Antinuclear

Western Australian gas company planning to sell solar panels and batteries

Alinta’s solar plan to cut bills, The West Australian  Daniel Mercer June 1, 2015 Gas giant Alinta is hatching a plan to sell solar panels and batteries to households, allowing them to slash power bills by reducing reliance on the electricity grid.

Alinta is also weighing the idea of offering micro gas generators, which could pave the way for households to disconnect from the grid altogether.

The plan looms as a direct challenge to taxpayer-owned electricity provider Synergy, which has been losing millions of dollars as customers switch to solar en masse.

There are about 170,000 households in the South West grid alone which have photovoltaic cells on their roofs, and this figure is expected to soar by the end of the decade.

Under Alinta’s plan, tipped to start this year, it would lease solar panels to residential customers, who would then provide any power they did not use back to Alinta to sell into the market.

The Sydney-based company would also offer batteries to store surplus solar power and small gas-fired generators that could be used as a backup in the event it was cloudy for days.

Efficient and affordable battery storage has long been regarded as the holy grail of renewable energy and US firm Tesla announced last month it was on the verge of being able to produce it………https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/28289418/alintas-solar-plan-to-cut-bills/

May 31, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | solar, Western Australia