Solar Power to Undercut Coal?

An interesting article here http://my.enewsplus.co.uk/cm/public/enews/index.php?enewsid=4&templateid=90&ticketid=PD4OJR2LIN&mm=3963 from the All Energy Team

Australia's reluctance to embrace solar power could well change dramatically over the next 20 years even without a carbon tax. Due to the massive leaps that China is making at the moment in production and the reduction in cost of solar panels, it might not be too long before the price per kWh of solar electricity is lower than that of coal-fired power stations. Yes, admittedly, there remains some serious work to do to be able to replace coal-fired power as a reliable source of base-load power - i.e. there needs to be some serious energy storage facilities built - but it's an interesting thought that coal-fired power could soon be considered the expensive option.

Roll on that day we say. Whatever the case maybe for base-load coal-fired power, there is a certain elegance to achieving our energy requirements through nothing more than pure sunlight instead of setting fire to things.

NSW Solar Scheme Stabalised

A few weeks ago we blogged about the Solar Rally taking place in New South Wales to demonstrate against the Government's decision to retrospectively change the feed in tariff rate for 120,000 NSW households from 60c per kW/h to 40c per kW/h.

It seems that the efforts of the Australian Solar Energy Society and its supporters have paid off - these plans have now been dropped by NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell after failing to get the backing he needed to pass the law, and after an audit showed the cost of the solar scheme to be lower than originally forecast.

This is fantastic news for supporters of the solar industry. In fact it means 40,000 planned solar installs that were previously hanging in the balance can now proceed and those who signed up to support green energy and have these panels installed will not lose out. Many participants in the solar scheme had borrowed money to buy their solar panels and risked losing thousands of dollars if the feed-in tariff was cut.

The campaign doesn't stop here, however. Solar supporters are now urging the NSW government to put in a fair price going forward for electricity produced by solar panels.

The industry remains in crisis with one of Australia's largest solar panel retailers, Clear Solar, going into receivership this week and more predicted to follow.

Today The Age warned of rising power prices as electricity retailers are required to increase their contribution to the solar scheme.

One thing is for certain, solar will remain a hot topic as the future of the scheme is debated in the weeks to come.

To maximise the return on your solar panels invest in a Solar Monitoring Kit from SmartNow. You will receive an EnviR Home Energy Monitor and everything you need to monitor the energy consumption of your home and the generation of your solar panels. To learn more visit www.smartnow.com.au.

Monitor the Power from your Solar Panels!

We've just launched a great new package to enable solar panel and micro-generation monitoring using the Current Cost ENVI.

The package includes:
A Current Cost ENVI
A Current Cost TREC
A USB Cable.

The two transmitters are installed to monitor the power the house is using and the power the solar panels / wind turbine is generating respectively.

The ENVI receives data from both displays, and sits in the study / home office and downloads the data to your PC.

The TREC sits somewhere more accessible - maybe the kitchen workbench, or next to the TV - an also receives data from both transmitters, allowing the whole family to keep an eye on their power use.

And best of all... this package saves you $30 off the cost of the individual components!

Click here for more information!