Solar Power Stats - Payback Times

I asked my son to calculate the approximate savings in $$ terms since installing the 1kW Photovoltaic system in Dec 2009 (Feed-in meter installed Jan 2010) to estimate how much of the purchase price of the system we have recouped. (Payback!). So here goes.

1. Total Generation (up to 24/3/2012) = 2920 kWh
2. Total Feed-In (24/03/2012) = 848.8 kWh
3. Total Generation minus Total Feed-in = 2071.2 kWh

Taking all the changes in electricity charges into account and estimating a 5/7 peak and 2/7 off-peak tariff weighting (weekends are charged at off-peak rates), as well as the time period we didn't receive the  premium feed-in tariff of 66c:

We have received a benefit of $869.32 of "free" electricity.
Given we had a total cost (minus government rebates) of $1895.00 to purchase the system we should be able to totally pay-back the system in 4.99 years.
Of course, since the government provided the rebate, the payback period without it would have been massive at  26.34 years (Assuming no more changes in electricity prices, a patently false assumption)
However, since the installation of the system in Dec 2009 the price of silicon has plummeted and the cost of equivalent systems has also fallen (supply and demand stuff). The $1800 we received by the Federal Government GFC package has been well spent indeed!
So far experiments with photovoltaics have shown good systems have a small fall-off in efficiency after 20 years, so I expect, barring very vicious hailstorms, and inverter failures, to have those panels gently humming away for a long period.
I'm not up-to-date with cost of new systems and their rebates but there still seems to be plenty of people installing systems, judging by the proliferation on houses around me. So I expect many will have calculated a reasonable pay-back period as well as experiencing the glow of doing something good for both environment and jobs in our local economy.
PS - My son's maths is better than mine!!

Eco Housing High

This eco-friendly housing design caught my eye recently. Melbourne's The Age newspaper, reported on 19 March 2012 about Housing on a Green High, buildings using hemp in the walls.
Some years ago friends and family used Hebel, another material not commonly found in Melbourne buildings.
My family members have enjoyed 12 years of lower cost living as a result of good insulation, double-glazing and solar hot water. The house didn't cost a million bucks to build either!
Quite a comparison to the McMansions being built up the road.
If we want to have lower power, water and petrol bills, then we must look at improving the way we do things.
So good luck to the CERES people with the launch of their Electric Vehicle re-charging point today.
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See you at the petrol  bowser, handing out $1.65 per litre and pity me on holiday soon, driving around at $2.00 per litre!

Brown Coal - Wet n Dry

It seems Victoria is intending to export its wet, brown coal to anyone who wants it.
CSIRO, our trusty research agency,  has been working for years to find a way to make our brown coal "green". The best they can do (at the moment) is to dry the coal, although there are a number of projects underway to gassify and capture both methane & decarbonize emissions.
It will be interesting to watch these efforts to see how long it may take to decide if the technology is both viable, efficient and cheap enough to keep coal more economic than other renewable energy forms.
One of the pieces of "information" published today is the cost of power in Australia. I remember when the State Electricity Commission was privatized to make the cost of electricity cheaper.  Since that time, electricity prices faced upward pressure from the drought (need water for Victoria's brown coal plants) and now the cost of substantial network upgrades,something foreseen in the conclusion in the IPA report "A Brief Analysis of the Benefits of Privatising Victoria’s Electricity Industry" 2001. Infrastructure investment which is somewhat more expensive in sparsely populated, continental sized Australia than in other nations.

And so, as my Electricity bill clearly explains, the major increase in costs is due to network improvements. As the Smart Grid Australia website explains: "Economic data all points towards a green and digital economy that will create a large number of new jobs and offer business opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs. And if Australia can maintain its leadership role that would support its export earnings also."
Watch this video and see what you think about smart grids.

Carbon & Climate - Heated Views

The heat was turned up yesterday both with a very warm & windy autumn day in Melbourne as well as an announcement by Clive Palmer, mining billionaire, that his companies will mount a High Court challenge to the Carbon Tax, due to be implemented in July 2012.
On the same day CSIRO (Australia's premier research agency) and the Bureau of Meterology (BOM) released their updated State of the Nation report.
The report observed:

"Changes observed include:

• Highly variable rainfall across the country, with substantial increases in rainfall in northern and central parts of Australia, as well as significant decreases across much of southern and eastern Australia.
• Rapidly rising sea levels from 1993 to 2009, with levels around Australia rising, between 1.5cm and 3cm per decade in Australia’s south and east and between 7cm and 9cm in the country’s north
• About half of the observed reduction in winter rainfall in south-west Western Australia can be explained by higher greenhouse gas levels."

Some of those in Northern Victoria would be wondering about the first statement "significant decreases in rainfall across much of southern Australia." However, the last couple of years flooding is due to summer rain associated with strong La Nina events. This observed effect is part of the constant measuring done by these agencies (CSIRO & BOM). 

One of the observed and measurable difficulties we humans have is believing in patterns where there are none (gambling is a good example) and not believing measurements where they run counter to an individuals last observation and experience. Irrational thinking it is called, and Stuart Sutherland's book "Irrationality"is a good example of these thinking behaviours.

So here's hoping Clive Palmer's Carbon Tax challenge is found to be baseless. He will do us a service if the tax is found to be constitutional and able to be implemented. Just think of all the carbon emitted by the paper generated by such a challenge!

Women's Day

March 8 was International Women's Day. I was asked recently by an older male friend, which period of history would I choose to have been born (hypothetic stuff I know!). He was surprised when I replied, emphatically, NOW.
In Australia, my age group and that of my adult children, are the only ages when I could:
1. Vote and own property in my own name.
2. Be confident that I could earn a living commensurate with education, skills and ambition.
3. Have received a high quality, almost free education.
4. Received high-quality medical & dental care throughout my entire life, including high-quality care for me and my children when giving birth.
5. Have the ability to sever relationships with husbands & partners if they become untenable and receive approximately half of the fruits of our joint labours.

While Australian women have earned and fought for these rights and responsibilities we still earn only 82 cents for every $1 earned by a man (see link) . There are still serious inequalities, glass ceilings and as the ADF finds, acceptance of abuse of women.
So I hung my head in frustration when talking to a young 20 something colleague recently as she recounted how she is still trying to train her man to cook meals, take responsibility for cleaning and generally work with her in the daily chores of life, after both come home from their paid employment!
My older, mad scientist, thinks he has the right to work as long and as hard as he needs to get where he wants to go, especially in this tough business environment. But don't ask for effort at home, with adult children, social life or other areas such as technology.
This portrait is not unique to my home. Droves of Australian women are deserting husbands who work, sit in front of the TV or computer and do nothing else.
Is this what equality for Australian women means in the 21st century!
But many women in this world would fight to have my freedom.

All over & out of hot water?

Well, thank god the Federal Government Leadership crisis is over (publicly) at least. Having recently read the book "So Greek: Confessions of a Conservative Leftie" By Niki Savva, it was interesting to compare the behind-the-scenes tensions in the Howard Government versus the open blood-letting and disparaging comments from Labor heavies. Somewhat more heat and head-kicking in the Labor tussle, but nevertheless a strongly held dispute about personalities, policies and of course POWER.
Speaking of power and Green Schemes, the Solar Hot Water industry is howling with rage over the early closure of the rebate by the Federal Government. These schemes have been so popular and the industry has geared up its workforce and installations so much that Federal Government coffers and planning can't keep up.
So on goes the boom & now bust cycle!
I'm glad we got in early to get a rebate, however, 18 years ago we also installed solar hot-water without a rebate and managed to have long years of relatively problem free hot water, particularly during the gas pipe-line explosion years age.
So lets hope the ALP can keep out of hot water (doubtful) and manage to stay its term, long enough to see what the Carbon Tax will do to us all. And then see if they lose the next election.