Solar Panels

The weekend (19-20 Nov 11) Financial Review echoed Bloomberg with an article titled "Bumpy Ride on the Solar Coaster" by Marcus Priest. As the article was buried on page 56, I wonder how many people read it. One thrust of the article was that solar power costs "were rapidly approaching parity with conventional retail power.... as the cost of ... silica has dropped from $450 kg in 2008 to $20-$25, and more efficient technology is making the cost of photovoltaic units potentially cheaper than when they were backed by large government subsidies".
So in effect the large government subsidies helped kick-start the retail solar industry in Australia while the explosion in production of clean energy technology in China has led to drastically reduced costs to the whole world . This has led to the titled "Bumpy Ride of the Solar Coaster". Hopefully sufficient Australian retail companies can retain their trained staff and increase their sales, as well as allowing the solar energy industry to expand into larger units capable of powering industries and towns.
I for one will monitor the situation closely. I can fit another 3-4 kW of PV units on my roof and would have to purchase a Dual Multipoint Inverter (according to advice from those who know) to cope with the differing panels & generation. My close friends have 3kW of generation capacity and with a family of 5, don't expect to have to pay any electricity bills until April-May next year.
This sure beats investing your money in sinking stocks or listening to those nay-sayers who said Solar Power would never become economical.
Roll on the "prosperous post carbon economy" as advertised by the University of Melbourne's free public lecture on Thursday night by Roy Neel, chief of staff of Al Gore.

Spring Thunderstorm Last Night

Last night I sped home from work followed by the imminent thunderstorm. This was the view from my house towards the south-west before it struck. Fortunately this storm did very little damage to my property, approx 20 mm of rain in a half-hour or so. A little wind and small hail stones. Much less damage than the February one.

But many people were not so lucky. Its so good to have access to the Bureau of Meteorology radar website, though once I got home I unplugged the internet router, PC's and other vulnerable equipment.

I hope my friends all over Melbourne were not affected.