Solar Power Blog

Solar and the dreaded budget (Part 2)

House_of_Reps_Doorway.Credit. SimonEast

Will solar suffer in the Battle for Bums on Seats?

All solar fans’ eyes were turned to the budget this week as Treasurer Wayne “The Knife” Swan brought down his sixth budget (gee doesn’t time fly Swanny?). So how did solar energy (and renewables in general) fare in the Budget? Did we do OK ? Or was it a case of solar energy being once again the target as cuts are made? [Continue reading…]

The dreaded Budget: How to avoid solar energy cuts

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Treasurer Swan’s alleged tools of trade.

As the Federal Budget approaches, renewable energy supporters — including solar power fans — tend to get a bit twitchy. You know the deal folks, Julia “The Ranga Boss Lady” Gillard tells Wayne “The Knife” Swan that we’re not getting enough revenue from the carbon tax and to go find some more.

The Knife then goes through the options: Tax polluters more? Pop round Gina “The Big G” place with the hat asking for more shekels Oliver Twist-style? Try another, fairer, mining tax? [Continue reading…]

Think tank: Solar is Australia’s energy future

The future.

Yet another report released this week backing solar energy as the future for Australian energy needs. The Centre for Policy Development (CPD) released a landmark study (yes how many times have you heard reports described as “landmark”?) which, on the surface, appears to state the bleedin’ obvious points — at least to SolarQuotes readers anyway [...]

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Solar energy: has the smart money seen the light?

cash and solar panels

The big news in solar energy this week was the acquisition of Power-One — manufacturers of the fable Aurora Inverters — by the Swiss energy giant the ABB Group for one billion dollars. For those among us who will never see $1,000,000,000, to give you an idea of its worth, its about half of what [...]

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Aurora Inverters sold to Swiss giant for a cool $1Billion. SMA should be worried…

an aurora inverter surrounded by cash

I’m a big fan of Aurora inverters. These thoroughbred Italian inverters are manufactured by a company called Power-One and are the second best selling inverters on the planet. (The best selling are SMA in case you didn’t know) So news of Power-One being sold, lock, stock and barrel to Swiss engineering conglomerate ABB, made me [...]

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Retro solar tax: it couldn’t happen here…could it?

a tax sign and 2 solar panels

  Know how you wake up in a cold sweat after a particularly bad nightmare readers? And I mean really bad dream (no not the one about NSW premier big, bad Barry “Bumper” O’Farrell and the three feed-in tariffs — that’s another story). Sitting bolt upright as your eyes slam awake you look around and [...]

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From ‘Frack Off’ to ‘Hello Sun’?

anti fracking protestors

photo credit: flickr - kateausburn Unless you’ve been living a hermit’s existence with no access to news outlets, the Internet or NSW premier Barry “Bumper” O’Farrell’s rants you’ll have heard the constant chorus “Frack Off!” being directed at the (not-so-green) gas industry led by AGL. The choice insult refers of course to the gas industry’s latest controversial [...]

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Newly crowned as net producer, PV looks to full payback of dirty energy debt

holy grail film poster

Always rewarding to bring readers good solar news and this week’s offering is just that. The achievement/milestone/breakthrough (call it what you will) is that the amount of the energy produced by global PV solar power has surpassed the amount of fossil fuel energy needed to make the panels. It seems fairly certain that a tipping [...]

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Latest Trina Solar Panels Review Predicts Great Performance in Hot Aussie Conditions

The scoresheet

If you are thinking of buying Trina solar panels –  reviews that you can trust are critical to helping you in your research. After all, unless you are an uber solar geek like me you probably have never heard of the Trina brand before (they are one of the biggest solar panel manufacturers on the [...]

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Pacific Energy Summit hears calls for better funding for renewable projects

pacific energy summit logo

It may have received scant attention in the Australian mainstream, whose attention may have been distracted by aborted leadership coups, football kickoffs et al, but a very important energy summit (including the latest in Pacific solar energy projects) took place in Auckland, New Zealand last week. Eighteen Pacific nations attended the summit which was hosted [...]

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