The Catch Solar Relay is a cheap, simple & smart way to improve your solar self-consumption.

Update: See our 2024 review of the Catch Solar Relay’s new features here.

As we approach the final quarter of 2020 even COVID can’t stop Australians installing more solar than ever before.

And with so much solar electricity being generated in the middle of the day, the value of energy between 10 am and 3 pm is falling. [Read more…]

With a smart 3rd party controller, your air conditioner can help a solar-laden grid balance supply and demand.

While regulators fret about the impact of solar power on low voltage distribution networks, developers are looking at ways to use household loads to relieve the stress.

Last week, I chatted to an NZ-founded company called Paladin, whose focus over the last four or five years has been a controller that diverts excess power from PV to a customer’s electric hot water service. [Read more…]

Thought a grad course in Energy Systems Modelling would cost thousands? Thanks to COVID you can do a full graduate course for free online.

Worried about how a renewable-powered world keeps the lights on when “the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow”? Interested in energy systems modelling? [Read more…]

To integrate solar power into the grid more efficiently, the grid operators need to know what’s happening with your solar system. That means looking behind your meter.

With 9GW of solar PV installed, Australia’s enthusiastic embrace of household renewables is starting to bump into system capacity issues. As I wrote last week discussing the advent of the two-sided market, the time is coming where the energy sector will need to be able to reach behind the meter and manage the consumer-side resources such as rooftop generated solar electricity. [Read more…]

Copper filled grooves in a piece of ancient Egyptian obsidian. (Image: The Irish Times)

A set of papers published in the International Journal of Antiquity last month has revealed ancient Egyptians may have had access to a technology that, in our modern world, has only taken off over the last few decades.  [Read more…]

This was our cartoon from way back in 2016 when Tesla originally launched their solar roof tiles. Three years later it may actually be ready, rebranded as the “Tesla Solarglass Roof”.

Persistence has paid off for Tesla, which surprised finance markets with a US$143 million GAAP profit for Q3 2019, on the back of its long-promised and finally-delivered production ramp-up. [Read more…]

Ronald went to the All-Energy Exhibition & Conference in Melbourne. Here’s what he stumbled across.

I just got back from the 2019 All Energy Conference and Exhibition in Melbourne.¹  While there I also snuck across to the the Energy Efficiency Expo next door.  Over the next couple of weeks I’ll write a few articles on what I learned, but for now I’ll just go over some highlights and show some pictures… [Read more…]

SA Power Networks plan to use dynamic export limits to allow more people to get rooftop solar power – whilst maximising allowable solar energy exports. Brilliant.

When the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) released its Economic Regulatory Framework Review, “Integrating Distributed Energy Resources For The Grid Of The Future” (PDF here) last week, media reactions had a pessimistic, almost apocalyptic slant. [Read more…]

A couple of weeks ago, I took a look at a customer’s need to integrate his solar PV controller with his smart home system, and concluded that this industry needs to settle on standard protocols so systems can get smarter. [Read more…]

You’ve probably heard of mono and poly panels. Now there’s a third type: ‘cast-mono’. But what the hell is it?

Silicon is the Queen of solar power.  Some people say Coal is King, but I say our Queen can kick your King’s arse. [Read more…]