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Dubbo: Solar Power Capital of Australia!

April 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Well done Dubbo solar power installers!

dubbo library clock tower without solar panels

Sunny in Dubbo

If you read the mainstream press in Australia,  you’d think the towns and suburbs with the biggest average take up of solar panels would be the well-to-do inner city suburbs of our major cities. Perhaps Vaucluse, Toorak or the leafy eastern suburbs of Adelaide?

Obviously they’d be more likely where wealth is concentrated right?

Wrong (as you may have guessed by the headline!). In a sign that solar energy is becoming more accessible to mainstream Aussie folk, a recent survey by the Clean Energy Council (CEC) found the central-west NSW city of Dubbo to have the highest average percentage of houses with solar panels.

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Filed Under: NSW, Solar Power Tagged With: , , ,

Rubbishing the idea that solar power is not commercially viable

February 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Bin with solar panels

Australian waste management group Veolia Environment Services are very proud of themselves this week as they prepare to celebrate the installing of their brand-new, state-of-the-art solar powered energy source at its Arndell Park facility in NSW.

On Feb.23, the company will be hosting a knees-up to mark the recent installation of the 50 kW solar panel system, which has been added as part of the company’s drive towards boosting its renewable energy source. The project — in collaboration with BP Solar and installed by Solar Technology — is a key part of the Blacktown Solar City project, described, a little breathlessly in a company press release of Feb. 14, as being derived from “…a $94 million Australian Government initiative to help lay the foundations of a sustainable energy future.”

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Filed Under: Australia, NSW, Rich Bowden, solar installation, Solar Power, Utility Scale Solar Tagged With: ,

Solar Power Forecast for 2012: More stability, better forecasts, fewer conspiracies?

January 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

solar to grow in 2012?

This year should be the year that renewables start to take off in Australia:

  • We will have a carbon tax in place that will support renewable energy and overseas money is starting to flow in.
  • Large scale solar is finding funding, following the trend from overseas.
  • Chinese production of solar panels is bringing the cost of solar energy rapidly down towards that of fossil fuels.

But there is one factor that governments, both federal and state, need to provide: stability.

The solar industry needs to sense that financial support given in one year won’t be withdrawn the next when the going gets tough or when a newly-elected government reverses the previous government’s solar policy just because they can.

Certainly in the case of solar energy the governments’ efforts to forecast costs got an “F” grade this year. In a New Year’s resolution that we think makes complete sense, the Australian Solar Energy Society (AuSES) has promised to carefully watch over the government’s solar forecasting in 2012 on behalf of the nation’s solar industry. Reading between the lines it seems AuSES is none too pleased with the end-of-year report card for government forecasting agencies.

“As a national voice for Australia’s solar industry, the Australian Solar Energy Society has made a New Year’s resolution: to work more closely with Government agencies to ensure there’s no repeat of the 2011 solar forecast mistakes,” the society said in a recent release.

This brings an image of government forecasters sitting in class rooms watched over by AuSES teachers. The solar forecasters, gazing out into the playground where their fellow  number crunchers are all playing, before looking down and writing: “I must not bugger up the solar forecasts again” 100 times.

Am I being too harsh here? After all a forecast is just as it states: a forecast. But surely it should have some relation to the outcomes?

The AuSES release points to four key areas where forecasts had to be speedily revised to bring them to within a bull’s roar of real outcomes.

1. The Productivity Commission’s overstating of the cost of solar subsidies per tonne of CO2, forcing it to revise down the cost of solar subsidies from $431-$1041 to $177-$497.

2. The Energy White Paper, released by the federal government, which overstated solar’s cost by a factor of three.

3. The Treasury Department’s estimate that the country would have around 9 gigawatts of solar by 2050. However 1.2 gigawatts has already been installed, with yearly installations increasing ten fold since 2009.

4. The NSW Government, led by Barry “The Terminator” O’Farrell, forced to revise the cost of the state’s solar bonus scheme down by nearly a quarter.

Hardly inspiring is it? No wonder AuSES chief executive John Grimes described 2011 as “a horrible year for government solar forecasting”. And why are the forecasts always so against the interests of the solar industry? Is the reason for the solar forecasting simply the innocent result of a culture of excessive drinking and partying in our state and federal capitals? Or are there other motives at work?

There you go folks, a nice little conspiracy theory to kick off the year. Wishing you all a safe, happy and productive New Year.

Filed Under: Australia, Feed In Tariffs, NSW, Rich Bowden, Solar Panels, Solar Policy, Solar Power

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: , ,