Going Solar Report - 1 Million Australian Households with Rooftop Solar

As Australia celebrated the passing of the 23 Million person in the country, so the Centre for Policy Development has found, 1 million households have installed rooftop Solar in its new report "Going Solar".
The ABS puts the average household size at 2.6 people, meaning 2,600,000 Australians or possibly more think having Solar on their roof will help ameliorate the anticipated electricity price rises.

Going Solar Report, Centre of Policy Development

So I will take time to sit in the sun streaming through my north facing windows and read this report. Particularly the parts on Feed-In-Tarriffs, solar consumer complaints and demographics of those who installed solar. This last relates to a previous report by Australian Government and the Solar PV Program by Andrew MacInstosh of the Australia Insitute and reported by me on 29 Nov 2010 . Equity of access to solar is a problem, but so is equity of access to housing for low-income individuals. I haven't noticed support for various schemes to encourage first home buyers to be abandoned because some can't access that scheme.

Andrew mentioned here that the take-up of solar was by the more affluent households. I would argue, from looking at the large numbers in my suburb whose socio-economic status is middle-low income, that this is not now the case. But there is no doubting that if you don't own your roof you can't invest in Solar Power.

This current report indicates that the drivers of cost reductions in the PV industry has been the large decreases in manufacturing costs as China manufactures and install more Solar. This is predicted to continue.

"Socket Parity" is the term used in this report, pg 14, to show countries whose Solar PV costs have fallen to parity or better against traditional fossil fuel electricity generation.

CPD"Going Solar"Report, pg 14

So this morning, as the temperature fell to approximately 5 degrees C, I am able to sit in the sunshine without heating and generate electricity. Go figure whats better for you, control over your own electricity use and generation or leave that up to business interests.

Electricity prices, solar power and cost benefits

A couple of articles have recently caught my eye. The weekend Financial Review article "Will the lights really go out?" by Angela Macdonald-Smith (Nov 27-28) argues that there is only a short window of time before the lack of investment in power generation has unfortunate effects - blackouts! "With or without a carbon price the bills are heading skywards". As someone who can't stand the heat, I've invested both in air conditioning and solar power so my electricity bills will probably increase. But if the lights go out (blackout) then so will my rooftop electricity generation capacity.
I'm one of the "lucky ones who have solar panels on their roofs" according to Macdonald-Smith a "technology that costs 10 times as much as other emission reduction initiatives!"
The recent review by Andrew Macintosh  on the Federal Governments Solar PV Rebate Program also questioned its cost effectiveness. It was interesting to read that "during the mid-2000s, BP Solar produced around 35 to 42 MW of PV cells and 8 to 12 MW of PV modules at a plant in Sydney. The cells were manufactured from imported wafers and most (roughly 80 per cent) were exported. Similarly, around 50 per cent of BP Solar’s modules were exported. In March 2009, BP Solar closed its Australian operations." Since all the wafers were imported it means the much vaunted target of manufacturing in Australia is a bit of a smokescreen.
The report concludes "The program was a major driver of a more than six-fold increase in PV generation
capacity and output in the 2000s" and "it is reasonable to assume that the PVRP-SHCP (solar scheme names) had some impact on community attitudes". It also concludes the rebate prior to the Rudd government created "uncertainty and lack of investment". Whilst the blow-out in costs under Rudd showed the program flaws.
Given that solar PV is costly it will be interesting to see if  major PV production increases by China plus further research will drive prices down enough to make PV affordable and cost effective without public subsidies. Then we can revisit the cost effectiveness debate.