Newswire

Solar energy benefits the state by providing electricity at much cheaper rates than those of traditional sources, writes Matthew Wright.

It may appear counter-intuitive, but getting millions of solar panels onto rooftops saves more money than it costs. Feed-in tariffs enacted by state governments have enabled ordinary Australians using their savings to build a solar power station at home benefiting the community.

When those solar households who had saved to get their panels installed under the solar feed-in tariff programs export their solar production to the grid, which occurs mostly during higher demand daytime periods, they are given a slightly higher than average retail rate for the electricity they are selling. The prices they have been paid are relatively meagre when compared with the ridiculously high rates paid to big coal or gas power plants.

At the same time that little solar households who have invested their money in a rooftop power station are being paid between 44¢ and 60¢ per kilowatt hour, the old power companies with their dirty belching coal and gas plants are receiving as much as $12.50.

By Mark Ogge

SOUTH Australia has a new Premier. Now it's a good time to talk about a different type of power - the power that turns your lights on.

The Playford B coal power plant in Port Augusta has been operating since the early 1960s. Having been a key part of the state's electricity system for decades, its retirement is imminent.

Playford B's owner Alinta is seeking federal funding to shut it down, finally putting an end to a major source of climate-changing carbon emissions and the pollution that afflicts the local community.

By Matthew Wright

Coal’s days are numbered.

The transition to renewable energy is now well underway. It will put an end to the adverse health impacts coal mining and combustion now has on the health of Australian families such as those in the Hunter Valley. The increased rates of asthma, respiratory and cardiovascular illness that affect thousands will be a thing of the past.

In terms on climate change, the shift to renewables will do more for reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions than the carbon price championed by Climate Change Minister Greg Combet and the Labor government.

For a city like Newcastle, whose development is historically linked to the coal industry, the beneficiaries of business-as-usual will no doubt present the decline of coal as a threat.

The truth of the matter is that the rise of renewable energy is an economic opportunity the likes of which we’d be foolish to miss. The Pew Charitable Trust values the economic opportunity at up to $2.3 trillion over the next decade.

New investment, new jobs, and new export industries are all there for the taking. But securing these benefits for Newcastle and Australia will require political leadership today.  

By Matthew Wright

Every week Suntech, the world’s biggest photovoltaic manufacturer, is pumping out hundreds of thousands of solar panels to power households and businesses across the globe. Dozens of other companies in China, Germany, Korea and elsewhere are doing the same.

The solar photovoltaic manufacturing industry is a prime example of renewable energy’s growing success story. In 2010, the world’s solar PV factories could produce in excess of 38 gigawatts of panels in just one year. By the end of 2011, that production capacity will have expanded to 50GW of solar panels (24GW will be installed).