Antinuclear

A compelling case for Australian households to adopt solar energy

The Australian Energy Market Operator report on solar photovoltaics,… recognises that solar PV can provide a compelling economic case for households as its costs fall and retail prices from fossil-fuel-dominated centralised grids continue to rise.

We are missing the boat on clean energy, BY: GILES PARKINSON  : The Australian June 15, 2012, THE International Energy Agency was created 40 years ago, soon after the first major oil crisis, to ensure that OECD countries continued to have a secure supply of energy.

In the past few years, however, it has emerged as one of the loudest and most powerful advocates of clean energy.

The more it looks at the issues of climate change and energy security, the less it likes oil, gas and coal, and the more it is attached to what its secretary-general, Maria van der Hoeven, describes as a radical and early transformation of the world’s electricity systems.

A 685-page analysis released this week by the agency contains two important conclusions: renewable energy sources can do the job, and whichever way you cut the cake for a carbon-free grid by 2050 or 2070, with more or less nuclear power or carbon capture and storage, renewable energy sources will be providing at least 50 per cent of
those electrons. And it won’t be expensive.

Indeed, the world is already locked in to
upgrading its energy systems at a cost of more than $100 trillion over
the next few decades, so spending an extra $36 trillion to ensure that
clean options are adopted would deliver savings of about $100 trillion
by 2050.

Ms van der Hoeven said she could not understand the complacency of the
world’s governments. So if the central message of the agency’s report
was that green energy could do the job, and in the long term its suite
of technologies would prove the cheapest option, two other reports
have served to highlight that some renewable technologies already
offer the cheapest electricity, and they can be easily incorporated
into the grid.

The Australian Energy Market Operator report on solar photovoltaics, mentioned previously in this column, is important because it recognises that solar PV can provide a compelling economic case for households as its costs fall and retail prices from fossil-fuel-dominated centralised grids continue to rise.

As well new financing models will make these systems widely available.
More than half of Australia’s households could have rooftop solar by
2030.

A report released this week by the CSIRO suggests this would not be a problem.
Its report finds concerns about the intermittency of solar and its
impact on transmission and distribution networks have been overplayed,
mostly because no one had bothered much to investigate the issue.

It concludes that 40 per cent penetration could be accommodated easily
on strong urban grids, and while it might prove challenging on
smaller, remote grids, that level could be managed with a little
planning.

Despite all this, statutory authorities such as IPART and the
Productivity Commission, and mainstream media (including this paper)
continue to be obsessed with the present cost of renewable energy and
subsidies used to assist in its deployment and journey down the cost
curve…….. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/we-are-missing-the-boat-on-clean-energy/story-e6frg9if-1226396021478

June 15, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, solar | solar