Environment Minister Peter Garrett, we are told, treats his staff well, not like some people.
But he’s not so kind to the solar panel industry. Quite abruptly he’s terminated the solar panel rebate scheme:
Dane Muldoon, owner of The Solar Guys in Brisbane, said the existing rebate had a June 30 deadline and “everyone in the industry understood that”.
Mr Muldoon said customers were relying on having a few extra weeks to access the scheme and people were now caught short.
“Nobody knew about this until today. There was no consultation.
“The phones have been ringing off the hook and there are lots of pissed off people.
Actually, I think I’d be pissed off too if I was trying to have panels installed before June 30. It gave rise to this sort of notice:
Announced by Minister Wong and Garret last night the rebate ends today, not June 30th.. so you need your forms in by 3pm today if you still want in.
If you had a household income under $100k last financial year, you should put your forms in even if you’re not sure of going through with it.. by the end of 9 months you can cancel or change supplier without penalties.
Whatever we think of all that there is perhaps more profit in looking forward. The replacement scheme is to be part of the new Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme, legislation for which is to be bolted through parliament. As you’d expect, they’ve provided a fact sheet. Under the heading How will it work? it tells you pretty much nothing. The Government sees the RET as a prop to the main action which is the CPRS, so the RET will fade away from 2020 to 2030.
Further details and the annual targets are given here.
Thanks Brian
We were potential applicants. We understood that the scheme would continue until June 30th, or an earler date (if the take-up was large). So the suppliers always warned us of that possibility.
Yesterday our daughter, who was about to sign up (as an aplicant) rang her supplier to ask a minor question and was informed that the Minister had just announced the ending. She was advised to submit the forms by 4pm. Quick dash by car. Huge hubbub at the company HQ. Heard that a courier was going to whisk the forms to Canberra: the firm had extended their deadline to 7pm. She (and we) are not sure if we “made the deadline”.
What a shambles. If it was decided to end the subsidy, based on the total take-up, why not announce the target maximum, and give more-or-less up-to-date “tally so far” on the department website, so suppliers could gauge how soon the likely ending of he scheme might be?
Our experience was that with an $8,000 subsidy on a $12,000 cost for 1 kW, the decision was line ball. This was 6 months ago. But very recently, some suppliers were offering a retail cost very close to $8,000 (net cost close to zero). This might explain a recent surge in applications, if indeed there was such an increase.
It was only on Friday that I learnt of a supplier offering an 1Kw/hr system for the $8,000 rebate, the only extra cost being a $1,000 travel fee which would be split if there a group of applicants in the same area. Since it was a long weekend, I waited to yesterday (Tuesday) to make contact, only to learnt that all suppliers had been informed by Garrett’s office that the deadline had been brought forward to midnight last night. Can you send me an email & I’ll get it back to you straight away? Answer – No. The person who informed me of this offer & was hoping to half the $1,000 was left with a filled out application form on their kitchen bench.
Now in the last stimulas package was not $900 given away to people with an income of up to $100k? The Govt. can only give away so much money, but if the stimulas didn’t go to those between 40 to 100k wouldn’t there not been more than adequate funds to install renewable energy?
Some time after I submitted my initial application, in early April, I heard talk that the scheme was going to finish early, in early May, and in fact the organisation I am going through didn’t contact me until a week after the budget.
I was disappointed the initial scheme was not so effective, as it provided rebates for 1 kilowatt of electricity and the average home uses 4 kilowatts (we run 4 laptops here) and the feed in tariff was really miserly.
We consumers can’t afford to rely on centralised coal fired power generation – even if the centralised coal fired privately owned power generators dip out on some profit, we can’t afford the loss of electricity in distribution through the wire, on hot summer days Australian consumers experience brown outs as the system is overloaded. A friend was the first in her street to be cut off under load shedding each day last summer, now changed suppliers.
It’s a cost thing. The government was spooked by the huge take up and pulled the plug early. Once the group buying systems got rolling from their perspective it was getting out of control. It was after all a very generous arrangement. Too bad I missed out as a chronic procrastinator.
I don’t have any definite information, but I heard on the radio that the Govt had spent four times what they budgeted on the scheme. But if they robbed the schools budget of $2.5 billion largely to spend on ‘clean coal’ surely they could have snitched a bit back again.
Opposition spokesman Greg Hunt said this morning that the scheme was re-confirmed in the Budget, only about 4 weeks ago. He also said that the new scheme will cost the consumer $4-4,500 more. Can anyone confirm this and comment on the viability of the new scheme?
Lovely timing though. The Greens are probably too busy with their financial problems to get a press release out.
Sorry fellas but the solar rebate would have to be the most stupid move ever made by any government any-where.
These rebates do nothing at all to reduce the cost of PV systems. The rebate mostly goes on to the bottom line of the overseas companies and the “licenced installers” that service this vastly overpriced boutique industry.
Above all else, the rebate scheme is a direct impediment to the commoditisation of PV systems. Until you can buy a system at Harvey Normans or the like you will be paying about twice the amount you should be paying -at least.
The people installing these systems will be buying PV modules at less than AU$2:50/Watt. They will be installing modules rated at a Normal Operating Cell Temperature (NOCT) of 40C – but in much of Australia the NOCT is about 70C+. The output of standard silicon modules declines at 0.6% per degreeeC above the NOCT. So the 1kW rated PV array for 8K+ is really only 800W. The Inverter will have to be replaced after 5 years – by then its current controlled system will be totally obsolete any-way and most likely be banned from the network. ( A survey of German PV systems revealed that 20% were not working at all after 2 years).
BTW billie the average home uses about 20 kWh per day – 0.8kW of PV in say Melboune will not have a significant impact on this. Oh and there is now way a single user in a street would be load shed. They take out entire districts because the tools for doing this are really blunt (Live near a hospital or a prison if you want a reliable supply). Changing suppliers will not make any diffrence to supply reliability at all.
We would get a far bigger bang for our buck by mandating energy efficiency measures, particularily in areas such as hot water systems, kitchen appliances, in particular refrigerators and freezers. Cost? practically nothing at all. Subsidy? none at all. Effect on standard of living, probably better.
CO2 savings for domestic energy efficiency? – About 20-30% on the domestic energy carbon budget.
CO2 savings for domestic PV at a level that does not strip out most of the trees in our leafy suburbs? – About 2% on a very good day- perhaps.
Sorry if this seems a bit negative but unless the PV is designed in at the start into a house that incorporates all the passive principles and that has a North facing aspect it is just a joke.
Huggy.
Firstly, mighty sloppy treatment of the PV retailers. Clearly Garrett has having large kittens contemplating the avalanche of cash about to exit his kitty in the next 3 weeks and couldn’t bear the terror no more.
As someone who did get in before the scheme died, I can vouch for Huggy’s figures. I’m in Ballarat and hot days see my 1Kw system peaking around 750-800w for the hottest parts of the day. Of course, when its not so warm, which does happen here, the output is much more like the 1000w rating when the sun shines.
While I agree with your point about buying PVs at Harvey Norman Huggy, I still think that this rebate has put PV solar much more in the public consciousness which has kicked off the long road to Harvey Normans for this kind of technology. Its also been a great rallying tool for our local environment group which has allowed us strong entry into parts of our city that until now haven’t even heard of climate change.
Brian, Hunt’s right about the less payments under the new system. There’s some variability in location now as they’re paying more for hotter places. The main problem with the Solar Credits scheme is the so-called REC’s multiplier. Whereas a 1kw system previously generated about 18 RECs (based on a 15 yr life) the new scheme hands out about 5 times as many. For every 1kw system there will now be 72 extra RECs in the system, which threatens a serious collapse in the price for RECs.
The idea behind these phantom RECs is hard to fathom. More info at the Alternative Technology Assoc site – http://www.ata.org.au/ata-submissions/ata-submission-to-rec-multiplier-consultation-paper
And a better version than the Solar Credits scheme would be a broad-based Feed in Tariff that pays premium rates for whichever form of microgeneration householders and small businesses are inclined to set up.
Well said. You can buy a 520L fridge that uses just 402kWh/year these days, which is pretty close to half what fridges used 7-8 years ago: Electrolux ETM5207SC.
Personally I’d like to see a system of feebates raise the price of inefficient appliances, and lower the price of green appliances. It’ll never happen though.
Jebus.
Costs and merits of this scheme aside, Govts all over need to get the idea of reasonable investment certainty into their thick noggins. They are constantly stuffing about with things like MRETs, last week it was the NSW govt & environmental water sales, etc. Hopeless.
Carbonsink.
Spot on about refrigerators. I measured one 500l brand at over 1000kWh/year a few years ago. There is even more room to improve on the 402 kWh/year by the use of variable speed compressors and better insulation. No need to subsidise this technology just tell the manufacturers that they cannot sell the crappy stuff in this country. If we must subsidise – give a one off R&D subsidy that is subject to meeting energy efficiency targets. If you can find a local designer/manufacturer of refrigerators in this Globalised World.
Actually you would probably save more CO2 than PV by building the back of your refrigerator into a tunnel structure that takes cool air from under your floor and convects it up past the refrigerator condenser into the ceiling space – (put a vermin screen on it to keep out the Fielding mice).
On feed in tariffs:
Good move here.
But there comes a problem. Despite the best efforts of the Business Council to artificially inflate the cost of PV installations, the cost of PV generation without subsidy and with commoditisation will reach parity with the rising cost of network supplied generation within about 5 years.
Now unless there is a some-what unprecedented change in the nature of Capitalism there is some doubt about the ability of the networks to provide energy storage, energy backup and energy security on the basis that they pay the consumer for provision of these services. Until now it has been the other way around.
Some of the more forward thinking electricity providers are well aware of this really big truck coming down the road at them.
We live in Iteresting times.
Huggy
Im not a huge supporter of the solar industry (its good in theory but needs more work IMHO), however this is a terrible decision by the minister.
It also shows how badly the government can distort an industry by the use of “incentives” and how quickly they can crush it again.
If I was a corrupt minister of any sort (or used cut outs so my name wasnt involved) Id be making a tonne of money fron actions like this. Buy up big before the subsidy, then sell at its height, and if I was cheeky enough, short sell after as well.
Mainly i hate seeing this done because lots of people, individuals as well as businesses made decisions based on the original announcement. They have all been hurt.
Strange that it’s thought to be impossible to consume less than the household average.
We consume 5-6kWh/day. We have a fridge, two laptops, tv and all that. We use cool drinks and fans not airconditioning, jumpers and hot drinks not heating, hang washing out to dry, change to CFLs and pull plugs out on appliances not in use. And that’s about it – consumption went from 14 to 6kWh/day. It was 5C this morning – I sat having porridge for breakfast to warm me up, and checked my morning emails with a hot water bottle and a blanket.
With that level of electricity consumption, a 1kW rooftop unit could cover it nicely in most of Australia.
We still didn’t think it was worth it. I had a look at it in some detail in an article on TheOilDrum:ANZ, being green and spending green: the trouble with rooftop solar (or if you want to be able to comment, it’s on my blog.
If there were no chance of buying renewable energy from retailers, the environmental case might have pushed us into taking the solar panels. But there are, so it wasn’t an environmental issue for us, but financial. It just wasn’t worth it.
And it certainly won’t be worth it at $4,000 more expensive.
I don’t know that the rebate programme was that brilliant or useful. But then, it was no worse than the MRETs, the CPRS and all the rest. The ideal is to have measures – whether it be taxes, subsidies, regulations or whatever – which promote Australian manufacture of renewable energy products, and distributed renewable generation. I don’t see any of the past or proposed measures achieving that.
Now, that’s what I call entertainment!
Old Chromy is such a good Minister.
Huggy, I’m a bit of a ignoramus on these matters though I have been following this and other threads with interest. At comment 7 you say domestic solar PV will save negligible CO2e emissions if it is kept at a level that doesn’t impact suburban trees and I guess other infrastructure. At whatever level this is (50% of houses? 20%) how much surplus power, if any, is passed onto the network (and is it of any use given supply variations and other problems)? Because if the practical level of rooftop surplus power is bugger all use beyond the consumer (and even then debatable), then does it matter if there is PV-fossil fuel parity in 5 years (comment 12)? If this is in fact a problem, tariffs on solar PV would have to come down in order to discourage too much rooftop PV, or energy networks would have to be propped up with subsidies. Tell me if I’m confused.
Anyway the way it is working out looks like a shambles and implies that our gov has no idea what it is doing. Interesting to compare with China, which porports to have 20% renewables by 2020.
Joe, Tree cover in middle class suburbs (the PV demographic) is often intense. You don’t have to remove or severely cut back many trees before you make an impact on CO emissions. I have been forced to locate many arrays away from the house. If there is space, a free standing array is best. Free standing arrays also raise the prospect of tracking. It is far easier to find a spot for a solar hot water panel because the intrinsic efficiency of SHW is about 4 times that of PV so you need only fins d a little shade free patch. I estimate that over 20% of houses are unsuitable for PV due to poor orientation and or tree cover or that block of flats on the North.
You are correct, in its present incarnation PV is just a pain in the arse so far as its network impact is concerned.
Just remember that there is approximately 40 GW of (40,000 MW) cola fired generation on the east Coast of Australia. Even 1 kW on each of the 8 million rooftops would not be much in percentage energy terms.
Huggy
oh dear,
huggy worries that 20% of houses may be unsuitably sited for rooftop PV. That leaves a mere 80%. “you do the math” !!!
Kiashu @ 14 said:
It literally is impossible for half of the households
My experience has been that its pretty easy for families who leave the house for the day. Significantly harder if you work from home or have someone at home all day. In our case the difference in power usage between working from home and going into the office was around 10kWh/day and that is with less heating and cooling than your standard office space would have.
huggy
“the good is not (necessariy) the enemy of the best”
Your perfect PV may not exist as yet; meanwhile folk are making their small, incremental reductions in greenhouse emissions, reducing their energy and water use, reducing their pollution.
Sufficient small increments add to a large total.
From little things, ….. who knows?
(put a vermin screen on it to keep out the Fielding mice).LOL..
Ambigulous @ 20
I absolutely agree that lots of small things can be done. For example som-one should be marketing a ‘fridge condenser air diversion kit. It would be simple and suitable for home owner installation.
Just shopping around for more energy efficient stuff should be encouraged also.
Huugy
OK, so most (80%) of rooftops are OK for solar PV. Hence there is a possible concern for management of energy networks if capital costs for rooftop PV suppliers come right down through competition and commoditisation and also if power variations are difficult to manage as suggested previously. But how likely is this possibility? At the extreme end, if every suitable house bought rooftop PV, the costs would be enormous. For the east coast example, let’s say a future 1 kw system from Harvey Norman costs $4k (one third of present). 80% of 8 million houses is 6.4m houses, a cost of about $25.6 billion, a lot of money whether or not it is govt subsidised. This would generate a maximum of 800 W x 6.4m or 5.12 GW, 13% of the coal-fired contribution to the same network. For $25 billion surely we can reduce more emissions in other ways. Correct me if I got a figure wrong, I could be under by up to a third anyway. But assuming this is roughly right and based on most other people’s thinking on future solutions we’ll end up spending somewhat less than this on rooftop PV and somewhat more on abatement, better fossil-fuel and more renewable energy power stations, etc – a big mix. In the most likely compromise scenario does the number of potential rooftop suppliers still leave managers of energy networks quaking in their boots?
Huggybunnny, I think you cynicism is running a bit too deep. We’ve had a 1 kw system installed for twelve months, our last bill (covering March to May) was only 2.5 kw/day, compared to 5.9 kw/day twelve months ago. This is in Melbourne. Over summer we’re basically at zero net consumption. This is for a very normal nuclear family (OK we’ve got reticulated gas, that’s about all that’s not possible for everyone). It’s absurd to argue that these systems wont do anything, which is your basic proposition.
The only thing lost here is the opportunity cost – what else in climate change could/would the money have been spent on? I agree that the $8000 spent on my family would have been far better spent on a solar thermal plant near Mildura, however it’s better spent on my rooftop than it is spent on many things Government pays for.
Joe,your numbers seem about correct to me. In energy terms the 5.6 GW is the equivalent to — wait for it-about 0.7 GW of coal fired plant. This because the Annual Capacity Factor (ACF) of PV is about 12% averaged over the nation. Lets be generous and say that the 25 billion spent on PV on 80% of homes will provide about 2% of the total annual energy in the network. Only happens in the peak daylight hours which all come at once in our North South population string and of course the load reduction on the coal fired power stations will decrease their efficiency by a few percent.
Wilful
Far from doing nothing for you the PV system you have installed is a masterful expose of the problem facing the utilities. You want them to provide you with energy for free when the sun don’t shine. Don’t blame you one bit but don’t be surprised if they want to charge you for the service. BTW I completely sympathise with your sentiments, I am not driven by cynicism but I passionately believe we can do better. We can have rooftop PV and serious energy efficiency measures and a deal where the power utilities let you stay on their network.
Both,
I am sticking to my guns here, network improvements and energy efficiency have a huge role to play in CO2 reduction. PV should be so low cost that you won’t even have to think about it. Never happen while the Government subsidises it at the point of sale. The new Garret deal may well be better , have to think about it.
Huggy
no argument from me about improving energy efficiency for transport, in factories, on farms, in schools, hospitals and homes!
Peter Peter eats great shit
Had a scruple, couldn’t keep it.
For any bit of slimy graft he’ll sway
Cause he hopes to be PM one day.
.
And I say: a. Fat chance; and b. Get a fucking job you useless git!!!!
ummmmm is your charming piece directed towards Minister Garrett?? Fetchez la vache!
Garrett’s mother was a hamster and his father smelt of elderberries! I wash my private part at his aunty and fart in his general direction.
.
Honestly. The only time the cat make the news is when he’s either fucked up or sold the environment down the river. What is the point of him?
Well despite all the cynics I think having the brakes slammed on so hard is testament to the PV rebate’s huge success.
Some said the rebate would push the cost of PV up, wrong. With the Brisbane community group Local Power showing the way, PV was bought up in large quantities and the installation costs plummeted, something the Feds didn’t count on.
Once the dust settles there will be 100,000 1kW+ arrays installed around the country and on any sunny Aussie day they could output 50MW+ which is very respectable, enough to be a participant in the NEM! On average these systems will output a total somewhere in the vicinity of 100 GWh of energy each year.
But the real kicker is awareness raising and empowerment, every installed solar panel array is an advertisement to passers by, neighbours and visitors that something can be done and people are doing it.
Even if over the life of a PV installation the average kWh cost is up to $0.50 so what, it’s a start and far more interesting than bitching about the merits of a carbon tax vs an emissions trading scheme etc and probably still cheaper than “clean coal”. A couple of years ago the government of the day was sceptical about climate change, this year their will be 100,000 rooftops saying something very different!!
PS If you must put your cynic hats on try asking whether the multiplier factor of solar credits will be counted as (bogus) installed renewable energy or not as we march towards 20 x 2020.
Shaun,
Lets see now. 100,000 PV arrays at 1 kW = 100 MW. No argument, but the Annual Capacity factor of PV is about 12% so you have to divide by 100 and multiply by 12 or divide by 8.
What do we get? 12 MW that’s what. This is the equivalent conventional generation for 100MW of PV. Repeat 12 MW – pathetic as a portion of 40,000 MW. The energy delivered by your 100MW of PV is not even above the noise floor of the system.
Please don’t conflate power and energy. You sound like those people who rave about the fires in Victoria being the equivalent to squillions of atomic bombs.
Repeat after me.
Energy is power multiplied by time.
Huggy
You want them to provide you with energy for free when the sun don’t shine.
What?? How do you get that from what I said? I don’t understand.
Shaun, you’re not getting it. 100 000 systems is $800 000 000. That is a lot of money, that could be far better spent any number of ways genuinely reducing Australia’s emissions, including by building solar power palnts that do far more than 50 MW.
And that’s an imperial shitlaod of money to spend on an awareness and feelgood campaign!
I hope we never pay 50 cents a kwh, I know we can get renewables for less than that.
We’ve just had a rude shock. Electricity here is going up by 15.73%. Still Bligh reckons that it’s going up by 20% in NSW and 25% in WA.
Huggy & others.
Most likely you will find this an oversimplification but in my limited understanding I equate the movement of electricity along a cable as simular to shifting water up a pipe. With water you measure resistance in x metres of head, which can be calculated by the distance travelled, metres of elevation lifted & diameter of the pipe. With electricity there would have to develop inefficiencies when greater distances are travelled with too small or few cables. Would it not be the case when trying to do this that a greater amount of energy is used to get power out to the far reaches of a grid?
If I am correct in my thinking so far, would it not be feasible to build multiple renewable energy power plants where the grid branches down to the more minor lines? The renewable plants would of course be much smaller in size than the big coal fired power stations but of a size to make a real contribution. If solar is the best option, the site could be rented on open grazing rangeland, built on sturdy legs high enough for livestock to graze through underneath.
Yay, we’re number one!! In you face, rest-of-world LOSERS!
STR..
AYA…
STRAYA!!
still@downfall
The entire global electricity industry has the hots for what you are describing. They call it distributed generation and it is on the way in – big time. Transferring power over long distances is a problem, you get losses proportional to the current squared so you use high voltages to keep the current down. You also need to supply Volt Amperes Reactive to provide the “push” for the real power to overcome the line impedance.
There is already a significant amount of co-generation in the network, even plants that convert landfill methane into electricity. In Germany just about every village has a bio- gas plant that converts pig shit etc into electricity. Trouble is its not as sexy as PV so our green aesthetes ignore it.
90% of our problem is that the greens are fixated on PV, would not have a clue about the real solutions (do they give themselves 100 lash strokes every time they say “PV” I wonder) but they have the floor. They should just shut the fuck up and do some homework.
Huggy
I get the impression that greens with a smidgeon of knowledge but overdeveloped vocal chords are not your favourite species, Huggy. (Remember the comments policy if you reply!)
Brian, I just love the greens. I just love the way some dewy eyed lass/lad leaps out at one on the corner of Boundary road and Vulture street eager to promote the virtues of Solar energy and then goes on to prove that she/he knows nothing at all about it.
Seriously, I totally support the general objectives of the greens, except that little bit where some of them want us all to do the self flagellating gangs of penitent consumers thing.
My problem with the green movement is that it is so timid. I want to see people out there demanding the introduction of city gardens into every inner suburban high rise. Public transport systems, mandated energy efficiency, a high speed rail all the way from Brisbane to Melbourne. Smart grids. The list of essentials goes on and on. All the things that we are going to need if we are to survive until the next century.
What do I get? “Solaaaar”. Gimme a break,that’s the easy option and cop out.
Huggy
When the first gas field opened up nearby, the wells were equipped, compressor stations installed & at great cost a new pipeline put in to a new gas fired power station at Ipswich. A Canadian was overseeing the operation in the field & said to one of the locals “What’s going on here, back home it is far more efficient to build the power station in the gas field & put the electricity generated into the power grid”
What was going on was politics. It was in the era of Wayne the gloss Gross, the coal at the Swanbank power station at Ipswich was on the way out & jobs in Labor heartland were in danger. So it was a case of stuff the idea of distributed generation & stuff the economy from where the gas is coming from, we will protect our political heartland, you will not vote for us anyway.
Huggy, its clear that techy-stupids (like me) really give you the shits. But that’s what you get when energy supply is finally recognised as a crucial society-wide issue. ‘Fraid you’re just gonna have to get used to people doing their best to get on top of a tricky area.
That said, I’ve been very grateful for the lengths you’ve gone to in the past to explain some of the trickier concepts to us trogs….
But as for ‘all those greens can think of is solar’ line, have a look at the Plan B environment groups across the country are putting out there today. I’ve copied the 5 main points below.
Once the report becomes available you’ll see the agenda is more than a one-track solar line.
‘The new report outlines five essential measures that are proven and ready to be implemented:
1.A National Energy Savings Program – includes a green overhaul of buildings in Australia over the next decade to create new jobs and reduce the 30 per cent of carbon emissions that buildings account for;
2.Fast Track to a Renewable Energy Economy – includes doubling the current Renewable Energy Target to 90,000 gigawatt hours by 2020 and phasing out coal-fired electricity plants;
3.Shift to Low Emissions Vehicles and Sustainable Cities – includes setting targets for fuel efficiency, development of sustainable transport infrastructure and incentives for development of electric vehicles;
4.Protection of Native Forests as Carbon Stores – includes ending logging of old growth and high-conservation value native forests to permanently protect the huge amount of carbon stored in them, and;
5.A National Green Jobs and Industries Plan – Up to 80,000 green collar jobs are possible in Australia by 2030 if incentives through government policy are provided, such as through the development of the renewable energy sector, sustainable agriculture and tourism’
“My problem with the green movement is that it is so timid.”
True, but it’s the Australian way. Even the British aren’t as timid as us when it comes to action on climate change.
Huggy: Fair
shine on the silicon slivershake of the sauce bottle mate, 4101 might be the most PV-ised postcode in the nation, but that doesn’t give you license to make stuff up like “dewy eyed lasses/lads leaping out at one on the corner of Boundary road and Vulture street”: I can never get that primo spot, one of those guys who reckon they’re blind has got dropped there first, or some busker is channelling Neil Young, or worse, the ALP South Brisbane branch has a table set up ( they did move and pass a motion to expel Anna Bligh, so they’re not all bad) there every time I’ve tried. You have to come by the big lizard, Boundary and Russell, if you want to be leapt on by a dewy eyed lasses and/or lads …. and hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, and one day dewy eyed lasses or lads won’t want to leap on you anymore, them you’ll be sorry..You’ll be pleased to know a campaign has started to put a chairlift in, to go down said Boundary Street, from Dyke Bridge on Dornoch terrace to the new Kurilpa Point Pedestrian one down by the State Library (which has free wireless internet BTW, talk about green heaven.)
We have to wait till there’s no more snow on the Snowy’s, and cheap second hand chair lifts turn up on ebay, but in the mean time we’re working on connecting all the exercise bicyles and lifting machines in the Narcicists’R'Us gyms that are proliferating along Barista Boulevard, previously known as Boundary Street to mass collected potential energy storage devices. With all the Carbs’n'Caffiene going down and having to be then worked off, there should be plenty of ergs there to back up the PV power from the chairlift shade canopy along it’s length. And it’s all gonna get done on grants, cos we have electoral power over both Kev and Anna, them being our reps.
Danny, I’ve just heard that it’s either “fair shake of the dice” or “fair suck of the sauce bottle”, but not wot Rudd said. That’s from the Macquarie Dictionary lady. And Professor Roly Sussex said such language is only recognised by the over 50s.
still@downfall @ 39, comment out now. No idea why it went into moderation.
Huggy @ 38, sounds as though you should join them. With your eloquence and charm and their political leverage, who knows what you could do
I’m well under 50 and it was certainly a suck on the sauce bottle when I was growing up….
Er when I was kid it was fair suck of the naug – wot would Rudd know.
Aussie Oskar @ 40
The plan B looks really good.
I would add afew things:
1. Mandated and very strict energy efficiency standards key here is compulsion. Sub standard stuff becomes illegal to sell. Offenders are deported to Gitmo.
2. Low emission vehicles: This is a hard one I recently heard an eminent Professor banging on about how electric vehicles were no good because they used coal fired electricity. Wrong Professor, electric vehicle utilise energy at an efficiency of over 70% in any traffic. This gives an overall fossil fuel efficiency of about 30% Petrol vehicles get about 5% in traffic. I would ban hybrids altogether and enforce really strict fuel economy on to petrol vehicles.
Danny,
Your post is very very funny, I have a lot of difficulty typng I am laughing so much.
Brian, Ditto
Huggy
Glad to brighten up your day, Huggy
Aussie @ 44, this is what I heard
And:
So he’s a bit muddle-headed and as a local at Nambour said perhaps “dorky” but he’s OK.
BTW Prof Sussex keeps saying there are a lot of regional variations in Australia, so maybe the saying persisted longer in your area. For myself the two shaking ones above, yes, but the sucking ones, not at all, but my language background was atypical.
HugBunny @ 31,
It’s ok, I also was paying attention during my year 6 physics lessons, I do know the difference between power and energy.
With that in mind you might like to read my post again but a little more carefully and note that I wrote 100 GWh of energy over each year. This figure is based on the average 1kW array pumping out about 1MWh annually.
I understand that you think that the PV program is too expensive for what it delivers but please take the time to understand my point of view that it’s not just about the hard numbers.
“What do I get? “Solaaaar”. Gimme a break,that’s the easy option and cop out.”
The solar power rebate was actually introduced by John Howard, continued by Labor and finally eased back by Garrett. Huggy, they did it for their constituency.
To heap ignorance of any of the measures failings, only onto the Greens, is just scapegoating.
HugBunny @ 45,
My real-world experience prove the eminent Professor to be correct.
Measured at the wall, my electric vehicle consumes about 250 Wh/km on its daily commute through hilly Brisbane. This would equate to about 250 grams of CO2 per kilometre, running of coal fired electricity.
The same vehicle before it was converted ran at a very consistent fuel consumption of 7 l/100km or 7 x 2.3kgCO2/100km = 160 grams of CO2 per kilometre.
Wilful – 100 000 systems is $800 000 000. That is a lot of money, that could be far better spent any number of ways genuinely reducing Australia’s emissions, including by building solar power plants that do far more than 50 MW.
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Absolutely.
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The trouble is Garrett isn’t doing this because he sees the fundamental nonsense that is the rebate scheme and wnts to reinvest the money in bold energy schemes. He’s doing it ’cause he’s been instructed to cut costs ’cause Kevvie realizes that sending cheques to people costs money and someone somewhere expects us to pay our debts sometime. Peter Garrett’s agenda appears to be compliance with caucus dictates. It’s a one item agenda.
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Now that he’s in the hot seat we discover that the one thing he truly believes in is the advancement of Peter Garrett. Sorry Slaphead you got the venality but not the utility. Get a job.
Shaun.
Sorry, I did misread your post on the energy from PV. I am so used to people claiming that 1 kW of PV has the same energy content as 1 kW of any other generation. It does of course – for so long as the sun shines. Over a typical year it will deliver only about 10-20% of the energy from a source with an annual capacity factor of say 80-90% (coal, Uranium hydro etc).
Your vehicle experience (49) is a puzzle.
Your pre conversion vehicle had 160 grams/km. The overall average for petrol vehicles is is about 162 g/km. So you are right on the average.
On the US grid energy mix electric vehicles should return 135 grams of CO2 per km.
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Electric%20Cars%20and%20CO2.html
So your vehicle conversion to electricity is not performing as well as it should I am afraid.
Huggy
“$800 000 000 … could.. do far more than 50 MW”. Indeed.
The 435 million REDP grants Mar’n Fer’s'n office is sitting on till Kev calls (August?) should show us just how much more. This fund was supposed to go to technology ready, just add money, instant performance at commercial scale, projects. One which is gonna get the nod, is Petratherm’s Paralana (Flinders Ranges) geothermal project.
For 200 million they reckon they’ll put out 30MW, and the 11 km connection to the Beverly uranium mine. That’s what our renewable energy subsidy money, mark II, is gonna get used to do, help dig up lots of uranium, (using lots of precious water on the way), to send to China. That’s our Mar’n and Pete and Penny.
Meanwhile, Ausra’s proven ( in Califoirnia) concentrated solar thermal system, which can be banged up anywhere the sunshine warrants it ( the water used being in a closed cycle, and australia has no shortage of mega-acreage like that, already serviced by power lines), puts out 5 MW for 20 million ( california project cost), with economies of scale to be had.
Geothermal, 200/30 ~= $7000/kw, remote, suburban PV $10,000/kw, Solar Thermal $4000/kw, with excellent workforce re-deployment from rust-bucket industries potential. Hard choice? I don’t think so.
Danny
Solar thermal looks really good to me.
It has two major attributes; good efficiency and practical energy storage
Also it is tracking so the energy output over time curve looks like a big rectangle with rounded corners. Rooftop PV has a half sine profile.
I really want to see about 20 GW of solar thermal or even more on the West coast this is connected to the East coast with a HVDC system. Another one on the East coast and we would be able to get virtually all our energy from solar. Shame New Zealand is probably a bit too far away to do the early morning shift.
If my mates from the greens were to promote a scheme like this I would love them forever.
Huggy
HuggyBunny,
I don’t have access to the US grid energy mix.
Shaun,
No you don’t but if you had access to the French energy mix (mostly nuclear) and you drove a Tata Indica Vista you would return 12g/km.
Here is a very good exposition of electric vehicle CO2 generation in Australia using the Australian generation mix.
http://enochthered.wordpress.com/category/electric-vehicles/
However what this writer is missing as is my eminent Professor is the simple fact that the electric vehicle is hugely superior in peak hour traffic where the fuel efficiency of a standard petrol vehicle drops to under 5% . The Fuel efficiency of a small well designed electric vehicle in heavy traffic is only marginally reduced.
I totally fail to see the logic in driving a 1 tonne+ vehicle with one person to work and back in heavy stop start traffic. I do it every day
Huggy
I tend to agree with Huggy Bunny on this one that PV is way overstated.
and its fairly churlish (?) of those middle-upper class households “really keen” to do their bit, but as soon as the price goes up and a massively generous subsidy is removed, they act all indignant as though the govt is somehow taking away their welfare payments.
While there are good arguments for stimulating investment in early techs, once a technology is being offered for FREE by reatilers/suppliers etc, you know its time to wind back the subsidy.
The big problem I have with Garret’s handling of all this, is the optics of the situation. The media coverage “solar outrage! blah blah” simply gives the idea that the feds are against solar/renewable etc. They are not per se just not wanting to blow the budget on massively high-cost abatement. The 09-10 budget already earmarked an extra $250 million to deal with the oversubscription. What they didn’t fore see was how quickly that cash would run out.
What they should have done is be much more honest about how many subsidies were left over and given people more warning. None of this 12 hrs and get your papers in.
Everyone should also remember that the 5 to 1 multiplier will still give a pretty nice rebate for those getting say a 1.5 kw system. and with elec prices going up and pv coming down a little, it will only continue to get more attractive. plus throw in a feed-in tariffs here and there.
also on the issue of the solar taking away the RECs. PV uptake will have little to no impact on the REC prices simply due to the size of the market.
and finally for all those who do have PV, don’t forget to buy 2 CPRS permits each year to keep the environment happy.
on the distributed energy side. the modelling i’ve seen suggests little to no network effect on uptakes of around 100MW spread across Victoria. to really have a large effect you need significant numbers at each elec substation/node. of course, it would be intersting to see what level of penetration you would need before those effects/savings become material.
I also forgot to mention that its a little unfair to use the standard grid emissions intensity for calculating CO2 from plug-in EVs. most charging stations/people with EVs would be on Green Power and Project Better Place has indicated they would source/build green power. while its not perfect, it’s still good enough for me.
I also think that plug-in hybrids will be a very important transition vehicle and around for a while. simply because they give the versatility to drive longer distances without needing to recharge. (ie. for those in regional/rural areas rather than metro commuters).
would be interesting to see if a plug-in hybrid diesel every makes it to market. (of course a breakthrough in battery technology could change all that….)
m
I hope there are some who will embrace what these folk advocate.
Ambigulous@58, having sorted out a good many folks, with a nice little 8000 dollar bonus for their panels, that proposal would then pay them, very well, for the electricity they produce. Maybe if it were only available to those who forked out the initial capital themselves, in the future, it would be fairer.
Yes, it’s a fair point you raise joe2. Fairness should not be ignored.
Actually, the $8,000 subsidy was very generous (as a % of outlay), but the means testing was “sudden death”: subsidy dropped from $8,000 to $0 as family income crossed the $100,000 mark. I can’t recall any common means testing that doesn’t “phase out”, e.g. it could have “phased out” between family income of $80,000 and $120,000. Just making up figures. But that would have required
i) careful thought, and might have involved
ii) modelling the effect of he phase-out curve
It seemed to be a mark of haste, that the means test was a crude on/off.
By the way, with group purchasing bringing the retail cost down close to $8,000 I think the argument that “it was mainly wealthy folk who installed rooftop PV” may have lost its weight somewhat; just for a few weeks anyway. And what did the ALP Govt do, as the scheme came within reach of less-well-off working families? Why, they abolished it.
[I do accept that they always indicated it may finish early....]
The group purchase thing works without a subsidy. If you buy enough you can get PV for less than AU$3:00/Watt.
Should be able to install PV systems on roofs for less than $5:00/Watt – unsubsidised.
All the subsidy scheme did was artificially inflate the price.
Now you know why Huggy opposed it from the start.
Took the dumbclucks in Garrets department some time to wake up to this.
They had to withdraw the subsidy once they worked it out.
Huggy.
“Took the dumbclucks in Garrets department some time to wake up to this.
They had to withdraw the subsidy once they worked it out.
Huggy.”
Just to remind you again, Huggy, the subsidy was part of the election promise matching program that Rudd went for, to have a chance of knocking Howard sideways.
Garrett would likely be a very small player in this overall game play.
It was liberals who created this baby and it fits very much into the middle class welfare bag. Kev had a few of those unfortunate, but probably necessary, promises to fulfill and if you notice he has been careful to do so. Given the chance to get rid of that old baggage, without looking like a liar, he will dump it.
Joe2
Sure, that may have been the motive for labor – what does that say about their ethics etc?
I blame the Greens actually. They are just as into middle class welfare as the Libretards.
They claim to be the party of renewable energy, sustainable development and so on. They are evidently totally unable to properly and honestly research the programs that they put forward and support. Most of their stuff is motherhood and aimed squarely at the middle class rent seeking demographic.
The real tragedy is that their general aims are laudable. They just seem to be unbelievably intellectually lazy. They are a bit like having a really smart brother who you really love a lot – you just wish he would grow up and stop playing with himself all the time.
huggy
Huggy, I think “greens” (rather than Greens) covers a very wide range of diverse subcategories linked loosely together. Maybe they all look the same to you looking in from the outside, but I think that’s a bit unfair.
You could always join a group and lend them the benefit of your knowledge and rigorous thinking
But then my brother reckons that happened up in Mackay when some young farmers joined some green outfit. They were winning all the internal debates, so it is said, only to find that the membership rules changed and they were no longer eligible. True story, just a bit hazy on the detail!
Brian, way back in the Vietnam war days a bunch of us joined the Prahran branch of the Labor party.
We managed to get a motion passed that opposed the Vietnam war. The next month they wheeled out all these ancient geriatrics (some of them were actually over 40!) and rescinded the motion. Not been back to any party scene since.
I have had deep and meaningful conversation with people of various shades of green and have spoken up at various green forums. My take is that there is a shallow group-think that is basically impervious to any form of rational argument. My other complaint is that they are so bloody timid. The “rooftop solar will solve all our energy problems” canard is a perfect example of this. So is the “green nuclear” fantasy.
Huggy
The big “G” was a typo BTW
“rooftop solar will solve all our energy problems”
What about “rooftop solar, in conjuntion with a whole grab-bag of other renewable power generation measures, improved building and design, and a culture of energy conservation, can play a role in solving our energy problems”? Must we always deal in these false dichotomies?
Blame teh greens for Garrett killing the solar rebate. As Joe Hockey would say, “yeah, right!”.
Like Helen said, we need a mix of renewable energy (and low emissions such as geothermal) solutions.
Garrett killed the solar scheme because it was too successful. They need to keep cash handy to pony up the $18b in free permits for the poor fossil fuel industries that so desperately need Corporate Welfare funded by us the taxpayers.
Still waiting for Garrett to do something notable, but I suspect I will be waiting in vain. This more clear evidence that “politics us usual” won’t solve climate change.
And don’t forget, Brumby’s Victorian Labor government has ticked off on another coal fired power plant (pretending it will be “clean”), to power the huge desalination plant that Garrett and Wong have also ticked off on, even though massive greenhouse gas emissions increases will result.
Hmmn. Tell me again when emissions are supposed to start going down? They just don’t get it.
I didn’t think anyone could be so stupid, but coming to think of it Bligh is likely to do the same, or maybe just gas.
Oh yes, and wait until people work out what BHP Billiton is really going to do at Olympic Dam.
“Wait until people work out what BHP Billiton is really going to do at Olympic Dam”… and wait until they twig about how a large swagload of Mar’n's $450 million of the the renewable energy demonstration projects grant funding largesse will go to providing electricity to South Australia’s Beverly and Olympic Dam uranium mining operations:
Any bets which one, the town or the gigantic mine, that gets connected first?
And what a filthy operation Garrett OK’d in giving Beverley the nod:
Oh yes…the beverley aquifer sits on top of the great artesian basin.
Onya Pete, looking after the party’s South Australian electoral chances like a genuine troglodyte good ole boy party faithful:
“Mr Rann will tell China’s mining leaders that South Australia has 50 percent of the world’s known uranium resources… said China’s decision to massively expand its nuclear power program means South Australia is in ‘pole position’ for uranium exports. “In addition to the giant Olympic Dam uranium resource, we have a range of new uranium mines being developed and proposed, plus 81 uranium exploration licences now issued in South Australia. Overturning the Australian Labor Party’s national ‘no new mines’ uranium policy means the brakes are off and South Australia is way ahead of other States”
It’s not like SA has no other economic base that’s it’s beholden to the uranium industry… hell, there’s Coopers, and lotsa prestige plonks and ….
Huggy, I think “greens” (rather than Greens) covers a very wide range of diverse subcategories linked loosely together.
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True. A lot of green people are politically conservative, or part of the non-socialist left. Or othersie apolitical. Or anti-political even,.
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The Greens itself has a certain diversity which I’d like to know more about.
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Perhaps Paul Norton, who likes waxing lyrical about the myriad ebbs and streams of the Left will oblige me sometime.
Danny, would this be the type of mining operation that feeds the nice little benign green coloured reactors that arrive on the back of a truck for the green power so beloved of some LP denizens?
I think most of these leach mines use sodium carbonate (not sulphuric acid) and I must confess that I was unaware of the extent of this mining technique, thanks for bringing it to attention.
The 30 MW of geothermal is the energy equivalent to 240MW of PV, roughly.
I am really shocked. I know that a drilling program under an old fuel store in SA found significant traces of fuel oil going down over 1 km and this was only from a small slow leak and was entirely unanticipated.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_storage_tank
Surely no responsible minister would risk losing part or all of the great artesian basin to a radioactive plume emanating from this insane scheme?
Huggy
Huggy: I like the sound of these little green reactors…just right for running the chairlift. Presumably there will be a subsidy made available for us to get one put in. Will we be able to put the spent fule in the recyclables bin to get picked up on Thursdays? That’d be nice and tidy.
For the good oil on the fate of the bad water of the (geothermal) renewable energy sink that will be the beverley mine, here’s the Rann govt’s EPA review that i guess was enough to convince Garrett it was reasonably probably safe to give it a tick.
It sounds like the nasty acidic radioactive water will be pumped back into a layer that’s got stock water above, and the GAB below. If the phrase “not reasonably probable” is meant to sound reassuringly and rigorously scientific, it doesn’t work for me.
Today’s new word: aquitard.
Garrett is a fabulous minister. He is doing great things for rock musicians, and enjoying all his arts activities – he is attending many more openings than a year ago, so is truly lifting his game. He will get around to other matters all in good time. Remember, he is Kevin Rudd’s conduit to a whole lot of celebrities (perhaps his primary role) so he is in VERY good odour with Faulks’s Maaaaaate.
Danny, a glowing green recyclable bin will be easy to find and keep us warm these cold nights in Brisbane. Good thinking.
On the report; I really liked this bit:
“Although not yet proven, it is widely believed and
accepted that natural attenuation will result in the contaminated water chemistry returning to pre-
mining conditions within a timeframe of over several years to decades.”
FFS Widely believed by whom? “several years to decades”????
Thos coots are totally insane.
Huggy