To be eligible for the 47cents feed in tariff you must sign up before the 30th of June 2011. Your system must then be installed before September 30th 2011.  For that reason we can only take so many installs and positions are filling fast.  At the rate that things are moving we are likely to be full before the June 30th deadline.  The time to enquire about a system is now before you miss out!  We look forward to being about to fit you a quality system before the deadline and look forward to hearing from you soon.

The Energy Farm team.

Energyfarm.

ANALYSIS

When Julia Gillard and Hillary Clinton announced they wanted to ”make solar power competitive with conventional power sources” within five years, they left out one important detail.

Their goal was based on solar being competitive with coal-fired power after a carbon price had been imposed.

When you think about it this is obvious – if solar power could provide electricity as cheaply as coal-fired power without putting a cost on the emissions from coal, then we wouldn’t need to impose that cost. The problem would be solved. We could forget the whole carbon price thing, because the only reason to have one is to give a leg-up to more expensive, low-emission sources of power.

But according to the executive director of the Australian Solar Institute, Mark Twidell – who will be managing the $50 million the federal government has stumped up for the initiative – cost-competitive solar without a carbon price sounds too good to be true because it is too good to be true.

”Solar is getting cheaper but the prediction that it could enter the market as a competitive alternative in 2015 is based on the assumption that conventional forms of power will be also more expensive by then for a number of reasons, and one important reason would be a carbon price,” he said.

The office of Resources Minister Martin Ferguson was unable to say what carbon price assumptions lay behind the big US-Australian solar announcement or on what basis the prediction of competitiveness within five years was made.

Whatever the assumed carbon price is in the calculation, the obvious problem is that neither  US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nor Prime Minister Julia Gillard has a carbon price in place yet.

US President Barack Obama has acknowledged the results of the midterm elections mean he is unlikely to get his cap-and-trade scheme through, certainly not this term. Gillard’s cross-party climate committee meets for only the second time tomorrow, so she has a way to go, too.

Politicians know that reducing greenhouse emissions involves two calculations – what changes to make and how to finance them.

The ”how” always involves the cost, which is why they often dwell on the ”what”. What about solar, they say? What about nuclear?

But the gap between the price of coal and solar, or coal and nuclear, or coal and any other power source, has to be bridged by a cost on the emissions from coal-fired power, or by big government subsidies for the alternatives, or by forcing the generators to pay the price gap and then pass it on to consumers. Whichever way, it can’t just be ignored.

Original source: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/solar-power-plan-without-a-carbon-price-is-too-good-to-be-true-20101108-17kjg.html

How to wean China, India, USA and the World from Coal and shift to Solar

The solution to man made climate change depends on the transition to Electricity production that, unlike burning Oil, Nat Gas, and Coal, emits little or no CO2; the main Greenhouse Gas responsible for Global Warming.

Low-carbon Electricity can be produced by Solar, Nuclear, and Wind energy, or by Coal-burning power plants that capture and store their CO2 emissions.

The policy problem from LTN’s POV is simplly this; Coal is a cheaper and more easily used energy source than the alternatives.

It is cheap because it is plentiful. It is easier to use than Wind or Solar power because it can produce Electricity 24/7, without reliance on any Weather condition.

To Save the Planet, power suppliers must be induced to adopt low-carbon energy sources despite Coal’s lower price and ease of use.

The 1st and easiest way is to tax Coal, or to require Power Plants to have permits to use Coal, and to set the tax or permit price high enough to induce a shift toward low-carbon alternatives.

Let us suppose Coal produces Electricity at a cost of US$00.06 per kilowatt-hour, while Solar power costs US$00.16 per kilowatt-hour. The tax on Coal-based electricity would have to be US$00.10 per kilowatt-hour.

If that be the case, then consumers would pay US$00.16 per kilowatt-hour for either Coal or Solar. The utilities would then begin to shift to low-carbon solar power. The switchover would cause a more that double the Electricity bill if this came on.

Now, the fact is that politicians are not likely to impose such a tax, because they fear a political backlash that would force them from favor and their powerful “good offices.”

This fact of life has hampered progress in the United States towards a low-carbon economy. But, several EU countries have successfully introduced the idea of the “Feed-in Tariff,” which provides the “Core” of a politically acceptable long-term solution.

A “Feed-in Tariff” subsidizes the low-carbon Energy source rather than taxing the high-carbon energy source.

So in LTN’s example, the government would pay a subsidy of US$00.10 per kilowatt-hour to the Solar-power plant in order to make up the difference between the consumer price of US$00.06 and the production cost of US$00.10.

Thence, the consumer price remains the same, but the government must then pay for the subsidy.

There is another way. Let’s suppose that the government/s levy a small tax on existing Coal power plants in order to pay for the Solar subsidy, and then gradually raise consumers’ Electricity bills as more and more Solar plants come on line.

The price charged to consumers would rise gradually from US$00.06 per kilowatt-hour to the full cost of US$00.16 per kilowatt-hour, but over a phase-in period of, say, 40 yrs; the life-span of today’s newest coal fired electricity generating plants.

Assume that as of Y 2010, the entire Electricity system is Coal-based, and that the Electricity price paid by the consumers is US$00.06 per kilowatt-hour. By Y 2014, suppose that 10% of the 40-yr transition to Solar power has been achieved. The consumer price is raised 10% of the way from US6 cents to US16 cents, thus reaching US$00.07 per kilowatt-hour.

The Coal tax for Y 2014 is then set at US 1 cent per kilowatt-hour, which is just enough to pay the needed Solar subsidy of US 9 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Solar producers fully cover their costs of US 16 cents, since they sell power to the consumers at US 7 cents per kilowatt-hour and receive a subsidy of US 9 cents per kilowatt-hour. A small Coal tax can support a large Solar subsidy.

Let’s take that a bit further, then by Y 2030 the transition to a low-carbon economy is 50% complete. The consumer price for Electricity is now set at US$00.11, exactly halfway between US$00.06 and US$00.16.

The Coal tax is now raised to US$00.05 per kilowatt-hour, enough to cover the Solar subsidy of US$00.05 per kilowatt-hour.

Again, the Solar producers cover their costs exactly, since the subsidy of US$00.055 per kilowatt-hour closes the Gap between the consumer price and the producer cost.

And finally, using the above method, by Y 2050, all Electricity production has made the transition to low-carbon Energy sources, and the consumer price finally reaches US$00.16 per kilowatt-hour, enough to cover the full cost of Solar power without any more government subsidy.

This approach allows higher consumer Electricity prices to be phased in gradually, and establishes strong immediate incentives for adopting Solar power, plus the government budget is balanced every year, since the Coal tax pays for the Solar subsidy.

The actual transformation in the coming years will have 1 major advantage compared to this illustration.

Today’s Solar power plants may cost an extra US$00.10 per kilowatt-hour compared to Coal, but such plants will be much less costly in the future because of improved technology. So, the size of subsidies needed in say 10 to 20 yrs will be lower than they are today.

Energy debates in the USA, Australia, and other countries have centered so far on introducing a cumbersome Cap-and-Trade permit system.

Under the Cap and Trade system every major user of fossil fuels would need to buy permits to emit CO2, and those permits would trade in a special marketplace. The market price of the permits would be equivalent to paying a tax on CO2 emissions.

Management of such Cap-and-Trade systems is difficult and do not give clear signals about the future price of permits. Europe has adopted such a system, but other parts of the World have rejected it out of hand.

IEurope’s biggest successes in promoting low-carbon Energy have come from its Feed-in Tariffs, and carbon taxes in some countries, rather than its Cap-and-Trade system.

We believe that the time has come for the USA, China, India, and other major economies to declare how they will husband and boost their own transitions to a low-carbon economy.

A small and gradually rising carbon tax that funds a Feed-in Tariff system could win political support in the USA. It could also help to bolster consensus among the major coal-based economies, including China and India.

There are effective long-term solutions to man made climate change that are politically acceptable, feasible and relatively easy to implement. The Big Q: is it time to embrace them?

Original source: The Solution to coal

Energyfarm.

CLIMATE SPECTATOR: What really killed NSW solar?

It seems that the massive take-up of rooftop solar under the excessively generous NSW feed-in tariff was not the middle class indulgence that it was thought to be.

The review into the Solar Bonus Scheme prepared for the Keneally government by the Department of Industry and Investment dismisses the perception that solar panels were a privilege reserved for affluent homeowners in Sydney’s northern and eastern suburbs and the inner west.

It turns out that the greatest demand in Sydney for solar PV under the scheme came from the western and south-western “Aussie battler” suburbs of Prospect, Seven Hills, Mt Druitt and Liverpool.

And the highest numbers per locality were recorded in country areas – Including Lismore, Coffs Harbour, Taree, Port Macquarie, Ballina and Gosford in the north, Bega in the south, Armidale and Wagga Wagga further inland, and in numerous localities in the central coast. The country areas had particularly large appetites, ordering systems of an average size of 2.8kW, compared to 1.9kW in the city.

And while some social service groups had complained about the inequality of the scheme, the report noted that the cost of solar panels had come down so quickly in the last 12 months – from $12,600 per kilowatt to $6,000/kW (they had been $17,000/kW in 2001) – that installations had been offered for zero up front cost by some retailers. Clearly, the battlers in the mortgage belt were quicker to seize a bargain that the toffs in the inner suburbs.

The report also reveals that the Keneally government appears to have ignored the report’s advice that a low cap on rooftop solar would cause the state’s solar industry to come to a shuddering halt.

The report recommended a cap to keep a lid on costs, but warned that placing too low a cap would create a boom-bust scenario, and a heavy loss of jobs.

The Keneally government chose a cap of 300MW – allowing just 100MW of new solar rooftop to be installed at the drastically reduced tariff – a target that its own bullish forecasts predict could be met within 12-15 months.

The report prepared suggested the government take one of two options – cut the gross feed-in tariff of 60c/kwh to either 30c/kWh or 20c/kWh.

The reason for this was that the higher than expected take-up would likely see the capacity surge to nearly 1000MW of rooftop solar connected to nearly half a million homes by 2016, and estimated accumulated costs of $4 billion to energy consumers over the seven-year period.

Surprisingly, the report included estimates from consulting group AECOM that said cutting the tariff to 30c/kWh would still generate demand from more than 400,000 homes for 843MW of rooftop solar, at a reduced cost of $2.5 billion, while a 20c/kWh tariff would still generate more than 777MW of rooftop solar demand from some 350,000 homes at a cost of $1.9 billion over the seven years. The solar industry finds those estimates to be remarkably bullish.

Nevertheless, these were the figures that the government used to decide on the lowest recommended tariff and a 300MW cap. Meaning that, for the sake of saving $470 million over six years, it sacrificed – according to the calculations it was presented with – some 477MW of installed solar capacity and up to 20,000 if future jobs.

By the report’s own estimates, the 50MW that had been installed by June, 2010, had created 2,500 jobs, with 10 jobs created for every 1MW in manufacturing, 33 in installation, 3-4 in sales and marketing, and 1-2 in research. On those figures, the Keneally government’s decision to place a cap of 300MW would cost 15,000 in future installation jobs alone.

Given the upcoming election, the demographics of the scheme, the identified job sacrifices, and the fact that the NSW Labor government must now explain why new owners will now pay more for coal fired power than they will receive for emissions-free solar, this may have been a more heroic decision than was first realised.

Intriguingly, the report appears have placed great store in the submission from the Energy Supply Association of Australia, particularly its comments that case studies of solar PV indicated a cost of abatement of greenhouse gases ranged from $484 a tonne to $1,500 a tonne, which the ESAA compared unfavourably to prices of around $17 a tonne for CO2 in the Kyoto protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism and the prices of $3 and $15 in the NSW Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme.

Even if you accept the PV abatement cost, which most have put at around $400/tonne, it is, by any measure, an extraordinarily disingenuous comparison. The price of carbon in a market is usually dictated by the ambition and breadth of the scheme, and the CDM currently has few participants and an uncertain future. A better comparison would have been feed-in tariffs in the 50 or so other countries that have them.

And, as the report indentified, reducing emissions is not the primary goal of a feed-in tariff. If it was, you wouldn’t do it. It has broader purposes, including creating jobs, supporting those who want to generate renewable energy as a response to climate change, and to increase the exposure to renewable energy technology in order to encourage the whole community to respond to climate change.

Wind developers were also opposed. The UK group RES Australia said the flood of solar PV had caused large-scale renewable projects to be deferred or abandoned and job losses in other renewable energy sectors.

But other companies were supportive. Indeed, the report said building group CSR wanted the scheme extended to 30 years, citing the need to provide a nurturing environment for emerging technologies in the renewable energy industry.

The retailer, Woolworths, said it had already had reinforced roof structures on its distribution centres at Laverton and Erskine Park which could accommodate solar PV arrays of 1MW, but it had been unable to go ahead because commercial installations were excluded from the FiT.

It suggested a 20-year scheme rather than a seven-year scheme to enable businesses to achieve an acceptable financial return, and suggested specific FiT arrangements with a sliding scale that increased with installed capacity.

Predictably, this was resisted by network operators, who raised concerns about the impacts of large-scale systems on the integrity of the network. Country Energy conceded, though, that there were potential network benefits from small-scale generation, particularly in peak demand reduction and the deferral of investment.

Original post: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/CLIMATE-SPECTATOR-What-really-killed-NSW-solar-pd20101029-ANSF9?opendocument&src=rss