In 12 years I had 3 different solar instillations on my yacht. None ever did the full job, & none lasted a full 2 years.

I tried one commercial wind generator, & one made by a boffin. The commercial thing was more trouble than it was worth. The boffin thing may have kept the batteries up, but took up so much space, & made such an annoying noise, it made living on the yacht unpleasant. No it didn't float.

When I asked my brother in law, an engineer, the best thing about moving into town his immediate reply, connection to the grid.

When we moved ashore off my yacht our 4 year old daughter asked, "will the house have real electric daddy, or just the Mickey Mouse stuff like the boat.

Out of the mouths of babes, & just so true.

Hi John
I am impressed that you apologized for your flowery language, it is rare to see anyone on a forum have the decency to do it.

I am not claiming that everyone can just dump the grid tomorrow. I do however think that it makes sound economic sense for a typical householder to add solar panels while remaining connected to the grid.

I also believe that if Australia had the will it could get close to a 100% renewable power. I have my doubts about northern Europe on the other hand. The biggest problem I see is the vested interest of big coal power stations. It is important to remember that to achieve this goal you have to use all available renewable sources. I don’t know why we don’t make use of geothermal power; we have numerous places where hot water is available particularly in the great artesian basin, and in the great divide. In SE Australia we have the happy situation that peek loads due to air-conditioning use happen to coincide with the lots of solar power availability and often plenty of wind.

Hi Hasbeen
I am not surprised that solar power is not that wonderful on a yacht. Lack of space, orientation of panels, and a harsh environment all conspire to make it problematic.
Solar roof panels are typically guaranteed for at least 20 years to achieve 80% capacity. Our clubs panels have been in place for 6 years and show no noticeable deterioration but anyway are guaranteed.

Re the example of my club the power line was 1.5 ks from our doorstep the last quote we had to bring power to our doorstep was $50,000 we were told afterwards that we could have got it done cheaper, the solar system cost us $28,000 but in any event we were a long way ahead.

My estimate as to how much we saved on power bills is a bit iffy, because after 10 years or so we will have to replace the batteries, which is a postponed cost we will eventually have to pay. The good news is battery capacity continues to improve and prices continue to fall. On the other hand power bills will almost certainly increase over the next decade especially if grid power consumption continues to decline.

The critical issue is the connection to the distribution system. This provides system stability, reliability, avoids the cost of batteries (eg clubhouse and yacht) and much more.

Having only a couple of days back tossed out a deep freeze full of rotten meats due to loss of power, I am reminded that continuity of service (ie availability and reliability) are nice to have.

Thus, any domestic PV system must consist of (at least):
(A) Adequate Off-Grid. PV array, inverter and batteries, plus backup (diesel?) small generator.
(B) Basic Off-grid. PV array, inverter, batteries plus an acceptance of unreliability and an acceptance of risks due to non-availability of supply. This has a (negative) comparison value wrt Options A and C.
(C) Grid-connected. PV array, inverter plus connection to the grid. A pro-rata share of the overall capital cost of the whole SE Australia transmission and distribution system rightly belongs in the costings, plus the cost of connection and metering capital and operating costs (your clubhouse's $18k).

However, the article which started all this ignores cases A, B and C and discusses the wholly unacceptable and impractical and insufficient option as being panels plus inverter only. This is not being "fully cost competitive", as was stated in the opening sentence.

This is attempted fraud. It certainly does not compare the costs of outcomes which a customer might find comparable or acceptable.

It is "doing a Diesendorf". (See ZCA2020 to understand where this term comes from.)

i try TO IGNORE THESE FOOLS
but..PLEASE NOTE..THE COST OF COAL[BEFORE YOU GUYS BEgan screwing them and shutting theM DOWN[OR THE FUTURE CARBON CREIT PRICED COAl

THING IS..THEse..fools..DONT REALISE WHY THEY ARE GETTING NEAR 4 TIMES THE COal price generated powER PRICES[THE EXPECTATION IS THAT keep doubling up the price of coal/and 55 cents buy back will look cheap

how to say..[nay demand/thEY INCLUDE PRICES/WHEN THE PRICE PARITY
FINALY SETTLES..TRIPPLE THE COST TODAY.

RELitivly speaking..55 cent buy back mob wiLL THEM BEGIN TO FEEL AS WE WHO GAVE THEM THeir free lunch feel today[SURE WAY BACK..IF MY POWER BILLS WERE the same..in a tyear as free solar cells/i too [as a huge user abuser/POWeR USER[IF SO THEN YES I WOULD TOO HAVE SNAFLED UP 55 CENTS extortion fron everyone else

i now seE THOSE FACTORY ROVES/AND Rooves on them semii private public buILDINGS AS A WAY TO DO A HUGE CASH CRAB FOR THE ARTS/AND SPORT STADIUMS/OFF SETTING THEIR HUGe powr costs/of my full rice power bill

you scum are doing treason
how dare you lot keep pronising[all rEADY MY POWRR RATE HAS DOUBLED
CODE RADS COAL .SOLAR PARITY[SURE/but at what cost?..who is gETTING THE BIG BUCKS BY THE HECTARE?..audit their boOKS[I HEAR SOME ARE TAKING OFF peak..at 11 cents/to charge up solar cells/by lights/to sell back at 55 cents/24/7..MINUS THe two hours off peak shuts off.

GREAT ENRON SCAMING
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/05/enron-2-0-wall-street-wants-manipulate-state-energy-markets-just-like-manipulates-every-market.html

AHH YA GOTTA LOVE NEST FEATHERING
NOW HOW..TO/JUSt get the coal price up..TILL 55 CENTS LOOKS CHEAPER

YOUR GREAT GRANDkids will reap the pain
done by fear mongering spin/of big money down the drain.
THIUNK WHAT OUR POWER EXPENDITURE USED TO SUPPORT/NO MORE FAMILY TREats/thanks to you greenie freaks.

die/your EXCESS IS KILLING ME

John

Case B is simply incorrect our club system is more reliable than the grid. We have never had a power outage since we went solar. The system is very reliable because we are using a bank of batteries, it is highly improbable that enough batteries would fail at the same time to take down the power and anyway in the worst case we just flick a switch to start the generator.

The only problem is that we have to start the generator if we wish to use equipment which has a very high current draw such as a wielder. The only other time our club has to start the generator is when we have a dozen or more people staying for over a week. On a regular basis we run 3 large fridge’s, a desk top computer, wifi, a combined fax scanner printer, communication equipment, numerous lights, a large television for presentations, several battery charges for the onsite vehicles and sometimes provide power to a couple of caravans as well.

Re ZCA2020
To achieve zero emissions by 2020 while perhaps theoretically possible is not going to happen. To be clear I do not consider it practical to replace all transport needs with renewables but I do think it is a no-brainer to achieve this for the power grid. Rational economics dictate that a period of greater than 10 years would be required.