You can now buy an Aquion salt water battery to power your home. Nemo not included.
UPDATE MARCH 2017: As of March 8, 2017, Aquion has filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code
UPDATE JULY 2017 : Aquion Energy is resuming operations
Keen on storing your excess solar in a big battery? Worried about having a big box of toxic and/or flammable chemicals in your home? Then you’ll want to know about the Aquion battery and its salt water technology. [Read more…]
Electricity companies around Australia are starting to roll out a new way to charge you for electricity. It is called a residential demand tariff.
Unsurprisingly this new tariff can result in higher bills for you, and higher profits for them.
This post is important. It will explain to you what a demand tariff is, how it works, and why many households should avoid it at all costs.
The electricity companies want to make demand tariffs the norm, so you must be armed with the knowledge to spot one when you see one, and understand the implications of signing up for one. [Read more…]
The Australian solar industry. It’s full of kind, generous people.
Do you love children?
I do.
And this is not a lead in to a stupid joke where I say, “…with tomato sauce”.
In fact, all things considered, I find children to be about exactly as annoying as I find adults. So if you’re human, no matter what your age, you’re okay as far as I am concerned. [Read more…]
What will give you the lowest bill, a standard or time of use tariff? What if you add solar? What about batteries?
Australians pay for grid electricity in two ways. The most common way is a standard tariff. But you can also choose a time-of-use tariff.
This is where you pay a fixed rate for each kilowatt-hour used, plus a hefty supply charge. Australians have been paying for electricity this way since the the electricity meter, invented in 1888, was developed into the ‘spinning dial’ type in 1914. So Australians have been using standard tariffs for over a century. [Read more…]
AGL and Origin Energy have just announced price rises in South Australia.
Australia’s two largest electricity retailers have announced they will increase prices in South Australia from the 1st of July. Origin Energy will raise prices by 6.5% increase and AGL will raise them by around 10%. [Read more…]
The last coal miners in South Australia have hung up their helmets, and the last coal fired power station has shut its doors.
History has been made with the closure of the Northern Power Station which has eliminated the use of coal in South Australia. And I say good riddance to you, Northern Power Station. I’m sorry you are no longer providing employment for people in Port Augusta or at the Leigh Creek coal mine, but I’m not sorry you are gone because you kill people and I am a firm believer that electricity generation should be death light. [Read more…]
Supply charges have no place in a 21st Century electricity network.
Do you know what I hate? What I truly despise? What causes black bile to bubble up from the deepest, darkest depths of my soul? Supply charges on electricity bills. [Read more…]
Learn how to hack the government’s electricity bill data for fun and profit…
If you own a solar system but haven’t shopped around the electricity retailers in a while, your bills are probably higher than they need to be.
The big gentailers, Origin, AGL and Energy Australia have made their disdain for solar very clear. They all lobbied to scrap government support for small scale solar during Tony Abbott’s RET review in 2014. And unsurprisingly their electricity tariff offers for solar owners are pretty ordinary.
Luckily there are lots of smaller retailers around these days that often beat the big names. And a handful of those offer solar Feed In Rates that are higher than the rates mandated by your state government. [Read more…]
The RayGen System focuses solar onto a novel concentrator. Image (c) Raygen
You get the best renewable energy stories tucked away in the rural press. Proof that solar power innovation in the bush is moving ahead by leaps and bounds. This despite the often backwards policy of our elected representatives.
So it was this week when a bit of digging unearthed the unveiling of a $3.6 million solar power facility in Newbridge in Central Victoria. The plant, developed by renewable research and development company RayGen Resources, combines PV cells with concentrating solar technology. [Read more…]
SA takes the medal for most solar systems per household.
The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show one in five households use some form of solar energy. The figures back anecdotal and other statistical evidence of a massive growth surge for solar that has occurred since the ABS first began publishing statistics on solar energy, back in 2011.
Then the figures were comparatively low with only around five percent of households using solar energy, said the ABS’ Karen Connaughton in a 3/12/2014 press release. However the change in just three years has been dramatic.
“Jump just three years, to 2014, and there are solar panels being used by fourteen per cent of all households.”, she said.
Add to this solar hot water and the numbers of households using solar energy in one form or another has jumped to 20 percent. [Read more…]
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