NSW Solar scheme needs improvement, but energy efficiency still the best
Dr Diesendorf said schemes such as the solar bonus had long-term potential but ”bang for buck, energy efficiency is the cheapest and fastest”.
Solar bonus generates a mega-load of energy, Sydney Morning Herald, Jennie CurtinAugust 28, 2010 THE NSW Government’s solar bonus scheme, which pays householders for the electricity they generate from their rooftop panels, has proved so popular it has reached a 50-megawatt milestone 18 months before expected.
But experts have warned that it is too generous and too short-term to encourage the industry investment in solar that is vital for a renewable energy future.
They argue the scheme must be expanded to include commercial customers, not just small-scale residential properties.
The solar panel program was established in January, offering households 60¢ a kilowatt hour for all the electricity generated until 2017. It is the most generous scheme in the country and one of only two that pay a tariff on all energy generated (the other being in the ACT, which pays 45.7¢ a kilowatt hour.
All other states and territories offer net tariffs, which pay only for the excess power householders return to the grid after using what they require.
The NSW scheme was inundated with applications, and an estimated 30,000 householders are being paid to feed renewable energy into the grid…..
Dr Mark Diesendorf, of the institute of environmental studies at the University of NSW, said the current tariff was too high and the seven-year period too short.
”They should have given a lower tariff for a longer period to ensure more stable growth of the industry.”
‘The short burst … isn’t going to give enough support for industry to come back [from overseas] and manufacture [solar panels] in Australia.”
He nominated 40¢ a kilowatt hour as adequate and over 15 years. ”You wouldn’t have got this mad rush and you would have got stimulus for investment.”……
Dr Diesendorf said schemes such as the solar bonus had long-term potential but ”bang for buck, energy efficiency is the cheapest and fastest”.
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1.This month.
The Road to War brings a sharp focus to why it is not in Australia’s best interest to be dragged into a war with China which will almost inevitably go nuclear very quickly. The filmmaker has interviewed some of Australia’s senior foreign policy analysts who have vast experience behind them in analysing what really is going on here as the United States rattles its sabres with China. And sets us up to be its proxy, like the poor Ukranians have been fed into the Meatgrinder. So America can remain the Top Dog. The Road to War reveals how the United States through its spy base at Pine Gap and by stationing six nuclear capable B52 bombers in the Top End (without permission from the traditional owners) is making Australia a prime nuclear target if the current war of words suddenly melts down into full scale war.
The Road to War shows the implicit connection between Carbon emissions (the US military uses a whopping 70% of America’s annual petroleum to move its armies and vast War Machine around the globe to its 800+ military bases..but under a loophole wangled at Kyoto, the US military does not have to report its C02 annual emissions). The Road to War starts screening at selected cities and regional centres in March. See the trailer end for details.
Antinuclear 
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