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The Forum > Article Comments > Installing solar PV panels - the figures don’t add up, BUT… > Comments

Installing solar PV panels - the figures don’t add up, BUT… : Comments

By Ross Buncle, published 20/2/2009

Want to 'do your bit' and install solar panels? Do the homework and you’re in for a jolting reality check!

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I concur with Ross Buncle having done something similar a long time back before any subsidies. The analysis is about right, yet what happened at the last election is that the spin doctors on both sides saw political value in "solar panels". We got the message in the neck without any proper analysis and moreover without any real policy by either side. If we are going stick PV panels on roofs then it must be done under a proper national feed in tariff enshrined in law so the on off tinkering of federal governments can be finally stopped. Give the industry the right settings and we will progress AND create jobs. FiTs do not disadvantage the poor. FiT as a mechanism can be extended to larger systems where say warehouses and factories generate electricity.
Posted by renew, Saturday, 21 February 2009 8:13:17 AM
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What a mischievous article!

However, having no prejudice against the author's self-proclaimed position with respect to renewable energy and sustainability, I'm glad he's written this article, and titled it the way he has. It effectively opens Pandora's newly-corporatized 'junction box' of intendedly-prospective future grid electricity supply throughout Australia to public view.

The punchline of the article is "We need a simple nationalised feed-in tariffs program, based on the successful German model.".

What is not so succinctly put is that implementing a nationalised feed-in tariff based on the German model is predicated upon all retail electricity consumers paying anything up to six times as much as they presently do per unit for any electricity they draw from the grid, throughout Australia.

The objective of the proposed 80c per KwH feed-in tariff for PV electricity is, in my view, to provide an excuse for the arguably already unconstitutionally misbegotten 'national electricity market' to increase prices for its non-PV conventionally generated electricity by up to a factor of six! How do you think the government rebate is going to be funded if the uptake of these non-stand-alone, incomplete in self-sufficiency, PV panel installations increases to an extent enough to provide a significant part of the increased generating capacity projected as being required?

Promoting PV panels as if there were no other solar, let alone other sustainable energy options, that are already far more cost effective substitutes for some coal-fired power generation is based upon sheer guilt-peddling over the fact that we have had it so well in Australia compared to Germany with respect to electricity prices. It uses the cloak of 'environmental responsibility' in the form of the uptake of cost-ineffective PV panels to mask and excuse what is nothing less than a commercially opportunistic massive price-hike in an only relatively recently 'privatized' captive market.

The article's blithe presumption that PV panel-generated electricity is the only form of solar, let alone sustainable, electricity generation possible is utter rubbish.

Featherbedding photo-voltaics.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Saturday, 21 February 2009 9:00:31 AM
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And now to do a curmudgeonly thing to Curmudgeon's misleading advice.

Well, perhaps not quite. In reality Australians should consider themselves indebted to Curmudgeon for revealing so early on, in what really needs to be a national discussion, the almost reflexive anti-wood-fuel prejudice of surprisingly many self-styled proponents of renewable energy.

Wood is a natural solar energy storage system.

Wood's burning has long been correctly accepted as being greenhouse-neutral, as Curmudgeon somewhat dismissively acknowledges in his parenthetical recognition that it is part of the carbon cycle. Wood for many domestic Australian energy consumers is cheap, available, and reliable as a source of energy. Note that it is the use of wood fuel that, in conjunction with PV panels that only supply perhaps at most 20% of what would otherwise be Taswegian's household electricity requirement, brings about for that household a situation of virtual energy self-sufficiency.

The ability to use wood as a fuel is not heavily tied up with claimed intellectual property rights. Planned innovative and sophisticated wood fuel uses are far less susceptible to the depredations of, for example, 'patent trolls'. Planning for the use of wood fuelling for electricity generation can occur on both the medium, and most especially small, scale, in a largely 'open source' knowledge environment. That's hugely important, if only from the point of view of switching to reliable self-sufficient stand-alone power supply.

But there's more derivable from the increased and more sophisticated use of wood as a fuel, and that's in the area of solving the problem of the alleged overload of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Ongoing pyrolysis of wood, whether self-fueled or using solar thermal energy, with its by-product of biochar used as a soil-improver, will actually start removing CO2 from the atmosphere!

As for reducing the 'carbon footprint' of the rest of the Australian power industry, at least one cheap reliable 'open source' means of storing power is already available: solar ponds. They might, unsubsidised, with economies of scale, soon drive coal out backwards.
Posted by Forrest Gumpp, Saturday, 21 February 2009 11:20:18 AM
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Forrest

As the topic was about solar panels and not all types of available alternative energies, may I suggest you are reading far more into the author's intent than is there. Photovoltaic (PV) panels is simply another name for solar panels. Photovoltaic refers to the action of obtaining energy from a source of light as photosynthesis is the process plants use to obtain energy from sunlight. Of which I am sure you're aware.

You are quite correct is saying that conventional energy purveyors will want to make up for the loss in income that will inevitably occur should all homes and industry become more self-sufficient. It is this fear of being outmoded that prevents many alternative energy products from being implemented as quickly as those in favour of sustainable industry would like.

The German model is a good example. It is not the only way and I don't see this article as being a blatant exercise in promoting this as the only way forward. Ideally we should be looking at multiple energy sources, however without active government support we will be at the (small) mercy of the corporations. If current (no pun intended) electricity companies are unable to adapt and move into alternatives, then they deserve to go the way of many outmoded technologies.

Below is link to article & slide show looking at pros & cons of energy sources:
“Of course, all forms of energy get a carrot-and-stick treatment from governments, whether to provide work for coal miners or to prove that splitting the atom is useful for something besides bombs. But in many places, renewables get something even better: quotas. And rising prices for traditional fuels could help, raising the market to reach the renewables’ costs.”
http://www.sciam.com/slideshow.cfm?id=how-renewable-energy-and-storage

Apart from ponds and a new look at timber (which are very worthwhile) what are your suggestions on viable, sustainable, clean energy sources for home and industry?
Posted by Fractelle, Saturday, 21 February 2009 1:18:29 PM
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Fractelle asks what suggestions we might have for clean energy sources.

The first point to make is that with a modicum of sense and good engineering we can REDUCE our demand for energy by about 35%. A major retailer has done this and it remains for ALL major retailers to follow the example. 35% is worth $millions for this company. It did not require any government intervention - they just made the investment and got a handsome ROI. Now's the time.

Next we take steps to remove all old energy guzzling hot water systems and ban (for example) electric storage systems. Pick the best option for low energy - probably gas boosted solar.

We reduce demand and do as much as possible to avoid energy demand growth.

What next? Large scale solar thermal. We have the technology, the expertise and the climates. Provide the output - steam or electricity to industry to ensure the industry can grow solidly. Then turn to utility scale and provide loan guarantees to ensure investment occurs. The money IS out there.

Then look at shallow geothermal for district heating and cooling, followed by wind and waves.

PV will play a role but until we get realistic about demand, it is limited. If your home is using 25kWh/day (units) and up, don't bother - you will never generate the supply to meet that demand. Reduce your demand.

Fix up house suburban and home design to avoid the need for ANY purchased energy.
Posted by renew, Saturday, 21 February 2009 1:51:31 PM
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I think the calculations are interesting and helpful - to me they are an indicator of what happens in the "early adopter" stages of all innovations. That is, the generous or financially viable folk,who follow their environmental ideals and principles are really sacrificing themselves until the technologies reach critical mass (through whatever events). They are sacrificing themselves to innovation until conventional energy sources lose consumers and lower their price. There seems to be no alternative to these sorts of adoption cycles currently, within free market economies (unless a considerable carbon tax makes the conventional supply unviable to producers and consumers).
Posted by annmarie, Saturday, 21 February 2009 5:34:40 PM
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