They’re starting to laugh at us already
Australia is becoming a laughing stock. The country blessed with some of the most abundant renewable energy resources on earth is rapidly squandering our poll position in the race to a clean energy future.
A friend of mine just returned from the PV Japan conference where he said people were asking if it is true that Australia just closed the only Solar PV manufacturing plant – while other countries are building turnkey solar PV manufacturing plants in record time. He guessed that it was only the politeness of Japanese culture that stopped people from laughing out loud.
We have developed a lot of the technologies that are underpinning a renewable energy boom in other countries.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports this week that China is putting up the great green wall to make sure that domestic renewable energy companies get the support they need to dominate the rapidly expanding market for renewable energy.
It’s embarrassing. Australia is stuck in a quarry mentality. We still don’t have decent renewable energy legislation and the CPRS will do nothing to drive renewables.
If we are to get serious about renewable energy industry development, we need the renewable energy target in place, and we need is a strong, national feed-in tarrif to drive investment in all renewable technologies – not just household PV. And we need it soon. Otherwise we’ll just be buying it all in from China, Japan, the US and Germany. Sound familiar?
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We still can’t quite comes to terms with paying real money for utilities (electricity, gas or water).
One reason renewables are booming in Europe and Japan is that the price premium for renewables per MWh is much smaller. This is because our coal fired power is close to the the cheapest in the world (which is why we have so many smelters).
I’m getting slightly tired of hearing that Australia is blessed with the most abundant renewable resources in the world (kinda sounds like a line developed by a marketing agency). We have some wind, some geothermal, some sunshine, some biomass. We have hit our limit with Hydro (compare our 5-7% vs the 50+% hydro of some other places). The trouble is that deep geothermal is still being developed (unlike the type used in NZ or Iceland). Wind is being developed quite rapidly here, the constraint is NIMBYism in getting sites developed and the ramp up in the RET. Solar is not a commercial technology yet and Australia isn’t a big enough market to drive it. Its an upper middle class indulgence to put panels on your roof, the upfront cost diverts money from better uses. Solar PV has been 5 years away for the last 20 years.
We aren’t in the poll position for renewables (we probably never were). Australia has the paradox of plenty (natural resource curse). Because we have strong primary industries (mining and agriculture) we as a nation have never become good at other things (excluding sport). We have no world leading global companies (outside of Rio and BHP) despite having plenty of world leading research groups in uni’s.
Innovation is driven by necessity. We’re a lucky country, but mostly that has made us soft and selfish. We vote for tax cuts on every occasion (despite what gets reported in the polls).
“Meanwhile, the New York Times reports this week that China is putting up the great green wall to make sure that domestic renewable energy companies get the support they need to dominate the rapidly expanding market for renewable energy”.
So you support protectionism do you? Protectionism is another way to describe rent seeking. You want people to pay more for your product because you cannot compete in an open market.
The reason BP (not ‘Australia’, it was not Government owned) closed the BP Solar plant at Sydney Olympic Park was because the cost of manufacturing them here was significantly more expensive than building PV systems overseas and shipping them to Australia.
You seem to want to have an each way bet, decrying the commercial decision to cease manufacturing here (a purely commercial decision made on the economics of manufacturing here) and which will see cheaper PV systems shipped here from overseas, while deriding individuals who have made the decision to mount PV systems on their houses despite the significant sosts involved.
Either you want a greater take up of PV systems here, which will come from more efficient and chaeaper systems shipped in from overseas manufacturing plants, or you want local manufacturing, which would require either government subsidy or tarrif protections to survive, and which would make systems so expensive that their take up would be minimal.
Which is the answer?
We have lots of sunshine and space to put collectors on. Solar thermal should be pretty much a shoe in around Australia.
Altakoi
It’s an interesting question isn’t it – all that ‘space’, just waiting for something to be put on it.
Isn’t that what Europeans thought about Australia when they first came here – all that wasted space, let’s make it do something useful?
DO we know the potential environmental effects of placing solar collectors in all that ‘space’?
My bet would be, given past history, that there will be unintended and unpredicted environmental impacts.
Not saying that it shouldn’t be done, but blithely assuming that a resource is just waiting for us to use it is what got us in this hole in the first place.
Well if you performed a cost benifit analysis on a piece of land that could either be used as an open cast mine, or a solar thermal plant but not both, I’ve got a fairly good idea of which would have the least environmental impact.
I found EnergyPedant’s comment accurate but depressing. There’s a real need for some quality political leadership in Australia, which I doubt we’ll see until we hit a crisis point.
The land areas would be vastly different for the same potential power production.
However, I was being a bit flippant.
kdkd, it was too late about a decade ago.
My previous comment was a bit of a rant. I get a bit worked up occasionally.
I think solar thermal looks promising, but I’m unsure where the great improvement in efficiency or cost is supposed to come from to make it competitive. Focusing sunlight with mirrors onto a boiler seems fairly straight forward (from a technical point of view) to me and there is an intrinsic limit to the efficiency due to the Carnot cycle. Storage is the next step so that it approaches baseload utility.
Growing biomass to burn may be as cost effective a use of the sunlight on a given patch of dirt as solar thermal (less efficient, but much much cheaper). Not so useful in Australia since plants need water and lots of this country doesn’t have any to spare.
I don’t follow you energy pedant. If Australia isn’t big enough for solar thermal, why is it big enough for coal?
Solar thermal has been around since the early 1900s and it is only in the recent past that it has taken significant steps forward. Its not just power (electricity) supply. It’s also steam that can be used industry as an offset.
And you may note also that the Europeans are investing billions in solar thermal in the Sahara.
The next step is storage as you say, but unless you have a sound policy base to allow for businesses to invest – and the money IS there, then we make no further progress.
Yes we do have abundant renewable energy possibilities, but we have no policy framework in which to develop them. Sticking 1kW PV systems on roof tops is one thing but so far its only clocked up 34MW of capacity. We need logistics companies with their massive roof tops to cover them with PV – then we start to get serious. But that ain’t gonna happen with the CPRS. Start the realism – GIGA watts are needed. But wait……… there is another aspect to this. Energy efficiency experts agree that we can knock at least 30% off our demand. So the first cab off the rank is getting smarter with buildings. 10% can easily be saved by a walk through in many buildings. Why burn money for no benefit?
And yes, BP Solar at Homebush did close, but somebody else (Silex) bought it and will make PV panels soon.
Bill my point was Australia isn’t a big enough market to develop technology for. It’s big enough to build existing technologies that have been financed overseas. We can be the developers of technology, but that will only happen if we can sell that IP to the big overseas markets. The point in funding clean coal tech is so we can sell the IP to India, China, EU, South Africa and US and then keep exporting our coal. Whether that is a good investment or not is debatable.
The policy to support renewables is separate (but complimentary) to emissions reductions. Once the RET target passes that gives certainty to the industry. However most of that target will be filled by wind capacity (importing Danish/German/Spainish technology).
The Europeans are talking about investing billions in solar thermal in north africa. Very big difference between talking and doing. Although one proposal was suggesting up to 15% of europe’s power which is a immense project. Californian utilities are actually building solar thermal I believe (although its possible those are still proposals rather than signed contracts). With all of these projects they are driven by renewable requirements, not emissions reducing.
On the solar PV factories, I suspect that all the manufacture (as with all other electronics) will shift to china. The economies of scale, government subsidies, cheap labor, artificially low currency and lack of OHS laws mean that they can probably produce things at less than half the cost.
I can see why PV will go to China – why then would Silex buy the Homebush plant in its entirety and comment that it could be in PV production soon?
:: Its an upper middle class indulgence to put panels on your roof
Seems that 200,000 families in Bangladesh, long considered the world’s poorest country (though perhaps recently ‘overtaken’ recently by Zimbabwe) disagree.
http://m.telegraph.co.uk/article/5797975/
However, solar farms, whether PV or thermal, probably make more sense on a watt per buck basis. There is no reason why the government couldn’t start the ball rolling by financing one and then selling shares in 1KW units to people who then get paid the proportion of feed-in power generated less a small maintenance fee.
Given that some of the most disadvantaged Indigenous communities are located in high solar radiation areas the farms could also be part of the solution to their social problems by providing long term jobs.
Putting solar panels on roof tops in Germany is a wealthy indulgence considering the amount of sunshine they get is only about half that of sunny locations (like most of Australia, north Africa, south US, mid-east).
In Bangladesh those are houses off the grid. The marginal value of electricity decreases the more you have it. e.g. The first things you use it for are the most valuable and therefore you are prepared to pay a high price, like places that use diesel generators (at least 5-10 times the cost of our power in the eastern states).
For an idea on cost a 1kW unit currently costs at least $10K (ignore government rebate since that comes out of our taxes anyway). It produces about 1500 kWh per year in Queensland. That’s worth about $200-300 dollars. So assuming no on-going maintenance cost a return of 2-3%. Not a great return, this is why I call it an upper middle class indulgence.
If the cost could be driven down by a factor of 3 then solar PV come into play. However since we all want the lights/heater/fridge/TV to stay on at night (or during an eclipse) we still have to pay for all the infrastructure to supply that power.
Solar power for remote communities is a very good idea, that is the ideal place for it. If there was some effective way to store it, even better diesel generators (very expensive to run) would only be needed as backup.
So why are we sabotaging ourself like this? There is a strong coal lobby hear but there would be overseas too. Our ability to harness renewable energy hear is just about second to none – so why are we being SO stupid on this? I feel like screaming at the pollies – this is just dumb, dumb policy!
Roof top Pv is not the best bang for the buck. Try covering a 50,000 square metre roof. The installation costs go down 1/3 and the output is megawatt scale. We need GIGA watts to do the job.
The strength of the coal lobby is four-fold. Coal mining companies have a lot of money invested and make a lot of cash. Coal is our largest export in dollar terms as far as I know, the only thing keeping our balance of trade from completely blowing out is coal exports from NSW/QLD. In electricity the large users (industry/smelters/mines) all rely on having cheaper power than the overseas competitors to offset higher wages here. These are all key factors on the right.
On the left of politics are the unions that have thousands of coal reliant employees in the above mentioned industries. La Trobe valley, Hunter Valley, Bowen Basin, etc…. are communities almost completely reliant on digging up coal.
Incumbency and status-quo is very powerful. There is a renewable lobby, but they have next to no money, political influence and no union of renewable workers (because currently there are potential future jobs).
In a lot of ways it is reminiscent of the arguments about logging in Tasmania. Guaranteed jobs today at environmental cost vs potential future job. Guarantee losing industry reliant electorate vs gaining inner-city votes (in safe seats).
EnergyPedant #15
So what’s the point of leverage at which we can diminish their power? Bearing in mind that international investment in renewable energy in 2009 exceeds investment in fossil fuel energy. As far as I know this is the first year that this has happened.
kdkd, I’m not sure how the power of the incumbents is over-come except by gradual economic forces. There is simply too much money involved to fight on a financial level.
Politically you have to achieve a “no losers” outcome. Sort of like budget time when to be popular it means no one is worse off. This is easier is good economic times.
As always when a more expensive option is the right thing to do the question is who pays. Shareholders, employees, tax-payers or electricity users. Somehow I suspect it will end up being tax-payers since they are the ones who will get screwed by their own representatives.
Quick numbers for how big coal exports are to australia. $25 B a year. GDP is about $825B. So 3% of our entire economy is from coal exports.
Dollars involved in coal fired electricity generation are smaller, but still large. Its a lot of money focused on a single issue.
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