The merit-order effect will make solar power generated in the middle of the day worthless causing the technology to cannibalise its own market.’</em></p> <p class="text-align-justify">The answer to this one isn’t just storage but electric vehicle charging. People, on the whole, use their cars in the morning from 6am-9am and in the evening from 3:30pm-7pm. In between is the middle of the day, and that’s when the contribution from the sun is at its greatest.  Whether it’s from charge points at your workplace or from your home solar array, it’s obvious that in the future the low cost of solar during the day will give us cheap travel. Solar won’t be wasted – it will be turned into forward motion for our cars with the rest stored for cooking and space conditioning in the evening.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em>9) ‘Solar will never be cheap enough to complete with fossil fuels.’ </em></p> <p class="text-align-justify">Hmmm, gee, well it’s really cheap in developing countries. And that’s because labour is now dwarfing the cost of the hardware in the developed world. But solar costs are coming down in countries like Australia as well. It used to be 10  times the price of what the technology is today (but that goes for almost all technology – think computers or mobile phones). People who said solar would never be cheap enough seriously jumped the gun and lacked the imagination and foresight to see the trend that indicated this technology would become very cheap and, therefore, the energy source demanded by all. One way that solar will get cheaper is where the labour used to roof our houses will instead roof them in solar panels. That means the incremental labour costs for solar on new houses will be almost eliminated.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">There are many many more myths about renewables to be debunked (some honourable mentions include ‘solar panels can’t face south’ and ‘batteries will always be expensive’), indeed there are about as many as there are entrenched interests who desperately want solar to not disrupt their nice, cosy and lucrative world of energy supply.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">But if you’re sharp then you’ll be getting familiar with <a href="https://pure-electric.com.au/products/rooftop-solar">solar</a>, whether it’s as an investor on your roof, investor in a listed solar company or an angel investor in some new innovation that just may be the next thing that makes solar even cheaper again.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em><a href="https://pure-electric.com.au/staff/matthew-wright"><strong>Matthew Wright</strong></a> holds a graduate diploma in engineering and is executive director of Zero Emissions Australia, technical director at Efficiency Matrix and resident columnist at </em>Climate Spectator<em>.</em></p> <p class="text-align-justify"><a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator/news-story/nine-myths-about-new-energy/149edf16cfe5d1dab6288451ee0f3f0a"><em>The Australian</em></a></p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-category--blog.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-category.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--field-blog-category.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-blog-category field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1" hreflang="en">Uncategoried</a></div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-tags--blog.html.twig * field--node--field-tags.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--field-tags.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field__items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/pure-electric-1" hreflang="en">pure electric</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/new-energy" hreflang="en">new energy</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/australian" hreflang="en">the australian</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/solar-roof" hreflang="en">solar roof</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/solargain" hreflang="en">Solargain</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/matthew-wright" hreflang="en">Matthew Wright</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> Mon, 15 Oct 2018 02:22:38 +0000 admin 673 at https://pure-electric.com.au 3 reasons Grattan got it wrong on solar https://pure-electric.com.au/node/663 <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/fields/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>3 reasons Grattan got it wrong on solar</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/fields/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span>admin</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden">Fri, 10/12/2018 - 12:52</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/menu/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/menu/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-image--blog.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-image.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--field-blog-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-blog-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field--item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/2018-10/matthew-pure-electric.png" width="970" height="572" alt="" class="img-fluid" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p class="text-align-justify">3 reasons Grattan got it wrong on solar<br /> Former Origin Energy executive and energy program director at the Grattan Institute, Tony Wood, believes that Australia has wasted billions on <a href="https://pure-electric.com.au/products/rooftop-solar">solar PV </a>deployment and hurt the poor. Yet the real story with the deployment of solar energy technology has been the rapid decline in costs, much faster than anyone had expected or predicted. And it came most likely at the expense of shareholders in fossil fuel generators, not the poor. Here just three of the many reasons why Grattan got it so wrong on solar power.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><strong>Wrong 1: The net cost of support for solar was nearly $10 billion … if we completely ignore the primary purpose of the support programs.</strong></p> <p class="text-align-justify">Wood says that the previous preferential federal and state solar programs have cost a net $9.7 billion to deliver only one social benefit to the community – 66 million tonnes of CO2 abatement achieved over an artificial 15-year period reflecting the period of the capital subsidy.  But as was covered by my colleague Tristan Edis yesterday, solar deployment has been crucial to bringing the cost of solar technology down so we could achieve future, far larger emission cuts with confidence the costs would be affordable. As was always the case with the state based feed-in-tariffs and the federal capital subsidy, direct CO2 abatement was only one of the objectives, the main objective being long-term cost reductions.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">It’s therefore strange that Wood and others such as Bjorn Lomborg, whom Wood effectively parrots, fail to see the benefit from programs and incentives to encourage deployment. Both Wood and Lomborg believe in laboratory R&amp;D achieving cost reductions. They believe that if you give public and private institutions money then they’ll work away and achieve cost reductions and efficiency gains in energy technologies such as solar, wind, carbon sequestration and clean coal. They believe that deep in the bowels of universities, in dimly lit rooms with no windows, scientists in white gowns and protective gear will experiment, do computer simulations and eventually produce products that can be commercialised and almost straight away compete in established markets.  </p> <p class="text-align-justify">That logic is partially right, great things have been achieved in the laboratory. But greater things have been achieved when the work in a laboratory dovetails with a commercial partner. And the greatest things have been achieved in the laboratory when its work dovetails with an entire supply chain and an established industry which provides information feedback to inform and better direct the effort of laboratory researchers.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">So Wood and Lomborg’s failure is not being able to see that the greatest things have been achieved when work in the laboratory is coupled with retail markets, operating supply chains and involvement of equipment suppliers such as robotics and production line systems manufacturers. Once you get the entire supply chain operating and go through those machinations, entirely new streams of research and development are spawned as private companies that supply components get involved in the manufacture, research and development of complementary technologies. This then flows back to the old school R&amp;D in the laboratory and the result is like compound interest.  Innovation also breeds innovation as imitators and new want-to-be disruptors arrive on the scene to try to take a piece of the real tangible operating market.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">Today solar systems cost almost one-tenth of what they did when the first feed-in-tariffs in Australia were announced, and clearly programs initiated by governments in Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain, the US and China created this low-cost solar outcome. </p> <p class="text-align-justify">In several markets in the world solar is now the cheapest way to get energy, bar none. And as every day passes and another subsidised or unsubsidised panel is installed – the next panel to be installed is cheaper. This is because as the demand for solar panels rises with every new panel installed, the factories scale and R&amp;D scales continuing the downward cycle in cost. </p> <p class="text-align-justify">Without the deployment in Australia (and other countries) that Wood keeps calling a waste, this would not be occurring. Any rational person could see the massive societal benefit of these reduced costs if they believed that we needed to avoid dangerous climate change.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">The renewable energy target supporting small-scale solar technologies (as well hot water heat-pumps) was always a complementary measure that was about developing industry and getting costs down.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><strong>Wrong 2: The poor have suffered from solar’s rise</strong></p> <p class="text-align-justify">Wood’s paper repeatedly suggests that the solar subsidies have come at the expense of the poor, playing on people’s concerns about fairness. Yet in reality the cost is likely to have come at the expense of the shareholders in large electricity generators such as China Light and Power, GDF Suez, Mitsui and AGL. The other group bearing the brunt of the cost is likely to be the wealthy living in inner urban suburbs who don’t install solar systems and tend not to shop around among power retailers.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">In a conservative University of Melbourne study (McConnell et al. 2013), the extra competition from the addition of solar systems was shown to deliver reductions in overall wholesale electricity costs that were  greater than the cost of funding the solar subsidies. This is because solar destroyed most high price events in the wholesale market by displacing expensive gas generators. As wholesale prices contribute considerably to retail power bills, this effect from solar being wedged into the market lowered everyone’s electricity bills. This has been confirmed time and time again by private energy market consultants including Roam and ACIL Allen.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">Wood and his co-author David Blowers acknowledge this depressive market effect (called the merit-order effect) but then dismiss it as an unimportant wealth transfer. Yet this wealth transfer completely ameliorates any extra cost other power consumers need bare, including the poor as well as manufacturers. Wood and Blowers say this benefit has been entirely pocketed by power retailers and not the poor but where is their evidence? Analysts such as St Vincent de Paul indicate that poorer households tend to be highly price sensitive and prone to switch retailers for a better deal.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">Also, today a large consuming household on a city suburban fringes or in rural areas that might otherwise face genuine financial stress from their power bill, can source a solar system for $1.00 per watt and pay that system off in as little as five years. This has injected greater competition into the power retail market to the benefit of places like Caroline Springs, not Toorak.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><strong>Wrong 3: We should have focused on large-scale utility solar, not rooftops.</strong></p> <p class="text-align-justify">According to Wood, utility-scale is far more efficient than installing systems on rooftops. But to come to that conclusion you’d have to be ignoring the facts. Right now a quality system can be purchased from Solargain for around $5500 – or $1.75 per watt – without the STC subsidy. An even cheaper system (that I personally wouldn’t buy but would probably would work fine all the same) can be purchased from the country’s biggest independent installer, TrueValue Solar, for $1.52 per watt with no subsidy. These costs are far, far cheaper than any utility-scale installation that has been built in Australia, or even in the US where labour costs are much lower. In the US, utility-scale installations comes in at $A2.20 per watt or a whopping 150% more expensive than the TrueValue Solar system. Utility-scale systems in Australia have to date cost even more than that at close to $3.00 per watt.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">I recently installed a 25kW household system as a case study for my thesis at $1.60/W (unsubsidised price). There was a 15-day lead time in getting the installer to site and total time to install the system was four days. It was about as efficient as it gets as three men worked away for four days to get it installed. The interesting thing is that I would have paid the same if it was a much smaller 5kW system.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">If, however, I tried to put a 101kW system on a farm near a transmission line or substation then I’d need to negotiate with Wood’s former employer Origin on their terms to agree to purchase my Renewable Energy Certificates and energy. I’d have to negotiate and pay special design fees to the distributor or transmission operator I wanted to connect into. I’d have to organise and pay for a dedicated connection to the grid, I’d have to lease or buy land, I’d have to go through planning approvals and consult neighbours. And then I’d need a team of lawyers to help me with negotiating this array of red tape. The inefficiencies of a large-scale photovoltaic solar plant just keep mounting up and yet there are millions of rooftops available with north, east, west and south facing roofs ready to be plastered in solar where none of these overheads exist, which Wood fails to see.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">Plus, I get an option value from <a href="https://pure-electric.com.au/products/rooftop-solar">rooftop solar</a> that I don’t get from utility-scale; because it is located right at the point of consumption it has greater ability to enhance households’ ability to offset network distribution costs by, either, load shifting into power generation periods or taking advantage of batteries coming down in price.</p> <p><a href="https://pure-electric.com.au/staff/matthew-wright">Matthew Wright</a> holds a graduate diploma in engineering and is executive director of <a href="https://zeroemissions.org.au/">Zero Emissions Australia</a>, technical director at Efficiency Matrix and resident columnist at Climate Spectator.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em><a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator/3-reasons-grattan-got-it-wrong-on-solar/news-story/54632d63cb7eb26c31203040a4d14af3">The Australian</a></em></p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-category--blog.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-category.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--field-blog-category.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-blog-category field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field--item"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1" hreflang="en">Uncategoried</a></div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-tags--blog.html.twig * field--node--field-tags.html.twig * field--node--blog.html.twig * field--field-tags.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field__items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/pure-electric" hreflang="en">pure electric</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/matthew-wright" hreflang="en">Matthew Wright</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/rooftop-solar" hreflang="en">rooftop solar</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/australian" hreflang="en">the australian</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/solar" hreflang="en">solar</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/solargain" hreflang="en">Solargain</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> Fri, 12 Oct 2018 01:52:26 +0000 admin 663 at https://pure-electric.com.au The complete solar roof is making a big return https://pure-electric.com.au/news/complete-solar-roof-making-big-return <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--news.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--news.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/fields/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>The complete solar roof is making a big return</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/fields/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--news.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--news.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span>admin</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--news.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--news.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden">Tue, 12/01/2015 - 03:28</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/menu/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/menu/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-news-image--news.html.twig * field--node--field-news-image.html.twig * field--node--news.html.twig * field--field-news-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-news-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field--item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/2015-12/SolarCity_Tokyo_Ota_820x300.png" width="820" height="300" alt="Tokyo Ota Solar City" class="img-fluid" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--news.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--news.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p class="text-align-justify">BIPV was a buzzword that kept on buzzing while the solar industry was in its early days and solar was something that most of us had only ever seen on TV or at a technology park. </p> <p class="text-align-justify">At the time there were countless articles about how solar was going to replace building materials in what is known as Building Integrated Photovoltaics, or BIPV. Academics were excited about it and papers were getting published in academic journals and conference proceedings. They even bothered to do the economics on the technology (which proved time and time again that it was mightily expensive).</p> <p class="text-align-justify">The few heavily subsidised BIPV arrays that were installed, such as at CSIRO's Newcastle solar research facility, used very low efficiency dyes built into a sandwich of glass. They looked good as an architectural feature with glistening light refracting in different colours onto the lobby below. But from a cost and energy production perspective, they were a big fail.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"> </p> <img alt="vvvvv" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="af09be3c-b059-48cf-a318-24844d362850" src="/sites/default/files/inline-images/11_151.jpg" class="align-center" width="473" height="321" loading="lazy" /><p class="text-align-justify"><em>Image: Tokyo ward, Ota City</em></p> <p class="text-align-justify">When the solar industry hit it big time (about seven years ago) we didn't really hear much more about BIPV, the novelty being lost among the excitement of gigawatt production lines and ever more records in efficiency and cost reductions.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">Fast forward to today, rooftop panels for homes are on their way to 25%, 30%, even 40% efficiency (with multi-layering) over the coming decade so architectural "fun" BIPV, at 7% efficiency, isn't going to cut it when that's where the competition is at.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">Due to cost reductions and the need for electricity production in the coldest and cloudiest weather to run heating, north, south, east and west facing (in fact, any direction) roof panels will be economical.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">If we think of an average new house at about 250 square metres built double storey, there's about 150 sq m of rooftop available including the garage. That could be covered in about 80-90 panels, not including in-fill panels which may or may not include photovoltaic material. Today, commodity 250W panels could be sourced for $200 but in a few years this cost will likely drop by half and the panels themselves will have higher ratings. So with a cost reduction like this you could envisage $10,000 worth of panels being installed on the roof and the labour that would otherwise go to laying tiles or plumbing (yes, it's stupid you need a plumber in some states to put simple corrugated sheets down with an impact driver drill and self tapping screws – nothing but protectionism and favouritism for a trade) would now go to laying solar panels.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">The solar installation companies in this instance would have to start merging with roofing companies as regular roofing labourers would need to put the roof down and electricians would need to come into the roof (as we now have panels that replace the roof) and wire them up.</p> <p class="text-align-justify">So look out for it, at some point the roofers and solar installers will get together and the volume builders will flip to universally installing solar roofs. We'll likely see solar roofs pop up as examples first on architecturally designed one-off houses and then they'll flow into the mainstream displacing all other roof types.</p> <p class="text-align-justify"><em>And as a side note – I'll be glad to see the last of tile roofs, they're expensive, inefficient and heavy. Houses move and all the cement that locks them together cracks – they'd be better called 'rubble roofs'. Solar will save us from the scourge of rubble roofs in our suburbs!</em></p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/classy/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-tags--news.html.twig * field--node--field-tags.html.twig * field--node--news.html.twig * field--field-tags.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field--label">Tags</div> <div class="field__items"> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/pure-electric" hreflang="en">pure electric</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/solar-roof" hreflang="en">solar roof</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/solar" hreflang="en">solar</a></div> <div class="field--item"><a href="/tags/solargain" hreflang="en">Solargain</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/devweekend/templates/commerce/field/field.html.twig' --> Mon, 30 Nov 2015 16:28:05 +0000 admin 29 at https://pure-electric.com.au