Perth council to seek mandate on renewable energy for new homes
A Perth council is hoping to radically alter its planning scheme to require new homes to have their own energy supply. Nedlands council, which covers some of Perth’s wealthiest suburbs, will apply to the WA Planning Commission to alter their planning scheme to require installation of onsite power generations, such as solar panels or wind […]
Printable solar panels, one step closer to market
Australian solar power scientists are one step closer to making available a cheaper and faster way to print solar cells onto plastic.
CSIRO’s senior research scientist Dr Fiona Scholes said the technology was almost at the commercialisation stage and could be used to power laptops to rooftops.
Source: ABC News
Solar experts say Australian renewable energy investment being stifled by Government policy
One of the world’s most advanced solar power companies has shelved plans to develop electricity plants for the public market in Australia because of the Government’s apparent hostility to renewable energy.
Solar Reserve, based in Santa Monica, California, has pioneered a technology that combines mass-scale solar power generation with storage, allowing energy from the sun to […]
Technology, not regulation, will kill coal fired power
British banking giant Barclays downgraded the entire electricity-generating sector of the US high-grade corporate bond market because of the challenges posed by renewables and the fact that the market isn’t pricing in those challenges.
The thesis from the Barclays credit team is that it’s not so much regulations that will choke off coal burning, but technological […]
Construction underway on huge solar power plant
Three hundred workers will be employed in the construction of the biggest solar power plant in the Southern Hemisphere, just outside the western NSW town of Nyngan. The 102 Mw installation includes 1.4million solar panels.
Source: ABC News
Governments urged to back solar research push
Laminated roll-out solar panels and power storage within panels themselves are shaping up as future advances in harnessing the power of the sun.
South Australia’s three universities are combining their efforts to keep the state at the cutting edge of solar research.
Source: ABC News
Go west in bid to cut power bills
Tens of thousands of households are being urged to put solar panels on the western side of their homes in a bid to cut power bills and rein in rampantly expensive peak-energy capacity.
With solar uptake rates in Perth running at about 2000 households a month, Energy Minister Mike Nahan said it no longer made economic […]
Bill shock for WA businesses
Up to 21,000 WA businesses face a surprise 10 per cent power price hike from next month, in part because a surge in solar panels has reduced electricity demand and forced Western Power to lift its tariffs to claw back a slump in revenue.
However, the hit could have been worse, with the State’s economic watchdog […]
Coal, gas profits suffer as business goes solar
SOLAR power systems are being installed by businesses at triple the rate they were a year ago as a glut of Chinese cells and rising Australian power prices combine to improve solar’s economics and threaten the profits of coal and gas-fired power providers.
Many of the photovoltaic cell systems used by businesses — which mostly need […]
Australia makes its first solar power million
More than two million Australians are now getting cheaper power and saving some half a billion dollars a year on their electricity bills, because of their switch to solar energy.
The number of Australian homes with solar power systems has passed the one million mark, according to figures from the Clean Energy Regulator that confirm the […]