So my friends have had free power for years thanks to solar panels and a great contract with power company. They even get credits for having 20 panels on thier roof! I put 18 solar panels on my roof cost $9900 dollars. I was told my bill will be slashed 80%. Thanks to our shit government our return NOW is $19 dollars a month!?? It will take me 10 years just to get my money back! Why would they torpedo a project that could save the world from global warming? Now I know why no one in my street has it except dumb ass me. Whats the deal where you are?
Solar power rip off! Aussie government destroyed free electricity. Scum!
by Witness 007 25 Replies latest jw experiences
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blondie
Public utility companies in my state have been backing off financial helps....
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waton
Public utility companies in my state have been backing off financial helps...
no wonder, after the west coast's experience with ENRON.
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Still Totally ADD
There is no money to be made with individual ownership of solar. Just take stock you are doing something good for yourself and the environment. This country does suck when it comes to anything that is not attach to big oil, pharmaceutical and insurance corporations. Greed is the number one thing with the US and be damn about science and the environment. Ignorance seems to be what makes our country go around. Sorry for the rant but that is how I feel some days. Still Totally ADD
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zeb
The govts here in Australia as well always want things both ways.
Try any licence you have to pay every year they go up and this is for the services (?) they supply or the cost of running the licences (yep get that)but on solar panels;
First of all they pay incentives then when this is costing them (supposedly) they back them off. The same thing happened with retirement funding a government offered tax incentives for people to take out their own retirement plans called superannuation here and when many did the govt then whienged 'we' are 'losing' all this money on incentives. Give it a few years down the track they are once again whienging of all the pensions 'we' have to pay out and what this will cost. They are refusing to build the aged care facilities that are in chronic short supply because once all the 'baby-boomers' are dead they will be stuck with all these facilities. That is a quote.
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shepherdless
I think it would be helpful to give some background.
Some years ago, various Australian state governments (there are 6 Australian states) offered substantial incentives to homeowners to install solar panels on their rooftops. The scheme varied from state to state, but generally it was along the lines that, there were subsidies for the instal, and a contract to sell excess electricity back to the grid at the same rate electricity companies sell power.
The scheme was far more successful than expected, to the point it became a problem. State governments responded in stages by first reducing then eliminating subsidies, and the buy back rate of electricity was reduced substantially.
There is no doubt that those who got in early got a good deal. Those deals are long gone. An offsetting factor is that the cost of such systems has fallen dramatically over time. The 18 panel system referred to by the OP is probably a 3.6kW system. I have recently received an ad from the people who installed mine, for a 6kW system for only A$3000. (I got a reasonable deal on a small system, but nothing like the deal some of the first people got.)
I suspect that the OP was caught in an intermediate stage where state govts were trying to reduce the subsidies. A few years ago, my state govt tried to do something underhand in that regard, but did not get away with it.
For me, a far bigger issue in Australia is why over a 20 year period, Australia went from having the cheapest electricity in the Western world to the most expensive. Some people blame privatization, but look at WA where the entire system is still 100% govt owned. The reason is complicated, but at its core is a major government failure.
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Lost his mind
There is no way to store solar energy. Simple as that. Unless you have the huge amounts of batteries at your home to do this. The big solar fields that you see in california are basically useless unless the power is readily needed at that time. Repeat... you can not store this power unless the power companies themselves put in big battery farms. Hydro, a free source of power, and in my opinion, is the way to go. Sorry, don't mean to ruffle any feathers.
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Bungi Bill
Witness 007
That is why I never opted to go solar, as I figured that it would have to come to this, sooner or later.
Hydro, a free source of power, and in my opinion, is the way to go
Tend to agree with you on that one. (Speaking of a former power station superintendent - diesel, gas turbine and hydro).
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shepherdless
Hydro is the best, but there are no new locations with the right topography in Australia to build them. In fact, there aren't that many new places in the Western world left where they could be built. (Still a lot that could be built elsewhere.)
Battery farms might become more viable if the price continues to drop. That would be a game changer for both solar and wind energy. In Aust, there are already household battery storage units being sold to compliment solar units, but that says more about the exorbitant electricity prices from the grid, than whether batteries are economically viable. A more traditional alternative to battery storage would be something like the Dinorwig pumped storage scheme, but there are probably no suitable sites. Even without storage, solar is a part of the solution, and each state now has a significant proportion of its electricity from solar.
Personally, I think the long term answers are nuclear (reliable base load power), and biofuels (for transport). Both are obviously controversial.
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waton
Solar panels became so successful, they threatened to bankrupt the heavily invested providers of the nighttime power. but energy generated by the Sun's radiation can be stored. All advanced life,- all gas, diesel cars, jet/ prop planes move on stored solar energy, only sailboats, gliders use it (almost) directly.
The food you eat is stored solar energy.
The future is in better & more solar energy storage*. (dams even) after we capture it. fusion? *intercept, capture enough to cool the planet.
sorry for Wo7' experience, its financial, not stellar.