SOLARHOME.COM.AU

We should summarise what we know from a South Australian perspective about solar rebates for solar PV, solar hot water and building efficiency.  The federal government has some rebates and incentives available, instituted under the previous government.  The new federal government has promised some more emphasis but at the moment they are still just that, promises.

Solar Photovoltaics

The federal government rebate for the installation of photovoltaic panels and grid-connected inverters continues to gain in popularity.  Retailers are offering 1050W (rated) installations for $5000 and an $8000 subsidy applies.

The federal government is also subsidising the photovoltaic industry in other ways, with industry subsidies.  These help to make investment in this industry attractive.  Also the various academic programs in PV are funded through the national research council.

(Here we really should get the government to make some statements by way of a media release)

Solar Hot Water

The solar hot water systems for rooftop installations in domestic settings, havelong been subsidised in the country.  The subsidies are calculated based on renewable energy credits available depending on system size and efficiency.  They are designed to reflect the greenhouse gas saving.  The true effect is not easy to see, as this calculation does not take into account the method of heating that is being replaced.

The Australian parliamentary transcripts are a useful resource for the institute. Where these are on-line they will be searched for certain keywords, and the hits analysed.

All states have searchable collections with exception of Tasmania and the territories. The links are:

Mostly these involve searches of parliamentary proceedings. Most of the states have a separate Hansard Search for the Legislative Council, and the House of Reps.

The Federal govt has a more comprehensive search feature, which is organised into collections:

Collections:

Chamber, Legislation, Procedural, Committees, Library, Media, Parliamentary Handbook, Constitution, Conference, All Collections.

The Chamber collection is structured into

The Hansards themselves appear to return most results for the PV searches.

The Legislation Collection is structured into

Only the Budget papers seem to return hits for the PV search term.

A search of Committees collection does yield a few results.

The Libraries collection returns search results, but the actual article text cannot be displayed because of copyright restrictions.

The Media collection has a huge number of hits under Newspaper Clippings. The article text is unavailable as above, but the publication reference would still permit an external lookup.

None of the other collections are useful.

Parts list:

(1) Round conventional fresnel lens of radius 100mm and focal length around 80mm.
(2) 3mm Aluminium plate cut into semicircle of inner radius 105mm and width 20mm
(3) 5mm Al, acrylic bronze or hardwood plate cut into semicircle of inner radius 115mm and width 25mm.
(4) thin steel spring of diameter 3.5mm of length such that elastic extension stretches around outer circumference of (2)

stretch and glue spring to the outer edge of (2). this becomes the thread.
attach (2) to (1) at right angles to the disc.
cut perpendicular 10mm slot 3mm wide, into the inner surface of (3) halfway along the length.
This will allow (2) to slot into (3).
Attach worm drive to (3) at the slot, and connect to the thread of (2).

Route a semicircular shape groove into the outer edge of (3) or diameter 3mm.
glue a thin steel spring into this groove, stretched to achieve the required pitch.

slide (3) into a rectangular collar (4) and attach a worm drive to the spring thread.

The following have been identified as either being based in South Australia or having a very strong presence here:

Solaris Technology

Pecan Engineering

Solar Shop Australia

Ecosmart

SA Pool and Solar

Conergy Pty Ltd

Solahart

Edwards Solar Hot Water

Solar Depot

SE Battery Services Mt Gambier

Sustainable Energy Enterprises

I have observed many readers agonising over how large to make their system, and how much to spend on it. It seems to be difficult, but why?

Estimating the annual hot water output of any given system, in kWh per annum, is not difficult. I can get a collector, storage tank, booster system, and known pipe run with insulation of a known grade, pump water at a known flow rate and know the output temperature for a given Australian location. It is a model with known inputs, and known behaviour.

Yet the question of how large to make the system, and how to design it, is still incredibly challenging. It takes time, and much research on the part of the consumer, and their consultant.

So where is the difficulty?

It turns out the hardest part is discovering what YOU want, and what your needs are. How much hot water do you need? When do you need it? How much fossil energy do you wish to replace, and what is it worth to you?

Some people want 100% of their hot water from solar. Even with a six member household, the morning after a cold winter day. It is definitely possible.

Others just want to get the absolute quickest payback period on their investment. They know they have to store & boost, and they can easily achieve a 6 year payback period.

The question everyone is asking is this: is the fastest payback always the most cost-efficient investment? It turns out that it is.

Let’s compare two scenarios, where the payback is the same, but the outlay is different.

Scenario 1: Householder pays $2000 (additional cost over and above the cost of a non-solar replacement system). Say this system saves $800 per year. Note the payback is not 5 years, but 9 years, assuming an 8% cost of money. The net present value of those savings over a 20-year system life is $7854. Therefore the householder has saved $3854.

Scenario 2: Householder pays $6000 and saves $1000 per year. The payback is still 9 years. the net present value of those savings over the system life is now 9818. But we notice the householder has saved roughly the same $3818.

On the basis of these considerations, the householder should make the smaller investment.

Now we have gotten a little closer to a good decision. If I can calculate the system output, and calculate the cost savings, then I can calculate the payback period. The assumptions may not be perfect, but it’s fair to say that the shortest payback period wins anyway, no matter what the assumptions are. Much of this has to do with the fact that the future is uncertain, and the far future more so. People can and do, choose the system with the shortest payback period.

However not all people do that. Not even most of them. Not in this market anyway. The same way that not all people drive the smallest possible car, or live in the cheapest possible neighbourhood. Some people still opt for maximum self-reliance. Why?

The reason, as for what car to drive, and what suburb to live in, is that the calculus is far more complex. These factors should not be called intangibles, for they are tangible to anyone making a decision. They are just not consciously considered. So let’s call them subliminals. They are rationales which appear subliminally in people’s calculations, and are not apparent in most cost-benefit analyses, unless these are truly sophisticated.

These are the same subliminals which will have enthusiasts spend tens of thousands more for a HSV edition of their favourite Commodore. Or buy a Ferrari, or spend tens of thousands on their childrens’ private education.

Subliminals like the anticipated increase in the cost of energy. Uncertainty about the future generally. Less reliance on a faceless utility. The repeated satisfaction of getting a small hot water bill. The cash-flow benefits of buying a money-saving device when times are good, to insure against when times are bad. The satisfaction of self-reliance. Pride. Contemplation of, and marvel at, the technology. Being reminded of the sun’s abundance. These considerations get rapidly more specious and fanciful and I’d better stop here.

So, having ascertained that the smallest investment is the most cost-effective (at least when using an Excel spreadsheet with two inputs), let’s go to the other extreme.

Let’s consider a system so large that I don’t even need a booster. Technically feasible, even when you consider the regulatory requirement for the water store to be above 60C just before use, to destroy legionella. With the new evacuated tube collectors, I can triple my normal collector size, and boil my water on a 10C day in the middle of winter. Does this change my equation? Actually I think it does.

So to any given system I now add two more collectors at $1000 each, and subtract a $1000 instant gas booster. And subtract a complete gas bill altogether. I haven’t done my sums but I can see immediately that there are some people for whom this would make perfect economic sense. This makes even more sense when the extra hot water is used for space heating or airconditioning, but we are speculating here…

Dear Committee,

Around Christmas I sent an email to Mike Rann endorsing Sandra Kanck’s proposal to form a Select Committee on Peak Oil. Then last week I received a letter from Paul Holloway informing me of the Committee’s existence and, to my mind, vaguely implying that submissions would be welcomed.

This is my submission. I have been kicking it around for months now, and it keeps changing. I meant to present it in Word format as a sober, well-researched piece of public service policy-speak, but it just didn’t come together. I have decided to present it in the style which comes most naturally to me. The conclusions are as sound as ever.

What are my credentials, besides the ability to think clearly, and write a basic English sentence? And a somewhat pessimistic temperament? I am a 41 year old father of two with a mortgage and working as an IT Consultant. My background is in mathematics. I have been taking a layman’s interest in the topic of Peak Oil for about 3 years. I have the dubious honour of being the resident expert among my family and friends.

What is the approach taken in this submission? Well for a start, I don’t wish to argue here that Peak Oil is happening, when it will happen, or how bad things will get. I assume others are going to do this for me, and I refuse to waste more energy on the task.

I wish to get right down to envisioning the Best Possible Future. A future created by people who, in 2008, sat down to envision the best possible future.

But first a brief digression into politics and pop psychology.

THE COMMITTEE
The select committee is comprised of Sandra Kanck (Dem), Jackie Lensink (Lib) and Russell Wortley (Labor). If you are reading this, hello and welcome. Your task is an important one, and not to be underestimated. You have power and influence. If you had wanted bureaucratic policy-speak you can get plenty of it from the department. Here are the raw thoughts from the street. Or from my study as it happens.

I am a
The matter of Peak Oil was debated in the Legislative Council on 9 April 2008, and again the following day 10 April. The link to SA Hansard Text Search

Interestingly, David Ridgway mentions a Queensland “Oil Vulnerability Task Force” which supposedly tabled a report last October (2007). Anyone have a link to that?

Chloe Fox from the Lower House has also spoken in Parliament on the topic at least twice. She had commissioned a report from a Parliamentary intern Tyson Retz on the impact to her electorate of Bright. I have requested and read the report from Tyson Retz.

Chris Hanna was keen to point out that he was first to bring the matter of Peak Oil up in parliament.

I am slowly piecing together the general tone of the response from our legislators. In summary, I have to say our legislators are hampered in one crucial respect. They have a deep-seated, innate desire to be popular. And while this will help get them re-elected, it is preventing them from making the Churchillian response required to meet the challenges of the next 5-10 years. There is a real risk that the present political establishment will be overtaken by events and become irrelevant in years to come. Unless they can adapt to the rapid change about to beset us. Someone will always adapt and survive. I just want it to be a civil society ruled by compassion.

THE PEAK OILERS
In some sense I am part of a loose collective. Let’s call it the Peak Oil Movement. Peak Oilers are legion. Check out www.peakoil.com some time. There are perhaps around 200,000 regular visitors to this site in the English-speaking internet space alone. I observe their posts, and their attitudes. While some are geologists, philanthropists, bleeding hearts and simple gardeners, many peak oilers are cynical, jaded individuals. They are almost eager for calamity to hit. Many are survivalists, hopeful of a harsher and simpler world, where they will be happier than the complex one they are resentfully trapped in now. There are others, like myself, who simply have a somewhat melancholy disposition, keen to be the bearers of heavy news. It is an amazing, important thing which is happening, and you get to feel “special” having perceived the truth well before others. I wish to be able to say one day: “See? How prescient and clever I was then! Able to look the cold hard truth in the eye. Seeing the truth where others didn’t. Now ye must all listen to what I have to say!”.

I am fascinated by the grandeur of this unfolding calamity. In the past 3 years or so I have become a master of confirmation bias. Everything I read becomes further evidence of Peak Oil. Every government policy is further evidence of the hidden hand of oil geopolitics. Every news article on global warming fires me with indignation that the “real problem” is not being addressed. Every trip to the servo becomes a communion with the surging tide of history.

DENIAL
What about the rest of the world? How can they not know? How deep does this denial go?

Remember the Doris Day song? “Que sera, sera. Whatever will be will be.” In the long term we are all dead. Even the sun will go out in 5 billion years. Today is a beautiful day, have some perspective.

Am I wasting my time riffing in this vein? I mean what kind of a parliamentary submission is this? Strange times indeed.

Well my contention is this: If you the reader can’t frame the question of what to do, in terms of your personal morality, then you are just striking a pose for someone else’s benefit. And don’t make it about a “legacy for the future”, your “name in history” and some such rubbish. That is all delusion also. Cast this concern for the future in terms of your own conscience. Nothing else works. That’s all I want to say on the pop psychology, now back to more practical matters:

THE BEST POSSIBLE FUTURE

This is the meat of the submission, presented in the form of an imagined future.

Adelaide, 2050 A.D. Back in 2008, the year of Peak Oil, a select committee sat. Today the electorates of Kanck, Wortley and Lensick forever immortalise the individuals who set in motion the rapid top-down changes which ensured that Adelaide’s response to Peak Oil became an inspiration for the world. Now every year graduates of the SA institute of Post Oil Governance go out into a world eager for their skills. While the rest of the world suffers cruel hardships and unspeakable treachery, the citizens of Adelaide, though poorer and less free, enjoy peace, good health, and the envy of the world. How did they achieve their good fortune? Not through some accident of geography surely? An abundance of natural resources? Surely with their arid unproductive soil, their lack of water, and high transport costs, the geography was against them? Surely they should have been the first to the wall?

How did this little insignificant nation-state of 1 million people, ethnically and philosophically diverse, aging and pampered, achieve such successful adaptation? What does their world look like now?

A first glance through our 2008-model rose-coloured glasses fills us with dread. Government surveillance and control are pervasive. The citizens of 2008 would be horrified by the degree to which government interference has become a daily part of life. However the effects are mitigated in that the federal government has waned in importance and relevance, and this interference is at least confined to SA State government interference. With a vastly larger public service, operating without the benefit of the Public Service Act.

Unleaded petrol is not readily available to private citizens or even industry, being allocated to the military and to police. Diesel is available on a sophisticated rationing basis for all remaining interstate haulage. LPG and diesel is used to run interstate trains. Bullet trains run on electricity. Personal transportation is performed done mostly with bicycles and electric scooters. Diesel sedans and SUV’s are available from regulated car hire companies for private use, though with long waiting lists. Air travel has become re-nationalised with severe limitations on private and even most corporate use.

US and EC biofuel subsidies were hastily outlawed in 2009, and are still thought of with a sense of deep historical shame.

Biofuel is still used by those in the primary sector but mostly this involves feed for draft animals, which have again become economical.

The key thing to realise about Peak Oil is this: the future will resemble the past. The future will resemble the past more than it will resemble the present. We are going to go backwards in many, many ways. If you do not agree with this basic premise, stop reading now. I have nothing further to say to you.
History

When we need to deal with a future which resembles the past, what better way than to ask those who have patiently studied the past. These special, endangered people, are called historians. They live in humanity faculties of places called universities. They have a lot to teach us. Oh by the way, these historians live in the future as well. They will be writing about us, you can be sure of it. They may even be reading this. A big hello to all historians from the future reading this.

Any parliamentary study group on the topic should include a historian with a good understanding of the dynamics of decline. Rapid and long term decline. However there is no precedent about the extent and scope of the decline we are about to experience.

Secondly, that peak oil will happen, is self-evident. The problem is not how to make a persuasive case about the timing and the exact cause of Peak Oil. It is how to cut through the cognitive dissonance which is paralysing people and stopping them from taking any kind of action. My belief is that the best way to do it is just to charge on ahead and start planning. Openly, without stopping for anyone’s approval or support.

Parliamentarians do have power, however they can only do so much without losing their constituency. It is this constituency which needs to be enlightened. Otherwise we face a political landscape dominated by fear and loathing.

Returning again to local matters. What things need to be done?

Having painted the picture of what could happen if we chose to do nothing, or chose merely to react to emerging information, we should paint a picture of what our state should look like if we have implemented the “perfect” plan. We should envision the best possible picture, where SA is an oasis of prosperity and stability, in a very different world. We must not restrict our dreaming by concerns of whether any of it is politically feasible now. We should assume that it isn’t, then make it so. We should not confine our thinking to concerns of whether it is or isn’t too costly. We should spend the money, with a clear vision that money itself is not real, but a consensus of worth.

The first unpalatable reality, and an ideological hurdle for some, is that the State has a the single most important part to play here. The State will orchestrate many of the changes. The State will be in charge and in control. Creepy, I know but there’s no way to sugar-coat it.

Laissez faire economic liberalism has done an amazing job, however it is in the past, and not suitable for the task at hand. This is an economic war that is being fought, with poverty and despair the invisible enemy. War is best not fought on free-market principles. It requires a united polity, acting with a high degree of uniformity and cohesion, with central command and control, acting on the best possible information.

Adelaide

In this best possible future the state is still organised around the dominant city, Adelaide. In this city, the majority of people still live in highly artificial environments, requiring electricity and air-conditioning. The majority of those people will still have jobs. Because of enlightened zoning laws, many of those jobs will be nearby. Local manufacturing, which has enjoyed a resurgence due to high transport costs and risks, is located centrally in the traditional centers not at the fringe. The population has moved from suburbia back to the center, into affordable and modern high density housing.

Clusters of suburbia have been repurchased by government. Houses and streets have been razed and rezoned to horticultural and animal husbandry use, then resold to private operators.

The combustion engine has not been outlawed for private use, and is still used by those who can afford it. Similarly it is still being used for haulage, air transport and government. Enlightened government action has relaxed vehicle safety standards enabling smaller and lighter vehicles to raise the fuel efficiency of the whole fleet. Many more people will commute with fuel or electric scooters and motorcycles. Government has removed residential street responsibility from local government and is managing this directly. Transport corridors become more differentiated and bicycle-only corridors will be added.

Many,

You might by now have seen the power meter for sale at Jaycar Electronics, also available directly from Electus Distribution, who seem to be the wholesaler, via RS Electronics, their retailer.

They are the cheapest units on the Australian market, and selling well.  They have the Australian N287 Standard tick, so I am satisfied they are at least somewhat safe and reasonably accurate.

Certainly I have tested in on a 60W incandescent bulb and it showed 60W.  I tested it on a 18W CFL bulb, and it showed 18W.  No smoke came out of the back of the unit, so it’s good enough for me for $40.  Alternatives used to cost over $200 so there’s no excuse not to get one.

The unit will show volts, amps, watts, and kWh without any setup, so that is easy.  If you want it to record the dollar amount of the power used, you will have to work through the instructions, which are in Engrish.  It could conceivably be used to do basic electricity billing.  Say you had a caravan park, or a boarding house.

Hopefully the explanation below will add enough clarity to the crappy instructions, to be of use to someone:

Menus

Pressing the FUNC button repeatedly will cycle through the following menus:

Volt AC -> Amp -> Watt-> Max Watt -> kWh -> Total Price ->  Total Price 1 -> Total Price 2

Volt AC simply shows the Voltage currently being supplied.  The unit can handle from 200V to 276V.  We assume it is measuring RMS voltage, not peak to peak.  Otherwise we’d not be able to multiply volts by amps to get the power.

Amp show the current being drawn at that instant.  It can handle up to 10A of current.

Watts shows the power being drawn by device you have plugged in at any given moment.

Watts max is a register which shows the maximum power drawn at any instant since you last reset that register.  Press and hold the FUNC key while in the Watts max function, to reset the register to zero.

kWh is a register which shows the total accumulated energy consumed since you last reset the register.  Press and hold the FUNC key within the kWh function, to reset the register to zero.

Total Price which is described as “On time Price” in the engrish instruction sheet, multiplies the kWh consumed by the Price 1 or Price 2 tariffs depending on the time of day and day of week the power is drawn.  For this, the Clock must be set correctly (see below).

Price 1 and Price 2 menu functions allow you to set on/off times for various tariffs, and multiply by the power used at that time, to arrive at a total price for a given period.  It is possible to set 11 combinations of days (individual days from Monday..Sunday (7), Weekdays only, Monday through Saturday, Saturday and Sunday, Monday through Sunday).

Suppose you are paying a cheaper tariff at night from 10pm-6am, you might set Price 1 to be Monday through  Sunday 6am - 10pm, and Price 2 to be Monday through Sunday 10pm - 6am.  What you cannot do with this unit, is apply a rate based on consumption, which happens to be the model we use on our bill.

Setting the Price 1 and Price 2

Press FUNC to get to Volt or Current or Power functions.  Now press and hold the FUNC key for about 5 seconds.  Now press SET and then keep pressing UP.  Cycle through the values with UP.  Cycle through the options with SET, and press FUNC to exit.

Setting the Clock

Not as easy as it sounds.  The UI is not intuitive.   The display also is annoying in how it automatically turns itself off after about 3 seconds.  I think about 10 seconds would be nice.  To set the clock, press FUNC then press SET.  The days of the week should be flashing.  Repeatedly press UP to cycle through the days, then press SET to move onto setting the hours, and so on.  Press FUNC when finished.

Power Factor is the percentage of time the appliance is running over a given period of time.

If you are interested in a rough idea of the wind and solar energy at your geographical location, check out the Energy Matters link to their google map overlay.

The overlay shows graphs from January to December, for wind speed and solar irradiation.  Enter your postcode, and then select the nearest weatherstation marker.  The data itself is from NASA satellite data.

OK I realise I am just gagging to be flamed to death here, but hear me out.

First, some background: You should know that I like ice-skating. Not that I go that often, but it is something I can do, and it gives me some enjoyment. Here in Adelaide, the choice is limited to the Ice Arena in Thebarton, and even though a small rink has recently opened in Noarlunga, it is 45 minutes from the CBD .

Thebarton is a dump no matter which way you look at it. And yet the fundamentals are great!  It’s in a prime location, has plenty of parking, it’s popular, and there’s little competition.

I think the rot set in about 15 years ago, when the operators decided to build a ski slope directly above the skating rink.  I had a go myself and it was definitely a bit of fun.  The skiing punters came, but not in sufficient numbers. About 5 years later they tarpaulined the whole section off again, and just kept the ice rink. You can imagine this is a really classy look! Since then not a cent has been spent on the place and it is an embarrassment to SA. Refurbishment is so not an option, primarily because of the abovementioned alterations. It clearly needs to be knocked down, and I have not doubt it soon will be. What to replace it with, in this low carbon world?

Well I would love us to build a solar thermal ice skating rink. I first thought of it about a year ago, and gave the idea a little time to mellow.  A year later and I still can’t bring myself to file it under “harebrained schemes”, so I’m giving it a little air.  Give it a little thought and it will grow on you too.

The biggest benefit this concept has, is the lower running cost.  The efficiency of driving a refrigeration compressor directly off a turbine cannot be equalled.  Energy storage is in the form of lower temperature coolant.

It is a simple idea in principle. Use the steam from an Ausra CLFM array to drive a turbine. The turbine is connected to a compressor. The compressor chills brine to as cold as it will go and sends it to a holding tank.

This superchilled brine (of variable temperature) is mixed with a variable amount of warmer (but still cold) brine to achieve a constant temperature for circulating under the ice.  A constant temperature is necessary to achieve a good ice surface.

Apart from the attractive economics of this sort of facility, it would be a green flagship which says in essence: “You can live a low-carbon life, and still have fun”.Using an ice skating rink for what is essentially a technology showcase, has the benefit in that it normalises the technology far more quickly.

It will enjoy enviable press coverage, it may even be a brief world-wide media sensation.  “Catalyst”-style science programs would be fawning all over it.  It would be a victory for political moderates increasingly concerned about global warming. It would force developers to take another look at the economics of cold-storage technologies. Refrigeration being such a contributor to world electricity demand growth, this may serve as a model for large facilities of the future.  I am thinking cold-storage warehouses, office buildings, colleges, shopping malls.

If you have a view, get your skates on and drop me a comment.

Last Thursday’s press release from Solar Systems informs us that Dave Holland and Co are definitely proceeding with the long-awaited factory in Melbourne. It will manufacture the liquid-cooled receiver modules utilising Spectrolab’s super-efficient GaAs GaInP TJ photovoltaic cells. The balance-of-system components will presumably be purchases off-the-shelf.
The new Melbourne factory will be able to produce about 300MW of such receiver modules per year.

At say 900 sq. cm each, receiving 1000 suns at 30% efficiency, each receiver will produce perhaps 27kW. So this factory will be producing on the order of 11,000 units per annum. Working 200 days a year, that’s a mere 55 units per day. I totally applaud the initiative, but in terms of scale, it’s hardly earth-shattering.
It’s a great start, don’t get me wrong. I just hope that the premises are designed to scale up as the technology takes off. Which it inevitably will.

The factory is due to produce the first units in early 2009.