Heatwave & Solar performance

While many of the plants in my garden are natives and planted to survive hot, dry conditions, there are some that have not.
So that's why my Silver Birch Trees are looking scorched and the Fuchsia is dry and frizzled after the latest heatwave,.






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The Financial Review last weekend published on its front page "Wind and Solar can't handle heat" by Angela Macdonald-Smith.
The RenewEconomy writer Ric Brazzale  hit back with an article indicating that Solar had helped to provide enough electricity during the heatwave days to reduce the peak load on the network. The effect of solar has also been to move the peak demand to later in the day as well.

"Solar PV’s contribution has been a lot more than just reducing peak demand by 4.6%. Its operation has meant that much higher cost generators have not had to be dispatched. As a result the wholesale power price has not risen anywhere near as high as other times when we have reached very high levels of demand. As a comparison Victoria’s previous peak demand of 10,415 MW occurred on Thursday, 29 January 2009 in the half hour period commencing 12.30 pm. The average wholesale market price during the afternoon (12.00 pm to 6.00pm) was $4,619/MWh."
and 
"Without the contribution of solar PV, many more assets would have come under pressure and more customers will have been disconnected.'

See the Australian Photovoltaic Insitute for details.

And by the way, comparing small scale PV on people's roofs to that of a large coal fired power station, as the AFR writer did, is patently absurd. I never bought my unit to be the sole electricity source and the advances in solar storage have not yet been made to allow the energy to be cheaply and easily stored. But that is coming, faster than the CO2 dinosaurs think.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/graph-of-the-day-how-aemo-saw-rooftop-solar-in-heatwave-27763 for the information below.

Winter Sunshine

As we draw near the Winter Solstice, when the shortest days of the year induce winter somnolence, my son reminded me to check the output of our 1 kW Photo voltaic unit. On a cold and sunny day we generated 2.85 kWh of electricity, a bit more than I had expected.
Although the temperature dipped to below 0 degrees C and we experienced a frost, I have been sitting inside without heating, reading my Renew Magazine.

"The full cycle: How sustainable is solar PV" by Alex Bruce, pg 40 (issue 124 Jul-Sep 2013) explained the concept of Life Cycle Assessment. Here all the energy inputs into the device- resource extraction, manufacture, transport, life-cycle use and death- are calculated and and compared with the energy produced by the unit. The full range of inputs is discussed in the report but given my mathematics is a bit challenged, I'll accept the author's conclusion.
Their case study indicated that the PV unit paid for itself in CO2 equivalents in just over 3 years. 

With an expected lifetime production of power of greater than20 years that's a clear win for the carbon sustainability of PhotoVoltaic panels. 
A quote in the article "It is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong" comes comes from Carveth Read, the British philosopher and logician.    

So renewable energy, generated by the sun, wind, geothermal etc, sounds vaguely right to me. That we are only slowly getting there is no reason to turn our back on the development of these technologies. Change is always hard particularly for entrenched interests such as the fossil energy producers. 
If renewable energy can produce 13.14% of Australia's energy in 2012 (Clean Energy Report 2012 reported in Renew Magazine ) and provide employment for 24,300 people then there is room for considerable improvement.
The same reports indicated 90% of people took some kind of action to reduce their energy bills in 2012. Price signals from combined actions such as the Carbon Tax and Renewable Energy Targets are having an impact, so lets keep them.
So join with others who feel renewable energy use is important. Join the ATA, subscribe to Renew Magazine, join Solar Citizens and other advocacy organisations and put your voice and political power behind these organisations.
But beware of "Turbulent Times Ahead" - but that's another story written by Ben Eltham in New Matilda.

Carbon Tax Imminent

Sunday, the BIG day for the announcement of the "Carbon Tax" by the Federal Government. Will the announcement of the announcement as Ben Eltham reports start a blizzard of reactions before the actual announcements. Will the commercial TV channels have advertisements from every lobby group under the sun over the next few weeks to try and bring the scheme down??
Will you be watching the announcement? Will the price on Carbon, about to be announced, be what you expected or hoped?
We are being carefully primed to expect a low carbon price, a transition to a higher price (ETS) and substantial recompense to almost anyone affected. Is this Tax going to be enough for the Australian public and enough for the Prime Minister to get re-elected, as well as going down in history as the architect of a big reform?
So will this Tax be effective? History will tell, as well as the next federal election. By the way this is not a belief but something measurable & possibly scientifically based.
I'm sure a higher price for electricity won't stop me from using it to heat and cool parts of my house, but perhaps the flow of money to the renewable sector may stop the boom and bust aspects of the industry.
As a Librarian I wonder if anyone will ask about the details of the Announcement. We have occasional questions regarding a carbon tax, as well as other questions on solar power, solar hot water. Like most government announcements, reading the detail is important, though quite often highly boring.
Shall we leave to the shock jocks and media commentators?

My Electricity Bill

Global meltown in credit markets. The Bush administration is bailing out private enterprise and mortgaging American taxpayers for years to come. On ABC TV's Q and A last night we saw Peter Costello talk about how much better the prudential regulation is in Australia. I remember reading, in the Financial Review I think, that when politicians tell you that the banking system is safe, then thats the time to be very careful with your money.
Lets hope the financial credit squeeze will not totally derail various governments attempts to do something about the environment and global warming. The only hope I had of any decent change process was if the governments and people of Australia were wealthy enough to manage the cost of the changes necessary.
Having just seen my electricity bill for the winter months I have seen an increased cost, and this is happening without any cost input due to carbon emissions trading.
And yet we see in the September 2008 Choice Magazine article "Solar panels: counting the real cost" how much further the electricity price must rise to make photovoltaics a real option for the average housholder like me. My house is well sited to provide excellent solar gain for a PV system but I can't afford it just yet. I have been waiting for 14 years so will have to wait another 10 or more I would imagine.
By that time my current solar hot water system will definitely need replacing.

However, many consumers also have the ability to mange their costs a bit (say no the that new DVD for example) and spend more on their utilities. So perhaps this credit squeeze and the increasing burden of debt on households might make some people think a bit more about their spending . Perhaps pushing them into more sustainable patterns. Here's hoping.