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South Australia’s Solar Customers Step Up to the Plate

November 25, 2011 by 1 Comment

Well South Australian solar customers can hold their heads high. A report released earlier this week by the Essential Services Commission of South Australia (ESCOSA) has found that around 80,000 electricity customers in the state will have installed rooftop solar systems by December of this year.

This accounts for around 10 percent of all small electricity customers in the state, says the report, as South Australians look for ways to offset their ever-increasing electricity bills.The ESCOSA report found that the average household energy bill in the state had risen from $1165 to $1680 in the past three years.

The study found that the take up rate of rooftop solar panels responded well to solar bonus feed-in tariff bonus schemes offered by the state government.

“The incidence of rooftop solar photo-voltaic (PV) electricity generators is increasing in South Australia, in response to government financial incentives.”

However this draws the big question: will South Australians still flock to solar energy now the government’s bonus tariff incentive is being phased out? As the report states: “The current feed in tariff will be phased out for new customers over the next two years. Customers who connected by 30 September 2011 will receive 44c per kWh until 30 June 2028. New customers who connect PV cells between 1 October 2011 and 30 September 2013 will receive 16c per kWh until 30 September 2016.”

Will South Australians take what’s left of the state’s solar financial assistance package, combine it with the federal moolah on offer as part of the passing of the carbon tax legislation and continue to put solar panels on their roofs? Or will they back away as the state’s feed-in tariff rides off into the sunset?

Guess we’ll all have to wait for the Commission’s next report.

Feel free to discuss this either here or over at our Facebook Page.

Filed Under: Feed In Tariffs, Solar Panels, Solar Power, South Australia

Silex Solar Closes its Doors and Blames Usual Suspects

November 18, 2011 by 1 Comment

Somewhere in between the strenuous media frenzies that accorded the visit of The Windsors and later the Obamas, the Australian media managed to find time to report on the final demise of the (previously) only manufacturer of solar cells in this country.

The Homebush, NSW-based SilexSolar company — previously associated with BP — finally closed its doors this week with the loss of 45 jobs. The news was another body blow to the NSW solar industry which has seen a number of setbacks under the O’Farrell Government.

Sad Silex Solar

For full details of the collapse, see this Sydney Morning Herald article.

Silex chief executive Michael Goldsworthy blamed the usual suspects for the company’s demise doors including an oblique reference to ”… we think we’re seeing dumping” (read China solar panel production here). An interestingly-titled “Interim Operational Update” issued by Silex on the 15th November didn’t hold back.

“Since [the original decision to end production of Australian-made cells], the Australian PV panel market has continued to deteriorate. Sales volumes have been decimated by the abandonment of reasonable support policies from various governments, and panel prices have plummeted under the strain of a massive oversupply across the global PV market. The high Australian dollar has completed a trifecta of negative market factors for SilexSolar.”

Intriguingly the “operational update” referred to the company being placed in “‘care and maintenance’ mode until the future direction of the business can be determined.”

This correspondent thought this part appears to have a touch of science fiction about it. Is the company to be placed in cold storage and sent magically to another time and place only to return at the end of the O’Farrell Government’s tenure? And at a time when the dollar is at a more advantageous level for solar cell exports. Can’t wait for the mini series.

Back on Planet Earth, it is becoming clear that solar cell competition from Chinese solar companies is making life difficult, if not impossible, for Western manufacturers of solar panels. And the allegations of dumping, mentioned previously, are not just restricted to grumpy Australian solar panel manufacturers.

A number of US solar companies, the latest and most spectacular being Solyndra, have blamed the prevalence of cheap Chinese solar cells for their early end. However this may be in accord with the wider game of larger solar manufacturers. Indeed Jifan Gao, chief executive officer of the China-based, solar giant Trina seemed to describe the flooding of the global market with cheap Chinese PV technolgy as just the beginning.

“This is the decade of mergers and acquisitions,” said Jifan in a recent Bloomberg interview. “From now until 2015 is the first phase, when about two-thirds of the players will be shaken out.”

The Trina CEO added that China had a far better advantage at the cost level because of better management and a demonstrated ability to react faster to changing markets.

The beginning of the end? Or the end of the beginning of the end? Your thoughts?

Don’t forget to comment (and “like”) over at our Facebook Page.

Filed Under: NSW, Rich Bowden, Solar Panels, Solar Power

Solar Makes Sense Says AuSES Boss as Fallout over NSW Bonus Scheme Continues

November 14, 2011 by Leave a Comment

“More than ever solar makes sense.”

These were the words uttered by Australian Solar Energy Society (AuSES) boss John Grimes to reporters this week, reacting to the storm created by the NSW Auditor General’s report on the state’s disastrous solar bonus scheme. And his words were like an oasis in the desert of recriminations for the true solar believer in NSW folks.

To put the comments in context though, in a week which our former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would describe as a “blame game” over solar here in NSW. Mr Grimes said his organisation stood ready to help the NSW Government with advice following the Auditor General Peter Achterstraat’s scathing report on the Solar Bonus Scheme.

Mr Achterstraat found the scheme, where households participating in the scheme received 60c per kilowatt hour generated by their solar panels, to be mismanaged, even suggesting cowboy status by saying the scheme would have cost taxpayers around $4 billion, an estimated eleven times the original estimate, had it been allowed to run its planned course.

“The Scheme lacked the most elementary operational controls, had no overall plan and risks were poorly managed,” he said.

Former Energy Minister and now Leader of the Opposition John Robertson has been backpedalling this week over this role during the worst of the cost blowout of the scheme. In true “bearpit” (NSW Parliament) tradition, Robbo stood tall … and tried to blame someone else.

”It was on the basis of this advice that Labor proceeded with the 60¢ Solar Bonus Scheme – with support from the Liberals, Nationals and Greens on the floor of the Parliament,” he said.

AuSES’ John Grimes tried valiantly to raise the tone of the debate with the society’s press release suggesting that, instead of the present government slinging mud at the now Opposition members responsible for the mismanagement of the bonus scheme, it should “demonstrate clean energy leadership”.

Fat chance.

The NSW Government spent most of this week gleefully sinking the slipper into the Opposition Leader’s credentials as a financial manager following his role in the solar bonus scheme blowout. Most prominent was the acting Energy Minister, Duncan Gay, who said the report’s findings ”disqualifies [Mr Robertson] from ever being premier of this state with his hands on Treasury”.

Nice.

Any positives in all this? Back to Mr Grimes. While admitting that the NSW scheme was “poorly designed” he said this was not the fault of the NSW solar industry nor the state’s residents. He went on to call for fair government support for solar consumers looking to contribute to Australia’s renewable energy future.

“More than ever, solar makes sense,” Grimes said. “Governments should be providing a fair price for solar to allow Australians to make their own contribution to the clean energy future.”

Filed Under: Feed In Tariffs, NSW, Rich Bowden, Solar Policy, Solar Power Tagged With: , ,

Will Port Augusta Point the Way to the Future of Solar Power?

November 7, 2011 by 2 Comments

This week’s column will take you into the realms of fantasy (if you’re a talk radio shock jock or anti-renewable pollie). Yes folks we’re treading into the dangerous territory of the concept of solar energy as baseload electricity.

For years one of the constant carping criticisms aimed at renewable energy in this country has been that it won’t provide baseload power resource in the same way as good ole fossil fuel-derived power. The argument goes that when the sun stops shining, or the wind stops blowing, renewable energy cannot deliver.

While the criticism may well have been a smokescreen thrown up to keep high polluting coal plants in operation, the point is valid: how can you rely on a source of energy if the power it creates cannot be stored?

Obviously storage is a vital factor and this is where we bring in an unlikely source — the Playford and Northern power stations in Port Augusta, South Australia. The Playford coal-powered station is considered to be the most polluting of its type in the country and one of those targeted under the government’s carbon pricing policy. Efficiencies forced on power stations such as Playford should make them almost unviable and the plant’s owners Alinta Energy have confirmed that they have tendered under the government’s “Contract for Closure” program.

However rather than be de-commissioned or converted to a slightly less polluting power source such as gas, a radical plan have been suggested from the not-for-profit organisation Beyond Zero Emissions. If implemented, this will see the Port Augusta plant turned into a concentrated solar power station similar to the Gema solar plant recently opened in Spain.

Here’s where the baseload solar power comes in as the plant in Spain has the ability to store heat from concentrated reflectors in a molten saline solution. Gemasolar made history when it opened earlier this year by becoming the first thermosolar power plant in the world to supply uninterrupted power for a 24-hour period.

A series of mirrors reflect sunlight onto a tower containing the fluid which heats to a level of 500 degrees C before cooling to 300 degrees C as the energy is released. The steam is stored to produce steam to drive generators.

According to Beyond Zero Emissions Strategic Director Mark Ogge, interviewed on the ABC’s Stateline South Australia program, the technology allows for the ability to generate energy whenever it is required.

“It is able to store [the] energy as heat…it’s essentially baseload or dispatchable power. You can’t get that with wind or solar PV because they’re variable,” he said.

Beyond Zero’s aim to replace the Playford fossil fuel-powered site with this new technology is in line with their plan to develop models for a renewable energy future in Australia. Crucially the model has received support from the owners of the plant as well as Joy Baluch, mayor of Port Augusta, who has praised the plan as visionary.

A 2009 joint study carried out by Greenpeace International, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association and The International Energy Agency found that solar thermal has the potential to power 25 percent of the world’s energy needs by 2050 (see full report here under publications — Concentrating Solar Power).

Australia, like world solar thermal leaders Spain and the United States, would appear to be very suited to CSP with our wide spaces and abundance of sun. Does Beyond Zero Emissions project appear to be the right answer to de-commissioning the worst of our polluting fossil fuel-powered stations? What do you think of CSP as an alternative for our coal-powered stations?

Filed Under: Rich Bowden, Solar Policy, Solar Power, South Australia, Utility Scale Solar