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Micro Inverters and AC Solar Panels. The Future of Solar Power?

Sunday April 28, 2013

Micro Inverters and AC Solar Panels. The Future of Solar Power?

source  http://www.solarquotes.com.au/inverters/micro

In the beginning, there were solar panels which produced electricity as Direct Current. The same kind of electricity that you get out of batteries.

To make that electricity useful for powering appliances or connecting to the grid, it was converted to Alternating Current (AC) using a big box of electronics called an inverter.

In Grid Connected systems, the solar panels were connected together in series (called strings) to create higher voltage DC which is good for reducing losses. However, this also created some problems.

That’s why the Micro Inverter was invented.

Micro Inverter

A Micro Inverter is simply a miniaturised inverter, sized to suit individual solar panels rather than a string of solar panels.

They aren’t new; they first appeared in the late 1990’s but arguably it was a bit too early and the technology suffered a bit from reliability issues and high price. In the last few years however, they have re-surfaced and are starting to really take off.

Around the world there are at least twenty one different brands of Micro Inverters and in Australia, about 8 brands of Micro Inverters are approved for use with more on the way.

Here’s what one of the little fellas looks like next to its conventional alternative, a big, bad central inverter.

A central inverter next to a micro inverter

 

AC Solar Panels

An AC Solar panel is simply a solar panel that has been fitted with a Micro Inverter so that it produces Alternating Current instead of Direct Current.

A typical “Series String” array

Most of the solar panels installed in Australia right now are configured like this, with one big inverter and one big DC voltage. If that 600V DC arcs then there’s going to be a bang! And possibly a fire. (Which is why you should never skimp on installation cost)

 

An array of solar panels with a central inverter

 

A typical “AC Solar Panel or Micro Inverter” array

An array of solar panels with a micro inverter

 

What’s good about AC Panels and micro inverters?

There are a number of complexities caused by the traditional way of connecting solar panels together (in a series string) which Micro Inverters can help overcome including:

High Voltage DC

High Voltage DC can create a risk of very high temperature arcing and potentially fire. Because Micro Inverters convert to AC the potential for this to occur is greatly minimised.

Switchgear

High voltage DC requires relatively expensive protective switches and fuses. By using AC, switchgear is more commonly available and thus cheaper.

Shading

When solar panels are connected together in a series string, shading just one of them can dramatically affect the entire array; (kind of like standing on a hose).

As an example: Here’s an array of 3 solar panels connected to a conventional, central inverter. One of the panels has been pooed on by a bird, which could easily reduce its output by 50%. However, it will also reduce every other panels’ output by the same amount:

 

3 conventional solar panels, one with bird poo on it

 

But by having a Micro Inverter on each solar panel, the outputs are completely independent of each other. So that bird poo is going to only affect the soiled panel:

3 micro inverter solar panels, one with bird poo on it

According to the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, this effect can yield as much as 12% more energy.

 

Solar panel mismatch

When solar panels are made they each have slightly different electrical characteristics due to imperfect manufacturing tolerances. When you connect them together in series string, this effect is called “mismatch”. Micro Inverters can adapt to the individual characteristics of each panel, avoiding mismatch.

Maximum Power Point Tracking

Like the effect of mismatch, different electrical characteristics also create different Maximum Power Points for each solar panel. The maximum Power Point is the perfect point for extracting maximum power from a solar panel and Micro Inverters attached to individual solar panels can therefore target this point better.

Monitoring and fault finding

Almost all inverters have some level of monitoring and fault finding however; it can only see the combined output from every solar panel in the series string. A Micro Inverter however, can monitor each solar panel individually, allowing you to easily identify exactly what’s happening more quickly and easily.

Factory fitted

Assembling and connecting components in a factory environment is inevitably a more controlled environment and can potentially save time and money. A number of solar panel manufacturers now factory assemble Micro Inverters to produce AC Panels.

Redundancy

If your series string inverter develops a fault, your entire solar array stops producing power until it is fixed. If a Micro Inverter develops a fault, the remaining Micro Inverters can continue to operate, so you should have a more reliable system.

Modularity

Series string inverters can only accept specific number of solar panels per inverter so it’s not always possible to simply add a few more panels at a later date. AC Solar Panels however, can be added much more easily because they are independent of each other.

Orientation

In a series string, all your solar panels need to be connected in the same orientation so they are combining to produce the right voltage at the same time to fire up the inverter. Because they operate independently, AC Solar Panels can be oriented in any direction and will not affect the operation of other solar panels.

 

What’s bad about AC panels and micro inverters?

Nothing is perfect however, and Micro Inverters do have some downsides including:

On the roof

If your Micro Inverter develops a fault, someone has to get up on the roof and disconnect it from under your solar panel. This can add time and cost, compared to simply taking a series string inverter off the wall.

Weather effects

Because Micro Inverters are on the roof (albeit under the solar panels) they do suffer from more extremes of weather including heat, cold and moisture. This means they have to be really carefully built and in many cases, use electronic components that are more robust than would otherwise be required. As a general rule, extremes of temperature reduce the efficiency of electronic devices and shorten their life.

Efficiency

Although they are getting close, Micro Inverters have not yet reached the same efficiency levels of series string inverters, so they can’t convert as much solar energy into electrical energy.

Price

Again, they are getting close, but Micro Inverters remain about forty to fifty percent more expensive than high quality series string inverters and almost three times the price of low cost series string inverters.

When is an AC Solar Panel or Micro Inverter a better choice?

As you can see, there are a number of advantages to AC Solar Panels using Micro Inverters. The most common reason people choose them is because they have shading or they need to use different orientations on their roof to generate the power they require.
An increasing number of people are also choosing them because they are prepared to pay a premium to avoid mismatch, increase their redundancy and allow for future expansion. The other benefits described tend to strengthen the case and some people just love the idea of having the latest/newest technology.

Clearly, if you have shading or sub optimal orientation Micro Inverters are an ideal choice and could end up being cheaper in the long run because they will produce more energy.

Beyond this, Micro Inverters become a personal choice about how much you are prepared to pay balanced against the extra features and advantages.

How popular are they?

A few years ago there were virtually no Micro Inverters or AC Panels installed around the world. However, in California it is estimated that around 40% of all inverters installed in 2012 were Micro Inverters, so they taking market share rapidly, particularly in the US. They are growing in other countries too, but are best suited to Residential markets where the price difference is less noticeable.

The Australian solar market is around 98% residential, so it is logical that we will see pretty strong growth here too. In fact, we know that in the last 6 months from a base of effectively zero, more than 10,000 Micro Inverters have been sold and we have only just started. Although this represents a small fraction of the market, within a couple of years it’s quite reasonable to predict that around 20% of the market or more, could be utilising Micro Inverters.

Who sells AC Solar Panels and Micro Inverters?

We know of twenty one Micro Inverter manufacturers around the world including: Enecsys, Apparent, Sparq, Kaco, Power One, Tigo, Array Converter, Solar Bridge, , GreenRay Solar, Azuray Technologies, Petra Solar, Direct Grid, Accurate Solar, OKE/SMA, Exeltech, National Semiconductor, Larankelo, Enphase, APS, SWEA & Plug & Power.

Enecsys and Enphase are undoubtedly the market leaders with APS/Greenstar not far behind however SMA and Power One (both huge Inverter manufacturers) are sure to shake things up a bit once they get going. A new kid on the (Australian) block is Solarbridge who, instead of selling the inverters individually, team up with solar panel manufacturers to sell the AC panel as a complete, factory assembled unit.

There is a growing list of big name PV companies around the world who have partnered with Micro Inverter companies to produce and sell AC Solar panels including Westinghouse Solar, BenQ, Canadian Solar, Suntech, SunPower, NESL, Hanwha SolarOne, Sharp and probably more that we haven’t heard of yet.

In Australia, we have (at the time of writing) one company producing AC Solar Panels. Adelaide’s Tindo Solar manufacturer solar panels and use the SolarBridge Micro Inverter providing our only true, locally made AC Solar Module. AC Solar Warehouse based in QLD also sell a good range of Micro Inverters.

Beyond these two companies, a growing number of Distributors and Dealers can access Micro Inverters and fit them to pretty much any solar panel you like with APS the biggest selling Micro Inverter to date.

The last word

A few readers have asked if AC inverters represent a “Do-It-Yourself” option and the short answer is no, although it is tantalisingly close. Because you are dealing with 240V AC power, a licenced electrician is still required to connect them and for rebates or FIT’s you’ll need an accredited installer.

Just how much of the market Micro Inverter equipped AC Solar Panels take remains to be seen but one thing is for sure; they do solve some hairy problems and have a big future.

If they can get the cost down just a little bit more, then they may well become the dominant solar inverter technology, with the big centralised inverters joining all those mainframe computers in the big electronic scrapyard in the sky.

Posted in Uncategorized

Knowledge is Power.

Sunday October 21, 2012

What factors do you consider when you’re comparing quotes to install a system? Probably a number of things- electricity savings, system size, total cost, to name a few. But what about inverters? Or more specifically, micro inverters? Truth is, some of the most significant technological innovations in residential solar have been in the field of micro inverters and corresponding online monitoring. When an installer is pitching you a solar system, information about your system’s expected performance over it’s life is crucial. .

So micro inverters. An inverter is the device that converts direct current into usable alternating current for you, the homeowner and electricity consumer. String inverters (in a series, for the physics wonks out there) were seen as an improvement in lieu of one big central inverter. While string inverters increased visibility into the productivity of panels, an array was still only as efficient as the lowest-producing panel. Think of it as a cross-country team that can only run as fast as its slowest runner. But the advent of online monitoring systems that track production on the web has driven demand for parallel micro inverters, which convert the production of each individual panel from direct current to alternating current. Dysfunctional panels don’t drag down the productivity of the others, and online monitoring can quickly identify the weak link.

EnergyPak GreenStar micro inverters are complemented by sophisticated online monitoring systems. Homeowners with PV on their roofs can identify the productivity of each individual panel from their iPad or smart phone, allowing them to make more precise calculations on expected electricity production and savings. Shading, dirt, leaves, partial cloud cover and sometimes just run-of-the-mill wear and tear can vary for each panel in an array. Green Star Products offer a product that provides unprecedented real-time information and visibility into your PV array’s performance.

Even though micro inverters add costs to the system as opposed to one central inverter, the benefits far outweigh the added expense. Check with your local installers to see what kind of inverters are included in the quotes. And remember, knowledge is power!

Posted in Media Articles, Uncategorized

Best Systems

Saturday August 11, 2012
Solar Australia — February 2012

Arnold McKinley, from the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems at Australian National University, discusses how many of the modules and inverters currently available on the market lack the ‘smarts’ that would make solar systems more efficient.

Selecting a string of ten photovoltaic (PV) modules can be frustrating, because differing characteristics can deflate the overall efficiency of the string. Preferably, individual modules should be able to balance themselves in order to maximize their output, and ideally, owners should be alerted when modules are not performing at peak efficiency due to shadowing and damage. Every module’s output ought to be monitored.

Systems also ought to turn on with first light, rather than waiting for sufficient light to produce a ‘high enough’ turn-on voltage. That way, the modules can also generate some power under heavy cloud cover. These considerations suggest the need for ‘smart modules’.

Improving module efficiency

There are three manufacturers in the United States (Enphase, PetraSolar and Apparent) who have married modules and inverters, in order increase efficiency. These manufacturers have designed ‘micro-inverters’ that fit on an individual module, instead of the end of a string.

Some of the features of ‘micro-inverters’ include:

•Each micro-inverter automatically matches itself to its respective PV module, ensuring maximum power tracking for that module. This allows for the mixing of different modules together in a string •Each micro-inverter comes with internet access, so the state of each module is accessible via a web browser. This allows 24/7 monitoring and alerting •The turn-on voltages for micro-inverters are low, so they begin generating power with first light and they stay on longer, until last light. This allows them to work under inordinately low lighting conditions •All of the micro-inverters currently being developed in the US have current source output stages, so they don’t have to raise internal voltages to ship power to the grid •Each micro-inverter produces actual current right at the solar panel, and ties into the string with supplied cables. This eliminates direct current busbars and end-of-string combiners in large systems, saving considerable installation time and cost. •The total cost of micro-inverters for a string of ten modules is often less than the cost of one standard string inverter with direct current cabling.

 

Benefiting customers and utilities alike

Smart meters measure power factor and the expectation is that, one day, residential customers will also pay for reactive power. When that day comes, home owners with inverters that manipulate the phasing will be happy because they will need it, and they won’t have to buy it from the utility.

The utilities should be happy too, because if solar inverters produced dual power for their local loads, then reactive power would stay off the transmission lines, and that would save the utilities money. They might eventually be willing to pay PV owners for making it.

Utilities produce both types of power – active and reactive – usually in remote regions, far from consumers where fossil fuel for generators is easy to get. They then distribute dual power over long transmission lines.

The challenge for utilities

Unfortunately, remotely generated reactive power is a major cause of brownouts and blackouts. This is because reactive power causes voltage to drop ten times more than active power. Then as reactive power builds up on the transmission lines, current builds up and, if not watched carefully, the lines overload, causing them to fault; otherwise known as a blackout.

Currently, when days become hot and the need for reactive power rises to alarming levels on the transmission lines, utilities pay ancillary operators to generate it locally, using small generators that usually sit on standby alert.

PV solar offers the utilities the opportunity to use locally-generated power, but since active power is the foundation of utilities, locally-produced active power replaces product they want to sell. On the other hand, however, locally-produced reactive power reduces the amount of remotely-produced reactive power.

Dual-power micro-inverters allow utility-scale solar farms to act as true ancillary, dual-power, on-demand generators. This is something they have never been able to do before.

Reactive power is produced without any degradation in the quantity of active power. In other words, it comes for free as part of the micro-inverter inversion process. This means that solar PV owners do not have to buy any more PV modules to produce equal quantities of both kinds of power, because there is no extra energy being generated.

Arnold McKinley is a PhD student at the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems at Australian National University (ANU). He holds two masters degrees, one in electrical engineering and one in engineering economics, both from Stanford University. Prior to his work at ANU, Mr McKinley helped develop the dual-power Apparent micro-inverter in the US . He also wrote the first versions of EnergyREView, a browser-based Energy Monitoring and Reporting System for PV solar systems that use the Apparent micro-inverter.

 

References:

http://solarmagazine.com.au/news/the_way_fo/065984

Posted in Uncategorized

EnergyPak Solar Systems-guaranteed to outperform

Monday July 9, 2012

EnergyPak are happy to announce that the components for the system of the future are now in stock allowing us to supply and install the highest performing systems with the data to prove it .

The most vulnerable part in a solar power system has been the inverter. Our new GreenStar micro inverter systems come with an unrivalled 25 year warranty on every inverter. Add to this our unique web based PowerTracker monitoring of each module and you will be in complete control of your solar power system. No guessing if your system is working 100% or not.

Needless to say, there is no hiding a modules quality and performance any more. The cheap end of town are shaking at the prospect of micro inverters revealing the condition of their modules after a few years in the harsh Aussie sun.

A solar power array is only as good as its weakest link. With a micro inverter if 1 module is shaded the rest of the modules will no longer be reduced to the lowest common denominator. By individually inverting each module , no one under performing panel can drag the profit of the system down. And if it is , a real time graph will indicate it’s condition to you.

No longer do the safety and cost challenges of string inverters confront us. And you won’t have an ugly inverter on the wall of your house. A recent study found that by installing a micro inverter system the generation yield was more than 16% higher than the string inverter system.

So call EnergyPak today and get the solar power system of tomorrow.

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Government policy allows power bills to rise more than recommended

Wednesday April 25, 2012

Household electricity bills are likely to soar even higher than the 23 per  cent recommended yesterday after the state government revealed it did not intend  to remove a tariff that accounts for about $95 per bill.

The Economic Regulation Authority yesterday recommended removing the Tariff  Equalisation Fund that South West residents and businesses pay to allow remote  customers to access electricity at the same rate.

Instead, the difference should be provided by a Community Service Obligation  funded by taxpayers, the ERA said. This would spread the liability across the  state and reduce household bills by 7.3 per cent.

The policy already applies to water.

In its draft decision on electricity prices, the ERA found household  electricity bills would need to increase  by $353 in 2012-13 to represent the true cost of generating and  distributing power.

Taxpayers are subsiding electricity bills by $350-400 million per year. The  Barnett Government aims to raise tariffs to reach cost reflectivity.

It already has increased electricity tariffs by 57 per cent since 2009 and  has budgeted for a further 5 per cent increase from July 1.

The ERA’s 23 per cent recommended tariff increase is based on the TEF being  removed.

Without shifting the $180 million TEF liability from customers’ bills into  the state budget, residents could face electricity price hikes of more than 30  per cent, adding $450 to the average household annual bill which the ERA has  calculated to be about $1500.

“The subsidy … is not a cost that is associated with generating,  distributing or retailing electricity in the South West,” the ERA says in its  draft decision.

“It is a cost associated with a government policy decision.

“… the TEC is not a component of an efficient, cost reflective tariff.”

While Minister for Energy Peter Collier was unable to comment on the draft  decision in detail yesterday, pending the final report, his spokesman said  removing the TEF was “definitely not on the radar”.

Opposition energy spokesman Bill Johnston said Labor was still considering  the TEF recommendation but there was a strong argument to remove it.

“Of course if you take $180 million out of the budget that’s a big impact on  the budget and we’d have to work out whether we could afford to do that,” he  said.

However, if the ERA’s full suite of recommendations were accepted, the  government would gain $400 million from reaching cost reflectivity, creating a  net gain of $220 million.

The ERA says its recommended increase is needed to cover increases in the  cost of generating and distributing electricity, as well as to make up for the  former government’s eight-year price freeze.

It accounts for the federal government’s carbon tax, which is expected to add  more than 8 per cent to electricity bills from July 1.

Residents would bear the brunt of price increases, while large businesses  would have their bills cut by more than 9 per cent.

The recommendations assume the ERA’s draft decision on Western Power released  last week, which caps the amount of revenue that can be earned at $6.8 billion -  $3.4 billion less than requested.

The revenue reflects network costs for Synergy and account for about 40 per  cent of electricity bills.

It was not in the inquiry’s terms of reference to recommend a timeframe in  which to implement the tariff increases but the ERA said if the government  continued with its planned incremental rises, there would need to be increases  of $63 per year (3.5 per cent) for each year from 2013-14.

 

Posted in Media Articles

Keep Western Australia’s Electricity Market Diverse: SEA

Wednesday September 21, 2011

by Energy Matters
The Sustainable Energy Association of Australia (SEA) has continued its call against re-mergers in Western Australia’s energy industry, a possibility flagged by the Barnett government.

The SEA has consistently opposed a remerger of Synergy and Verve, stating monopoly operations create barriers to developing a competitive market in Western Australia.

“Energy market reforms leading to the disaggregation of Western Power in 2006 were strongly supported by industry to create a competitive market, and those reforms are not yet complete,” said Professor Ray Wills, Chief Executive of the SEA. “If the Premier was to carry out a remerger of Verve and Synergy, the likely outcome will be to re-establish barriers to market entry and be a disincentive for private sector investment in Western Australia’s energy markets.”

In 2006, the Labor government split Western Power into four energy utilities. However, Premier Barnett has said the break up was ineffective in creating competition between Verve and Synergy; resulting in higher electricity prices.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry Western Australia (CCI) strongly disagrees with the Premier’s assessment. In a statement issued yesterday, the Chamber stated the announcement “is a complete u-turn on 15 years of reform of energy utilities” and that it such a re-merger is likely to cost taxpayers more.

“This is a return to the failed policies of the past. It is a mistake to believe that Government can produce and supply electricity more efficiently than the private sector,” said CCI Chief Executive James Pearson.

Mr. Pearson says no consultation with the business community, which is the major customer and biggest private investor for the energy sector, has occurred.

Western Australia’s Opposition Leader, Eric Ripper says the move is a distraction, designed to shift focus from rising power prices, which jumped another 5% in July this year.

“The Government has killed the solar industry, now they’re going to paralyse other private sector generation investment,” said Mr. Ripper.

Western Australia’s solar feed in tariff  installation quota was reached in August and the program suspended for new connections, leading to a significant slowdown in Western Australia’s home solar power industry.

However, Synergy and Horizon Power are continue buying excess electricity fed into the grid from all residential solar power systems systems under the State Government’s Renewable Energy Buyback Scheme; albeit at a greatly reduced rate compared to the previous program.

According to information posted on solar solutions provider Energy Matters’ web site, under current arrangements, an entry-level 1.44kW solar power system installed in Perth still offers a financial benefit of approximately $480 annually.

Posted in Uncategorized

Western Power spend to hit $5.8bn

Friday September 16, 2011

WESTERN Power, the owner of Western Australia’s sprawling electricity network, plans to radically increase capital spending to a record $5.8 billion over the next five years in a move likely to lead to higher tariffs for businesses and households.

The state-owned utility said yesterday it wanted approval to spend $1.6bn above its budget allocation to meet the demands of WA’s booming economy and to upgrade an ageing network hit by years of underinvestment.

In a five-year plan to be submitted to regulators, Western Power is asking for a capital spending program of $5.8bn and operating expenditure of $2.7bn between next year and 2017.

Western Power’s self-sufficient network is considered expensive to maintain because it is one of the largest in the world, covering many areas with small populations and extreme fire danger.

Managing director Doug Aberle said the five-year investment plan was part of a 20-year vision to get the network in shape and focus on safety.

“Until we have replaced or reinforced 164,000 poles, replaced 1073km of powerlines and replaced other parts of the network in the next five years, risks will continue to grow,” Mr Aberle said.

Western Power’s submission to the Economic Regulation Authority includes investment to increase the network’s capacity to meet growth of an additional 146 megawatts a year and to connect 130,000 new customers.

The proposal will be closely scrutinised by the authority.

The cost of running the network makes up about 40 per cent of WA’s electricity tariff, which is set by the government.

Energy Minister Peter Collier said yesterday it was inevitable that any increase in network charges, as proposed by Western Power, would put upward pressure on electricity prices.

“Inevitably, in a worst-case scenario, yes there will be an increase in . . . electricity prices based on the network component of that tariff,” Mr Collier said.

But there would be only a “very modest” increase in electricity prices next year, he said.

In the May budget, the Barnett government said electricity prices would need to rise by 34 per cent over the next four years as it sought to close the gap between the cost of producing electricity and the price paid by consumers.

“I’m also mindful of the fact West Australian householders have done it tough in the last 2 1/2 years and that is why we have made the decision . . . to slow the process down, and we as the government have made the decision to absorb those costs,” he said.

Mr Collier would not speculate on whether the $1.6bn Western Power was seeking beyond its budget allocation would increase the government’s net debt.

A report in August last year by the Office of Energy Safety blamed a fallen Western Power electricity pole for sparking the 2009 Toodyay bushfire, which destroyed 38 homes.

At the time, energy safety director Ken Bowron said the 34-year-old pole had passed its use-by date and he was concerned there were thousands of other poles like that.

But Mr Aberle denied the report had found the pole was directly responsible for the blaze.

Source – The Australian

Posted in Uncategorized

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s misleading claims

Friday September 16, 2011

As the carbon tax legislation continues to be debated in Parliament, a story in today’s Canberra Times shows up some of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s misleading claims about renewables.

Earlier this week, Mr Abbott is reported to have said there was no way you could have a solar-powered steel mill or a wind-powered manufacturing plant. Unfortunately for Mr Abbott, such projects are already under way. In Germany, BMW is building wind-turbines at its Leipzig manufacturing plant that will provide electricity to assemble hundreds of vehicles per day. And in Britain, Ford’s diesel assembly plant is already completely windpowered.

Parliament agreed yesterday to sit for an extra five hours on Tuesday “to facilitate debate” on the government’s 19 carbon price Bills.

Posted in Uncategorized

CEC Large-Scale Solar Policy Roadmap

Friday September 16, 2011

Australia has the highest average solar radiation per square meter of any continent in the world yet we are failing to capitalise on the potential benefits of large-scale solar.

As we move towards and beyond the 20% by 2020 Renewable Energy Target (RET), large-scale solar technologies will need to play an increasingly important role in delivering the required levels of renewable energy generation to the market

Today the CEC launches its Large-Scale Solar Policy Roadmap, with the help of Minister for Energy and Resources Martin Ferguson, as well as representatives of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the CSIRO and the Australian Solar Institute. The Roadmap provides a guide to policymakers about the challenges facing the large-scale solar sector in Australia and the potential long-term policy responses.

The message is clear: Australia is in a premier position – with its high solar radiation, vast land mass and well-developed research centres – to become a world leader in large-scale solar. However, our intent must be clearly articulated and support rallied to remove existing barriers and hasten full commercialisation.

Several other countires are already off and racing, with the size of investment and scale of projects in Spain, Germany and the US dwarfing anything in Australia. This year alone, the US has ramped up its investment in large-scale solar, with 12 projects receiving conditional commitment from the government totaling $12 billion.

The next five years are critical, with more resources for solar mapping needed to help isolate preferred sites, as well well as more on-ground, mixed-scale projects delivered – such as those scheduled under the Federal Government’s Solar Flagships program – to provide vital lessons borne from experience.

The Roadmap will help to ensure large-scale solar is firmly in the minds of policymakers while drafting the nation’s Energy White Paper this year and next.

Thanks must go to CEC Policy Manager Lauren Solomon, the Large-Scale Solar Working Group and numerous other experts who provided vital input to the final report.

To read the report or summary document, click here.

Matthew Warren

Posted in Uncategorized

Solar industry celebrates grid parity

Wednesday September 7, 2011

The Photovoltaic Association says the drop in cost of producing power from solar panels has made solar power competitive with coal-generated grid power.

Solar power generated by photovoltaic cells on Australian rooftops has become so cheap and efficient that they now produce electricity for the same price that is charged by the electricity grid.

Australia is one of the first countries in the world for such solar power to reach what is known as ‘grid parity’.

In a time of rising electricity prices, it means even without solar subsidies it makes good economic sense to install the panels on your house.

Across the country, governments of all persuasions are abandoning schemes to pay people for the power their rooftop solar cells generate.

Despite controversy over feed-in tariffs – which have been blamed for Australia’s rapidly rising electricity costs – rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) panels are now generating electricity for the same price and sometimes cheaper than can be bought from the grid.

In effect, this makes solar competitive with coal, even without subsidies, according to Photovoltaic Association spokeswoman Dr Muriel Watt.

“It’s competitive with coal if you add what you need to do to bring the coal-fired electricity to where you want to use it,” she said.

“So it’s coal plus the network. I think it’s a really good investment and that’s just looking at it from the price of electricity now.”

Mr Watt says the growth in the market will mean a continuing decrease in solar production costs.

“We’ve seen rapid reductions in costs of production and now that’s being reflected in prices as well, as we’ve seen a whole lot of new production come on stream,” he said.

“Australia also has the high dollar, so that’s made prices in Australia even cheaper than they are in other places, and our electricity prices have gone up significantly in the last five years.”

Australian sunlight is stronger than it is in other parts of the world, making PV panels here more effective.

Mr Watt says grid parity is solar’s coming of age and governments now need to rethink their whole power-pricing models

“It’s been the holy grail of the industry to reach it,” he said.

Mr Watt believes home-generated power should be worth a higher, competitive price given that it is already on the doorstep and does not require the huge cost of poles and power lines.

courtesy of ABC News

Posted in Uncategorized
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