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Victorian power company AusNet Services is sharing evidence of parliamentary pushing to update the industry that is ever-changing and incredibly innovative. AusNet is one of the five distributing companies of electricity in Victoria and covers the outer northern and eastern suburbs, as well as the eastern portion of the state. AusNet says that a Federal Parliamentary committee is attempting to modernize Australia’s electricity grid, which is causing havoc amongst some customers.

Many households are moving onto more environmentally friendly and long-term cost-effective strategies when it comes to consuming energy. Some of the popular alternatives are battery storage and solar power. The move from grid connection to unconnected electric distributions is being called grid defection. The issue at hand is that this grid defection is going to raise the cost for those that choose to, or need to, stay apart of the grid. The rise in cost will stem from recovering costs to operate the system from fewer customers. This will particularly affect those residents that don’t have the monetary means to switch from grid use to the up-front costly alternatives. The low-income households will suffer the most from this push to modernization.

Aside from those who cannot afford to break away from the grid, some residents won’t have the opportunity at all to move to alternative electricity distributors because of its lack of feasibility. The company denies that they are sending these messages to the public for their own good, but claim that they want to inform the public and allow them to make decisions based on the greater good of the community. Alister Parker of AusNet says that the company expects future advancements regarding solar power and electric cars to be adopted by consumers, but not in the way that is going to cost the less fortunate half of the community.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We’ll always have the Sun: solar energy and the future of humankind

September 24, 2017

We’ll always have the Sun: solar energy and the future of humankind

Above, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) speaks to Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) in the movie “Casablanca” (1942). Here, the sentence has been a little changed. In the film, the phrase refers to “Paris”, not “The Sun”. But in the debate on the future of civilization, there is only one certainty: we’ll always have the sun.

This post was originally published on Aug 15, 2017 by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for people and planet. Support us to keep digging where others fear to tread.

As it becomes clear that we must get rid of fossil fuels before they get rid of us, a question is being asked over and over:

“Can renewables replace fossil fuels?”

Some people have been sufficiently impressed by the rapid decline of the price of renewable energy that their answer is not only, “yes,” but that switching to renewables will be fast and painless. It will come simply as the result of the free market mechanisms, at most aided by a little magic called “carbon tax”. Then, economic growth will continue unabashed in the best of worlds.

Others take the opposite position. Noting that renewables require large investments in the energy infrastructure, that they don’t easily produce liquid fuels, that they can’t support energy “on demand,” and more, they conclude that renewables are useless; an illusion, if not an outright scam.

This viewpoint is further split in two views. One seems to welcome the collapse of an energy-starved economic system and the associated return to the Middle Ages, or even to extinction. The other simply sees fossil fuels as a good thing to be kept and subsidised. After all, CO2 is food for plants, isn’t it?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In Florida, You Can’t Use Your Own Solar Panels in a Crisis

September 18, 2017

In Florida, You Can’t Use Your Own Solar Panels in a Crisis

When it comes to the U.S. economy, the “con” part offers the best description of the current relationship between business, government and the preyed upon consumer. The way things work in early 21st century America is large businesses bribe politicians in a variety of ways at both the local and federal level, and the end result is laws that are designed to increase corporate profits at the expense of the wellbeing and freedom of the American public. Politicians end up with financial war chests to run their next campaign, while bureaucrats see a lucrative opportunity to swing through the ever spinning revolving door should they play ball with lobbyists and their patrons. Yes, there’s always some degree of corruption within any society of humans, but there are peaks and valleys in such cycles. I’d argue we are somewhere in the peak corruption phase.

Today’s article focuses on one of the most highly regulated industries in the country, electric utilities. It’s one of the most boring businesses in America. I know this because it fell under the umbrella of my responsibilities during my last Wall Street job, and I could barely read a utilities research report without immediately falling asleep. Nevertheless, as you’ll see in today’s piece, the industry still finds a way to generate large profits while simultaneously harming the people its supposed to service.

When I think about solar panels, its not just the use of a renewable resource I find appealing, but also the potential to take energy generation into your own hands; something that can prove quite useful in a major global crisis, or even something more minor like Hurricane Irma’s impact on Florida. The latter could’ve be a lifesaver for some Florida residents recently, but a local electric utility has done everything in its power to deny its customers such freedom.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is The Sun Setting On The Solar Boom?

September 14, 2017

Is The Sun Setting On The Solar Boom?

The U.S. solar industry is expected to see its expansion significantly curtailed this year after installing record capacity in 2016, marking the first annual decline in installations for the industry.

A new report from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) raises some question marks for the trajectory of the solar industry. In the second quarter, the U.S. installed 2.38 gigawatts of new solar PV. A decent performance, but with two quarters in the books, the industry is only on track to install 12.4 GW of new capacity in 2017, a decline of 17 percent from last year.

The report from GTM Research and SEIA laid out a few reasons for concern. Residential PV only expanded by 1 percent quarter-on-quarter, the result of “weakness in the California market and a slowdown in Northeast markets, which are feeling the impact of pull-back from national providers.” Solar’s super-charged growth in recent years can in part be attributed to state policies that mandate renewable energy. Those policies are reaching their limits, meaning that going forward, a lot of new installations will need to be made on a voluntary basis.

But, beyond those wrinkles, there are many reasons why solar providers still feel good about their prospects. Solar provided 22 percent of all new electric capacity in the U.S. in the first half of 2017, second only to natural gas. Also, the decline in installations this year will be in the context of a record-setting year in 2016 in which solar accounted for 39 percent of all new capacity—more than natural gas.

The expected expiration of tax credits at the end of 2016—credits that were ultimately extended through the end of the decade—led to a massive volume of projects last year. As the industry refills the pipeline with new projects, 2017 was always going to be a bit slower than 2016.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How (Not) to Run a Modern Society on Solar and Wind Power Alone

September 14, 2017

How (Not) to Run a Modern Society on Solar and Wind Power Alone

Wind energy

While the potential of wind and solar energy is more than sufficient to supply the electricity demand of industrial societies, these resources are only available intermittently. To ensure that supply always meets demand, a renewable power grid needs an oversized power generation and transmission capacity of up to ten times the peak demand. It also requires a balancing capacity of fossil fuel power plants, or its equivalent in energy storage.

Consequently, matching supply to demand at all times makes renewable power production a complex, slow, expensive and unsustainable undertaking. Yet, if we would adjust energy demand to the variable supply of solar and wind energy, a renewable power grid could be much more advantageous. Using wind and solar energy only when they’re available is a traditional concept that modern technology can improve upon significantly.

100% Renewable Energy

It is widely believed that in the future, renewable energy production will allow modern societies to become independent from fossil fuels, with wind and solar energy having the largest potential. An oft-stated fact is that there’s enough wind and solar power available to meet the energy needs of modern civilisation many times over.

For instance, in Europe, the practical wind energy potential for electricity production on- and off-shore is estimated to be at least 30,000 TWh per year, or ten times the annual electricity demand. [1] In the USA, the technical solar power potential is estimated to be 400,000 TWh, or 100 times the annual electricity demand. [2]

Such statements, although theoretically correct, are highly problematic in practice. This is because they are based on annual averages of renewable energy production, and do not address the highly variable and uncertain character of wind and solar energy.

Annual averages of renewable energy production do not address the highly variable and uncertain character of wind and solar energy

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” Delusion

February 19, 2017

The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” Delusion

The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” story is based on a long list of misunderstandings and apples to oranges comparisons. Somehow, people seem to believe that our economy of 7.5 billion people can get along with a very short list of energy supplies. This short list will not include fossil fuels. Some would exclude nuclear, as well. Without these energy types, we find ourselves with a short list of types of energy — what BP calls Hydroelectric, Geobiomass (geothermal, wood, wood waste, and other miscellaneous types; also liquid fuels from plants), Wind, and Solar.

Unfortunately, a transition to such a short list of fuels can’t really work. These are a few of the problems we encounter:

[1] Wind and solar are making extremely slow progress in helping the world move away from fossil fuel dependence.

In 2015, fossil fuels accounted for 86% of the world’s energy consumption, and nuclear added another 4%, based on data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Thus, the world’s “preferred fuels” made up only 10% of the total. Wind and solar together accounted for a little less than 2% of world energy consumption.

Figure 1. World energy consumption based on data from BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.

Our progress in getting away from fossil fuels has not been very fast, either. Going back to 1985, fossil fuels made up 89% of the total, and wind and solar were both insignificant. As indicated above, fossil fuels today comprise 86% of total energy consumption. Thus, in 30 years, we have managed to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 3% (=89% – 86%). Growth in wind and solar contributed 2% of this 3% reduction. At the rate of a 3% reduction every 30 years (or 1% reduction every ten years), it will take 860 years, or until the year 2877 to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels. And the “improvement” made to date was made with huge subsidies for wind and solar.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Possible “EMP” Hit On A Solar Power System — And How To Reduce The Risk

June 23, 2016

A Possible “EMP” Hit On A Solar Power System — And How To Reduce The Risk

EMP is just a super-duper version of regular old radio frequency interference. With enough signal strength to blast past the reverse voltage limits of most semiconductors, an EMP attack is expected to destroy many solid-state radios, computers, controllers, etc. I *may* have had my own small “EMP” caused by my own ham radio station, and this article explains what I learned.

My solar power system is based on Outback inverters & charge controllers, so I had their computerized Mate3 monitor installed. This is a very compact little special-purpose computer that displays current and daily total power at multiple points throughout the entire solar power system, including panels, chargers, batteries, inverts, circuits and power being sent back to the utility. In my case, I had it connected via cat5 cable to a nearby private WIFI router so I could read the results from my easy chair. (NOT connected to the Internet!)

I subsequently put up a new random-length dipole antenna, fed with an antenna tuner, and got a linear amplifier working, and was finally able to get a fairly powerful signal out. The antenna end was just about exactly over the Mate 3 controller, about 20 feet above it. Do you see where this is going?

I can’t be sure that these are related, but my previously reliable Mate3 suddenly died, acting as if its startup-circuitry was either fried or reprogrammed: it would perform initial self checks, but then would go in circles, refusing to go on to the actual monitoring task. No amount of resetting made any difference.

Of course, it could have been a lighting-related event, or just a component failure, but the recent antenna and ham shack work made me wonder if the high voltage field at the end of the dipole on some frequencies might have been related?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The real EROI of photovoltaic systems: professor Hall weighs in.

May 29, 2016

The real EROI of photovoltaic systems: professor Hall weighs in.

The EROI of our various energy options, and its associated issues, may be the most important issues that will face future civilizations. The present discussion tends to vacillate between people who accept (or advocate) very high EROIs for solar vs people who accept (or advocate) very low such EROIs. I trust only one study, the one I did with Pedro Prieto, who has a great deal of real world experience and data. This study attempted to (conservatively) estimate all the energy used to generate PV electricity in Spain by following all the money spent (per GW) and using physical analysis where possible, and energy intensity of money where necessary. We found that the panels and inverters, which are the only parts measured in most studies, were only about a third of the energy cost of the system. As noted in the responses to Ugo’s last post we estimated an EROI of 2.45:1 in 2008 assuming a lifetime of 25 years and at the juncture with the distribution system. Studies that we think used more or less appropriate boundaries (Palmer, Weissbach) got similar results.

We recognize that subsequent studies to ours would probably have generated higher EROIs because of using panels of lower energy costs or higher efficiency. But there are many ways that it might be lower too. For example Ferroni and Hopkirk, who (despite, perhaps, some issues) have done us a good service by attempting to get actual lifetimes for modules, which were much closer to 18 years than infinity. This agrees with what happened in Spain when, due to post-2008 financial turmoil, manufacturers did not honor their guarantees and legally “disappeared”, leaving broken systems unfixed. (And what happened to all those “surplus” Chinese panels that were never used?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How to Get Your Apartment Off the Grid

May 19, 2016

How to Get Your Apartment Off the Grid

Picture: Low-tech Magazine’s solar powered office.

The typical solar PV power installation requires access to a private roof and a big budget. However, wouldn’t it be possible to get around these obstacles by installing small solar panels on window sills and balconies, connected to a low-voltage direct current (DC) distribution network? To put this theory to the test, I decided to power Low-tech Magazine’s home office in Spain with solar energy, and write my articles off the grid.

Solar panels have become cheaper and more efficient in recent years, but they are far from a universal solution, even in sunny regions. One reason is that a typical solar photovoltaic (PV) installation is still beyond the budget of many people. The average pricing for a 5kW residential PV system completed in 2014 varied from $11,000 in Germany to $16,450 in the USA. [1, 2] Roughly half of that amount concerns the installation costs. [3]

A second obstacle for solar power is that not everybody lives in a single-family dwelling with access to a private roof. Those who reside in apartment buildings have little chance of harvesting solar power with a conventional roof-mounted system. Furthermore, in apartment buildings, the roof would quickly become too crowded to cover the electricity use of all residents, a problem that grows larger the more floors there are in a building. Lastly, a typical solar installation is problematic when you’re renting a place, whether it’s a house or an apartment.

I’m one of those people who runs into every one of these obstacles: I live in a flat, I rent the place, and I don’t have the budget for a conventional solar system. However, I receive a lot of sunshine.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

As Drought Grips South Africa, A Conflict Over Water and Coal

May 16, 2016

As Drought Grips South Africa, A Conflict Over Water and Coal

Facing one of the worst droughts in memory, South Africa’s leaders have doubled down on their support of the water-intensive coal industry. But clean energy advocates say the smartest move would be to back the country’s burgeoning wind and solar power sectors.

Until a ferocious drought withered crops, turned rivers to trickles, and dried up municipal drinking water supplies, one of Limpopo province’s distinctions was the ample sun and good soil that made it South Africa’s premier producer of fruits and vegetables.

Another distinction was that the province’s farmers made an informal agreement to share scarce water with coal companies developing the Waterberg Coalfield that lies beneath dry central Limpopo.

Keith Schneider

Residents of KwaZulu-Natal wait in line daily to get water from a government-supplied tank.

The drought, the most extreme in South Africa since the start of the 20th century, shattered the fragile equilibrium between the agricultural and coal sectors. Pitched street clashes between farmers and police, who back the coal interests, have broken out south of Musina, where Coal Africa proposes to build a $406 million mine in an area where some of the country’s most productive vegetable farms operate. The mine would consume 1 million gallons of water a day, according to company disclosures. Both the mine and neighboring irrigated farms are dependent on the Nzhelele River, which has dwindled to a shallow stream.

Higher temperatures and diminished rainfall, which many scientists attribute to climate change are wreaking havoc in two of South Africa’s largest economic sectors — agriculture and energy. Yet in the face of this growing crisis, South Africa’s leaders continue to display unyielding allegiance to the nation’s water-guzzling coal sector, whose 50-plus billion tons of coal reserves fuel 90 percent of the country’s electrical generating capacity and provide a third of its liquid fuels.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

An energy miracle? But we already have it!

May 16, 2016

An energy miracle? But we already have it!

Silicon is a material with properties close to the optimal for a solar cell. It is also one of the most abundant elements in the earth’s crust, and, finally, we know how to use it to manufacture cells with efficiency close to the theoretical maximum. Isn’t it a miracle?

“EnergySkeptic” recently commented on an article appeared in “Nature” in 2014 on the possibility of cheap photovoltaic cells entering the market of solar energy. The post is short enough that I can reproduce it in full, below. It is interesting because it shows the problems with the idea of the “miracle breakthrough” in energy that Bill Gates advocates.

Here, the discussion is on perovskite solar cells; a technology that promises to be cheaper than that based on silicon. Perovskites are a large class of materials; those being studied as solar cell materials have several advantages, including the fact that they can be manufactured in the form of thin films, don’t need to be so extremely pure as silicon, have a band gap close to the theoretical optimum.

That, however, doesn’t necessarily make perovskites a “breakthrough” in the field. Even assuming that perovskite cells could reach an efficiency high enough to be marketable, the problem is that, at present, the cost of the cells is only about 30% of the total cost of a solar plant. Even if perovskite cells were to cost half as much in comparison to silicon ones, that would be no improvement unless their efficiency were to match or exceed that of silicon. Otherwise, the whole plant would probably cost more because it would have to occupy more space.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Solar on the roof taxed as income

March 21, 2016

Solar on the roof taxed as income

But the cost of a solar system can be written off over a period of years

The solar panels on Mike Brigham's roof in Toronto allow him to sell power back to the grid. He says solar provides power when Ontario most needs it — when the sun is hot and air-conditioners are pushing up power demands.

The solar panels on Mike Brigham’s roof in Toronto allow him to sell power back to the grid. He says solar provides power when Ontario most needs it — when the sun is hot and air-conditioners are pushing up power demands. (Mike Brigham)

After learning he would have to pay to up to $15,000 to bring in electricity via cable and pay a bill year-round despite using the cottage for only a few months, he decided to install his first solar panel.

Since then, he’s upgraded the system at the cottage several times and when he went looking for a lot in Toronto in 2008, he sought out one with ample access to the sun’s rays.

‘When solar generates the most is on summer days when days when aircon loads are really driving up the peaks and the cost of power in the middle of the day goes way up.’– Mike Brigham, Solar Share Co-op

He now has a 5.8-kilowatt solar system on the roof of the home he built in Toronto and sells the power back to the grid under Ontario’s MicroFIT program.

And like every homeowner and farm property owner who has taken advantage of Ontario’s FIT, or feed-in tariff, program for solar, he has to pay income tax on the cash he earns from selling power back to the local utility.

Solar and provincial incentives

It’s not just Ontario where small operators are dealing with the tax implications of small solar projects.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Are Solar Panels Lifespans As Long As Industry Claims?

December 24, 2015

Are Solar Panels Lifespans As Long As Industry Claims?

Today the standard is for a consumer to pay little or nothing upfront for their rooftop solar system upfront. Instead, the consumer pays for the system over time through the equivalent of lease payments (often structured as a predetermined purchase agreement for power generated). This is really just the consumer equivalent to a standard sale/lease-back transaction which is common across much of structured finance.

Yet there is a problem here. The important underlying assumption in any sale/lease-back transaction is that the asset will be durable enough to survive for the length of the lease payments. If the asset fails before the end of the lease period, it creates a problem for both parties. The issue is resolved based on the documents backing the transaction of course, but it creates a risk inherent in the deal for one party or the other.

The same logic applies to leased rooftop solar panels. These panels are supposed to last 20 years or more in many cases. That level of assumed durability has not been widely tested though since rooftop solar is really only came into prominence in the last decade. Now some solar executives are starting to raise concerns about whether the systems in question are really as durable as many consumers and solar companies have expected. If the equipment fails prematurely, one party or the other is in for a very unpleasant surprise.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Storing Energy by Gravity

October 1, 2015

Storing Energy by Gravity

– A simple and efficient way for large scale and long duration energy storage.

Renewable energy technologies have come a long way since the first solar panels and wind turbines were built to harness the energy from sun and wind to meet the ever increasing energy demands of mankind. Advancements in renewable technologies and mushrooming of bigger and larger wind and solar farms are slowly reducing the unit cost of power generated using renewable resources. Also, the contribution by renewable technologies in many countries energy pie chart is growing in size, and is slowly reducing the world’s dependency on fossil fuels for electricity.

Illustration showing the mechanism behind storing electricity using gravity. (Image source: Gravity Power)

And yet, renewable energy technologies are still incapable of standing on their own and have to lean on the fossil fuel to meet irregular demands. Wind doesn’t blow with sufficient strength all the time and there are days when the sunlight doesn’t reach the earth’s surface at a given geographic location with sufficient intensity. Matching the irregular demand with an equally fluctuating power generation is the biggest challenge faced by renewable technologies today. Grid scale renewable farms often rely on gas-powered “peaker” stations to meet irregularities in supply and demand and are fired-up quickly when needed.

The solution to this problem lies in storing the surplus energy on the grid until it is required.
Traditionally, energy has been stored in a number of ways through devices like batteries, flywheels and compressed air. But other than pumped hydro, none of them really amounts to much from a utility stand point with a potential to match supply with demand.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Renewable Energy Will Not Support Economic Growth

June 5, 2015

Renewable Energy Will Not Support Economic Growth

Container terminal image via shutterstock. Reproduced at Resilience.org with permission.

The world needs to end its dependence on fossil fuels as quickly as possible. That’s the only sane response to climate change, and to the economic dilemma of declining oil, coal, and gas resource quality and increasing extraction costs. The nuclear industry is on life support in most countries, so the future appears to lie mostly with solar and wind power. But can we transition to these renewable energy sources and continue using energy the way we do today? And can we maintain our growth-based consumer economy?

The answer to both questions is, probably not. Let’s survey four important sectors of the energy economy and tally up the opportunities and challenges.

The electricity sector: Solar and wind produce electricity, and the fuel is free. Moreover, the cost of electricity from these sources is declining. These are encouraging trends. However, intermittency (the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow) still poses barriers to high levels of solar-wind electricity market share. Grid managers can easily integrate small variable inputs; but eventually storage, capacity redundancy, and major grid overhauls will be necessary to balance inputs with loads as higher proportions of electricity come from uncontrollable sources. All of this will be expensive—increasingly so as solar-wind market penetration levels exceed roughly 60 percent. Some of the problems associated with integrating variable renewables into the grid are being worked out over time. But even if all these problems are eventually resolved, only about one-fifth of all final energy is consumed in the form of electricity; how about other forms and ways in which we use energy—will they be easier or harder to transition?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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