Solar Panels and Tax

If you had your own home two years ago then you certainly DID have the opportunity to get a small solar system installed cheaply, indeed for a standard installation the price was literally ZERO.

Yes, taxpayers were footing the bill. But the offer was there for those willing to pick up the phone. If government is going to start throwing money around then I might as well have some...

moXJO said:

Thank God for living in a liberal run state ehh

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We also received a letter today, Synergy advising that the 40c feed-in tariff will remain in force for the full 10 years for existing residential net feed-in tariff customers.
The reduced 20c will only apply to new installations and until a capacity limit of 150MW has been reached.

No breach of contract here.

The Moree Solar Farm and Solar Dawn at Chinchilla were selected to build the power plants under round one of the Australian government's $1.5 billion Solar Flagships program.

The federal government will contribute $306.5 million towards Moree -- worth an estimated $923m.

The 150 megawatt photovoltaic power plant will be nearly twice the size of any similar plant operating in the world today.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...r-nsw-queensland/story-e6frg97o-1226077596870

If I read the above correctly, a 150mW photovoltaic solar power plant has an upfront capital cost of $923m. That equates to $9230 per 1.5kW, or more than the unsubsidised capital cost of rooftop solar panels, fully installed.

drsmith said:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...r-nsw-queensland/story-e6frg97o-1226077596870

If I read the above correctly, a 150mW photovoltaic solar power plant has an upfront capital cost of $923m. That equates to $9230 per 1.5kW, or more than the unsubsidised capital cost of rooftop solar panels, fully installed.

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Does labor actually do any cost analysis on anything or do they just shoot from the hip and then look around to see what they've damaged?

It is ridiculous - who is going to pay around $6000 for 1kW...
We use about 25 kW on average per day - so that would be $150,000 per day if your calcs are right, drsmith.

EDIT: I got that wrong - I see that is the set-up cost of the plant, but even so, it's very expensive.

drsmith said:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...r-nsw-queensland/story-e6frg97o-1226077596870

If I read the above correctly, a 150mW photovoltaic solar power plant has an upfront capital cost of $923m. That equates to $9230 per 1.5kW, or more than the unsubsidised capital cost of rooftop solar panels, fully installed.

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Based on the article, that would seem to be correct.

For reference, capital cost for a baseload gas-fired plant would be around $200 million (less for a peak load plant) and about $400 million for a black coal-fired plant of the same size. Costs per unit of output would be somewhat less if those plants were scaled up, especially in the case of coal where individual generating units are ideally 500MW or more, with multiple units at any given power station. To a lesser extent, there are also economies of scale with gas (hence the plants being quite large especially in Qld, NSW and Vic ).

A complicating factor however is that the gas or coal plant can run almost continously, easily averaging 130MW from a 150MW plant, whereas the solar plant will produce an average output far less than its 150MW rating. That makes a direct comparisson somewhat complicated, although you can certainly say that solar does cost more than coal or gas.

From a purely political point of view - ignoring the actual cost-benefit factors of this proposed venture - it's my bet that a considerable proportion of the electorate will simply think "oh great! wonderful new renewable energy happening here" and give the government a big tick. I hope I'm wrong.

This is a great example of where the opposition needs to jump in quickly and point out the actual costs as detailed above.

It's quite amusing that Ms Gillard decided to make this feelgood announcement today in the wake of her abysmal polling.

Julia said:

From a purely political point of view - ignoring the actual cost-benefit factors of this proposed venture - it's my bet that a considerable proportion of the electorate will simply think "oh great! wonderful new renewable energy happening here" and give the government a big tick. I hope I'm wrong.

This is a great example of where the opposition needs to jump in quickly and point out the actual costs as detailed above.

It's quite amusing that Ms Gillard decided to make this feelgood announcement today in the wake of her abysmal polling.

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I agree that the opposition need to point out how horrendously expensive these solar plants are to set up and, even then, they may not produce the same quantity or reliability of power as coal plants. What happens when there is no sun for a few days/weeks? It has happened before.

I wonder if there are co2 emissions from making these solar panels? I have heard elsewhere that the process of making steel windmills will have significant co2 emissions. If so, it seems rather futile with the little power windmills will supply.

Just like all things labor, their new fangled plans sometimes look good on the surface until you see what's really going on underneath. I would imagine these solar plants have a reasonable potential of being yet another labor debacle or white elephant.

sails said:

I wonder if there are co2 emissions from making these solar panels?

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Aren't most of these being imported from China?

sails said:

I wonder if there are co2 emissions from making these solar panels? I have heard elsewhere that the process of making steel windmills will have significant co2 emissions. If so, it seems rather futile with the little power windmills will supply.

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If it involves making or moving something then it involves emitting CO2 at some point. For most people that's every single thing you did today...

As for CO2 and specific renewables, estimates vary but most would put emissions associated with photovoltaic (solar panels) as the highest of the renewables, with wind and hydro* at the bottom. All of them are lower than emissions from coal / oil / gas plants however.

In regard to panel manufacture, it is correct that China is a major supplier. Even BP Solar has their panels manufactured in China these days. On a positive note, that's Australian coal and other minerals being used. I'm guessing that the Chinese source their own sand.

There used to be solar panel manufacturing in Sydney but that became unviable due to competition from China.

In more recent times there was a proposal for a silicon production plant in Tasmania but, as with all proposals in Tas in recent years involving the use of large amounts of electricity and/or wood, it seems to have disappeared (?) lest it becomes yet another focal point for the Green anti-everything brigade. Yes, you read that correctly, trees are chopped down in order to produce solar panels - the wood is needed to produce charcoal for the process.

The plant was proposed for what someone will no doubt claim is a "wilderness" at Port Latta - right next to the iron ore pellet plant and shipping facilities. Note that this proposal was entirely different to the well known at the time "silicon smelter", actually producing ferrosilicon which is used in making steel, which once operated at Electrona until closing about 20 years ago.

*There's a lot of disagreement in regard to emissions from hydro generation. Some claim it to be significantly higher than brown coal (most notable person making this claim is Bob Brown) whilst others claim it to be about 0.02 kg / kWh versus 1.0 kg / kWh from coal. Reality is that it would vary hugely with the specific scheme in question and in particular, whether or not creation of the storage involved flooding large amounts of vegetation. My own understanding is that the vast majority of Australian schemes would have very low emissions, in some cases virtually zero, but there are exceptions where emissions due to vegetation decay are likely quite significant.

Smurf1976 said:

In regard to panel manufacture, it is correct that China is a major supplier. Even BP Solar has their panels manufactured in China these days. On a positive note, that's Australian coal and other minerals being used. I'm guessing that the Chinese source their own sand.

There used to be solar panel manufacturing in Sydney but that became unviable due to competition from China.

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Silex (ASX: SLX) are still active manufacturers but like most companies, are effected by imports.

CHINESE solar panel makers were among the biggest beneficiaries of half a billion dollars in public subsidies to the rooftop solar panel industry last year, prompting their only Australian rival to cry foul.

A new report has shown Australia last year imported photovoltaic technology worth $1.1 billion -- effectively halving the value of the industry to the local economy.

Michael Goldsworthy, chief executive of Silex, Australia's only maker of home solar panels on a commercial scale, said overseas manufacturers, led by the Chinese, were able to offer big discounts because of government production subsidies at home, and held about 95 per cent of the Australian market.

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Some one should be looking at making DC white goods 12 /48 volt so we don't need peak load
As far as I know solar panels are only about 1-2 % efficient?

Glen48 said:

As far as I know solar panels are only about 1-2 % efficient?

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Its about 17% and getting better all the time. I don't think we should rubbish new technology just because its not competitive at the outset.

Glen48 said:

Some one should be looking at making DC white goods 12 /48 volt so we don't need peak load
As far as I know solar panels are only about 1-2 % efficient?

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Alot of power is lost in inverting the power from DC to AC...that why in the old days of solar if you wanted an energy efficient solar powered house then most of your appliances were DC...i still have a rare DC color tv from the good olde days.

Glen48 said:

As far as I know solar panels are only about 1-2 % efficient?

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Your knowledge must come from a past life, Glen:
If you're as young as your avatar suggests, you should have more current information.

Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell#Efficiency and you'll find

Crystalline silicon devices are now approaching the theoretical limiting efficiency of 29%.

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Pretty dam good, methinks

I am all for solar.
I see some one is working a solar powered A.C which is great because you have the sun full on when you need the AC I had a CRT 12v 240V and a 12v fridge /freezer both worked well.
Troubl is with solar they can't get enought tax out of it long term thats why we are stuck with AC and 2 wires when we could be using the Teslar system

So_Cynical said:

Alot of power is lost in inverting the power from DC to AC...that why in the old days of solar if you wanted an energy efficient solar powered house then most of your appliances were DC...i still have a rare DC color tv from the good olde days.

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Historically that was certainly the case, but the modern grid-connect inverters are well over 90% efficient, many of them in the mid-90's.

But does efficiency actually matter?

If we are using a limited resource then there is a sound case for using it efficiently. Likewise if there is some nasty side effect to the use of that resource. So there's good sense in using oil, coal, uranium etc as efficiently as we can.

In most cases (not all since it isn't able to be traded) that would also apply to hydro since whilst it is a renewable resource, there isn't enough of it to produce all of our electricity needs (with a few exceptions worldwide). So again, it makes sense to maximise efficiency so as to reduce the use of coal, oil etc.

But there's no chance that putting inefficient solar panels on your roof is going to cause the sun to run out. And for the moment at least, wind energy is in the same category - the resource is vastly larger than present or near term likely development such that efficiency is of no real consequence.

The only reasons to be worried about the efficiency of solar panels are:

1. Physical space taken up
2. Cost
3. Size of the panels and materials used to make them (use of resources, environmental effects etc)

But there's no need as such to use the sun efficiently since we're not going to use it all up if we waste it like we will with oil etc.

People tend to worry a lot about the efficiency of solar. My response to that is that for a typical household grid connect installation it is completely irrelevant. So what if 80% of the sunlight goes to waste? You're wasting 100% of it right now without solar.

Most energy conversions are reasonably inefficient, particularly those involving multiple steps. Chemical energy (coal) into radiant heat into steam into mechanical power into electrical power. That's rather a lot of conversions and the end result is that even a highly efficient plant is only about 40% efficient (it's a bit lower for the average of coal-fired plants actually in service due to age etc).

Solar may only be 17% efficient, but you're using an effectively unlimted resource...

We need to change our life style every one wants power at 4 -10 pm and then nothing so power generated after is wasted but until the feds act we will continue to do nothing until it is to late.
Also it is still cheaper to use Coal fired power than buy & install Solar but there a lot of things we could use as I said running of DC just as Edison wanted years ago . I found DC LED lights to be great rather than AC down lights

drsmith said:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...r-nsw-queensland/story-e6frg97o-1226077596870

If I read the above correctly, a 150mW photovoltaic solar power plant has an upfront capital cost of $923m. That equates to $9230 per 1.5kW, or more than the unsubsidised capital cost of rooftop solar panels, fully installed.

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Further to the above, a 1.5kW rooftop system will produce, at best, 7.5kWh of electricity per day on average, based on the most optimistic assumption from from a retail installer. This equates to approximately 2800kWh per year. Scaling up to 150mW, this would produce 280,000mWh of electricity per year. With a wholesale tariff of $0.07/kWh (WA wholesale component of feed in tariff), the plant would therefore generate $19.6m per annum in revenue. It may be more, depending on whether the solar panels themselves follow the sun during the day, but even if it was 50% more, that would still only equate to a 3% revenue return on investment and that's before any operating costs.