Tag Archives: Australian Solar Energy Society

Cancun Climate Change Targets

Solar-e.com is a member of and supports the work of The Sustainable Energy Association of Australia  (‘SEA”).

SEA is a chamber for all enterprises from all industries supporting sustainable energy and the fastest growing energy industry body in Australia.  SEA is bringing you the Energising South East Asia Conference 23-26 March 2011, Perth, Australia.

View SEA’s  recent press release on Cancun.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet in Cancun is reported to have said that the credibility of the UN process is in danger if progress is not made.

“It is imperative for the credibility of this process that we’re able to make progress here at this conference,” Minister Combet said.

The Sustainable Energy Association of Australia (SEA) is keen to see how Australia might indeed contribute to the credibility of the process.
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Campaign to Rebuild the Solar Energy Society in Western Australia

11 August 2010

Garry Baverstock AM
Interim President of AuSES- WA Branch
Website: http://www.auses.org.au/branch-news/wa/

I joined ISES WA Group in 1978. It was a very important organization in those days.

After the Second World War many world leaders, including President Eisenhower of the USA, realized that fossil fuels would only last about 100 years for transport and we needed to project ahead and discover the alternatives for sustainable energy for planet earth. This happened in 1952 at an International Conference hosted by the Americans. The international body, ISES formed 2 years later and has continued for over 50 years.

Since then with the growing awareness of Climate Change caused mainly from coal fired power stations strengthens the original mandate. I believe that it is now even more important to have a society that moves the political, scientific and economic agenda forward. It provides a function that Industry Associations alone cannot do.

Renewable energy in all its forms as a derivative of solar energy is the eventual main answer to Climate Change. We simply must move forward and our community needs a high ground ethical basis from which to work. AuSES provides this.

A key function of our society has been education, public awareness and mentoring of our up and coming scientists, engineers and architects. Apart from providing the forum for this interaction through technical talks, and conferences, there has always been a high level of mentoring the during the early hay days of the society. I was fortunate to encounter people like the late Ron Brown, John Riley, Clarry Small and Dr Bob Lawrance (still alive) in the early days of my career and I learned a great deal. Interaction with Interstate and International members just expanded my knowledge further.

Unfortunately over the last 2 decades this important function has diminished and needs to be restored as our society in WA has existed in name only. I believe it has happened due to a lack of this very important ingredient of “mentorship”.

Dr Bill Parker and I have decided to do something about this. Apart from taking over the vacant positions of President and Treasurer as an interim position for a period of 12 months starting from 1st January, 2011, we plan to do a number of things:

1. Address uni students to join the society by providing encouragement and mentoring as part of a campaign
2. Increase membership by targeting key mature figures in the industries and professions, including uni lecturers to form the basis of the mentor group
3. Provide technical talks and social gatherings to create a healthy level of interaction.

Now, what do we need from you?:

1. Putting a commitment forward for yourself to act as a mentor in order to increase memberships from the younger members of our society.
2. Offer to contact a mature person to act as a mentor, not already a member, to become a member for that purpose.

We need generation change and a smooth transition. Activities will follow, but we must first put the horse before the cart. I hope you will put your hand up and support this approach. Recruit one new mentor and one young student each and we would have the most vibrant membership base in the country.

The future of this world is now at stake. Solar and renewable energy is no longer a nifty idea! We need to move on. There is a lot of innovation and action needed that the society can offer.

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Solar Policy Takes a Hit

Solar Industry Budget Cuts Announced

They say a day is a long time in solar policy. Over the weekend we saw Prime Minister Gillard announce $370 million in solar industry budget cuts to pay for the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program.

Solar Hot Water was the first target. A total of $150 million was pulled out of the federal government’s solar hot water rebate program, (the Renewable Energy Bonus Scheme) with $75 million lost in 2010/11 and another $75 million in 2011/12. This could result in the premature end of that program.

Next the solar industry budget cuts affected Solar Flagships, with $220 million taken from stage one, (with $70 million lost in 2012/13 and a further $120 million in 2013/14). The Solar Flagships program has already been delayed by around a year while industry waited for detail and now funding has been cut.

In addition to the above, more solar industry budget cuts came from changes in the support given to small scale solar (solar hot water and solar PV). Originally the small scale scheme was proposed as an uncapped scheme. When the legislation passed however, a potential cap on support for small scale solar was set at 6 million Renewable Energy Certificates Australia in 2015.

Sounds OK? Not when you consider that in 2009 over 10 million small scale Renewable Energy Certificates Australia were created. (And no, this figure is not inflated by phantom REC’s to any significant degree, as phantom REC’s only started to wash through the system in late 2009). That means that the Renewable Energy Certificates price paid for residential solar could be reduced in the near future. More solar industry budget cuts ahead?

Connecting Renewable Energy to the Grid

On first pass it seemed that the solar industry has had a small win with the government committing $1 billion to connecting renewable energy to the grid. But then we learnt that the first tranche is $100 million over the next 4 years.

The cost of installed High Voltage Transmission lines that actually extend the grid are estimated to be around $1.7 million per kilometre. As it stands this policy is set to deliver less than 15km of new transmission line per year for the next 4 years.

Renewable Energy Feed-In Tarriff Victoria

But good solar policy is being implemented. Last week the Victorian Government committed to a 5% solar target by 2020, and a feed-in-tariff to drive that commitment. It’s a very strong policy – precisely the sort of policy the federal government should be adopting –  rather than solar industry budget cuts they need to be increasing support.

National Target for Solar Energy Supply

For too long the solar industry has been an easy target. Our industry is subject to constant policy change, delay and uncertainty. This is no way to run industry development policy.

What we need is long term stability. First, let’s set out a national target for solar at 5% of electricity generation by 2020 (around 6,500MW of capacity).

Next, put the policies in place that will drive domestic, commercial and industrial demand for solar. The federal government must build on existing State and Territory support for solar, by expanding feed-in-tariffs to include larger commercial and industrial solar.

At the largest scale a competitive feed-in-tariff would be ideal. This is where the projects that help reach the target, and can be developed for the lowest feed-in-tariff are successful.

Next we need to drive down the costs of these solar projects. One important way to do this is through government backed loan guarantees, which act to reduce the cost of project finance.

We have a world class solar resource. We have strong public support. We have proven technology that is rapidly falling in price. It is time we got serious about a comprehensive, long term plan for a solar Australia, instead of being hampered by solar industry budget cuts.

Need a Long Term Solar Energy Plan

Australia’s solar resource is available everywhere, it closely matches demand, and can it be stored and dispatched when it is needed most. If we are all active in spreading this message over the next week or so, perhaps it is not too late to turn the fate of solar around.

Now is the time to speak out.   Get active in online discussions; write to the media, and to your local federal candidates.

John Grimes, CEO   Australian Solar Energy Society (AuSES)
Website: www.auses.org.au Email: CEO@auses.org.au

Some useful media addresses follow:

The Australian letters@theaustralian.com.au Financial Review edletters@afr.com.au Sydney Morning Herald letters@smh.com.au

Daily Telegraph letters@dailytelegraph.com.au Canberra Times letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au Courier Mail cmletters@qnp.newsltd.com.au The Age letters@theage.com.au Herald Sun hsletters@heraldsun.com.au Adelaide Advertiser advedit@adv.newsltd.com.au Keep letters to 200 words and include your full name, daytime phone number and address.

We need to prevent more solar industry budget cuts. Spread the word that solar needs policy stability now.Click to read related articles on photovoltaics, renewable energy systems, green roofs, LEED and green architects on this blog.

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Cash for Clunkers puts Solar into Reverse

23 July 2010

John Grimes, CEO
Australian Solar Energy Society (AuSES)
Website: www.auses.org.au
Email: CEO@auses.org.au

The Australian Solar Energy Society (AuSES) says the Gillard Government’s ‘cash for clunkers’ program has thrown the future of Australia’s solar industry hard into reverse. The solar industry is stunned to learn that $220m will be pulled from the Solar Flagships program to pay for the Gillard government’s $2,000 cash for clunkers scheme. “Why would you rip the heart out of the promising utility scale solar program to simply put more cars on Australia’s already crowded roads?” “By taking money away from solar you are taking money away from a 100% emission free electricity generation, and putting it into reducing emissions from cars. It makes no environmental policy sense”, said Grimes.

The Australian public constantly support solar as the number one climate change solution, and they want to see employment and infrastructure projects rolled out to meet the climate challenge. “This announcement means that clean energy jobs and large clean energy utility projects that had been funded, have just been scrapped or scaled back”. “The Gillard government has just announced that they are cutting these important green collar jobs, just as we should be scaling them up” said Grimes. The ‘cash for clunkers’ program should be funded by reducing the generous Fuel Tax Credits scheme, which subsidises diesel fuel for mining companies, and which costs Australian taxpayers around $4.9 billion a year, or $606 per household per year” said AuSES CEO John Grimes. AuSES is calling for stable policy settings for solar to allow both utility scale solar and personal solar action to be supported.

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