NSW Solar Rally – Last Chance
The NSW government plans some nasty retrospective changes to the 60c tariff for existing completed projects. A rally is proposed that seeks to highlight the concerns of the 110,000 families affected. Show your support for Solar!NSW Solar Last Chance Rally11:30am Wednesday 18 May, 2011Barnet Long Room: Customs House31 Alfred StreetCircular Quay, Sydney
read moreNSW Govt makes further cuts to Solar Bonus Scheme
Note: This information does not affect new applicants, who are able to connect but are not participants of the solar bonus scheme Under the cover of a media-hogging Harbour Bridge protest, the O’Farrell government announced the retrospective roll-back of the 60c tariff to 40c for existing systems. Changing the rules after the fact is just not cricket – especially with so many sunk costs involved. It is like charging you $5 for a train ticket, and then suddenly charging another $5 when you get to the destination...
read moreNo Feed in Tariff News causes angst for hardworking families
No news of the NSW government position on the feed in tariff causes many families to wonder what solar can do for them. Ready to make decisions, there is no guidance from the O’Farrell government as to when the feed in tariff (an amount paid for solar electricity sold to the grid) will be announced. Caught between two governments, NSW householders are at risk of missing out on financial incentives from Federal Renewable Energy Certificates before the scheme drastically reduces in June. Why? Sydney householders for the most part are...
read moreSolar Summit Update 1
NSW Solar Summit Update – Sydney, 7 May 2011 Dear Customers, Our industry representatives, the Australian Solar Energy Society and the Clean Energy Council participated in stage one of the NSW Solar Summit on Friday, with Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Matthew Warren giving one of the formal presentations (and the only solar industry allowed to speak, out of five speakers). The focus of Matthew’s presentation was the need to provide interim options to householders ‘half way through’ the process, and a pathway...
read moreFederal Government announces further RECs change
Flash Traffic: Solar credits quantity reduced by larger margin than announced previously Solar Credits is the name given the the incentive available for capital investment in green energy production. For information on on the Feed in Tariff, see this news article and general feed in tariff information The Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, today revealed that the Solar Credits multiplier will be reduced from 5 to 3 from 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2012, with the effect being to reduce the installation incentive by...
read moreConergy cracks 3rd Thai MW class project
With the 12.4 megawatt solar park in Thailand’s Nakhon Pathom province, global solar provider Conergy is building its 3rd solar park in the SE Asian nation within one year. Together with its local partner Annex Power, the German PV specialist is constructing a park covering an area of 268,500 square meters – equivalent to the size of ‘Aussie Stadiums’. Conergy’s own inverters, and the German manufactured Conergy PowerPlus modules will be used in the project, showing that utilities in Asia have an appetite for reliable...
read moreBP Solar Park in Kothen, Germany, still going strong
One year one, the BP Solar supplied 45 megawatt Köthen Solar Park is still going strong. One of the top ten solar plants in the world, the Köthen Solar Park is one of the largest featuring string inverters (smaller inverters distributed throughout the plant, rather than a central inverter. More than 205,000 BP Solar modules happily power the local network of the...
read moreNSW Govt Pauses Feed-in Tariff
NSW government announced today, retrospectively, that applications for the feed-in tariff will be on hold from midnight LAST night (midnight 28 April). No guidance has been given as to when new arrangements will be announced. [Edit August 2011 – the link listed is now dead on the NSW government website, but we now link to a progressive tally of the buildup to 300MW http://www.industry.nsw.gov.au/energy/sustainable/renewable/solar/solar-scheme/faq/customer
read moreCalifornia houses with solar worth more
Source: Solar Daily News just in : researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have recently used the results of a house pricing study to confirm what many have thought for some time: Solar PV on rooftops attracts the attention of buyers, and a premium. In the Solar Daily article, the lead author Ben Hoen elaborated was excited to be amongst the first to confirm this using scientific methods. “We find compelling evidence that solar PV systems in California have boosted home sales...
read moreBig Apple goes Big Solar
Solar energy solves problems from Tibet to Tinseltown – And now, the city of New York has found a unique solution to the problem of what to do with landfill sites under regeneration – cover the sealed landfills with sixty megawatts (60 MW) of solar generation systems. This installation is part of the ambitious ‘PlaNYC‘ , a vision for the type of New York citizens want to see in 2030. In announcing the solar project, Mayor Bloomberg highlighted that the solar installation could cut emergency generators dependence,...
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