Australia is one of the luckiest countries in the world in terms of natural resources. The future of Hydrogen Energy in Australia is in the news and will be for some time. Here is the US Central Intelligence Agency comment on Australia’s natural resources: Natural Resources: bauxite, coal, iron ore, copper, tin, gold, silver, uranium, […]
Category: Finance
The Status of STCs: Where do we stand now?
Small-scale technology certificates (STCs) are the product of the Federal Government’s support scheme for small-scale renewable energy (appropriately named the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme, or SRES), and represent the main financial incentive available for residential and small commercial solar PV installations up to 100kW. Prior to the official publication of the proposed and actual […]
Smart Meters and Real Time Pricing
Time of Use (TOU) pricing has widely been adopted for electricity billing. With TOU metering the electricity rates are divided into three different time periods – Peak, Shoulder and Off Peak which enables the retailer to charge different prices for the electricity used at different times. A new method of electricity pricing has been introduced, […]
System Economics of a Stand Alone Power Supply Systems
The power sources most familiar for the supply of renewable energy – wind, sun and water – are considered to be freely available; therefore a common assumption is that the energy provided by these power sources is also free. A stand-alone power system (SAPS), in order to take advantage of ‘free’ energy sources, costs money […]
Residential Demand Charges – What is it, and can solar and battery storage help?
With the impending closure of Hazelwood and the Prime Minister’s talk of ‘clean coal’, attention on electricity prices in 2017 has so far centred around the effect coal-fired stations have on the cost of electricity. The introduction of a new tariff charge by some utilities which have directly affected some customers from 1st January 2017, […]
The Blockchain Buzz
Over the past several months, there has been an increase in the amount of reference to Blockchain technology and what it can do for the renewable energy sector. Much has been written about this technology such as this article and this article. A number of global companies have even started to trial blockchain based energy […]
The Duck Curve – the duck hunting season we want to have
The power blackout in South Australia in September 2016 produced numerous ‘experts’ to analyse the causes of this event. The Australian press, politicians, shock-jocks and the public all had their particular slant to apply when assessing why this catastrophic failure occurred. GSES thought it opportune to provide some contextualised background to how distributed renewable generation, […]
Generous Feed-in-tariff Schemes: their demise and what information is useful for affected system owners?
Various generous feed-in tariff (FiT) schemes, including NSW’s 60c Solar Bonus Scheme, will come to an end on the 31st December 2016. It is estimated that over 275, 000 households in Australia will be affected by these changes to feed-in tariffs. For PV system owners in states other than NSW, feed-in tariff rates will be […]
Configuring Battery Storage Products – Comparing Apples and Oranges?
The renewables market is currently being flooded with energy storage products to meet the increasing demand and hype for this technology. All of these products present a similar, well-scripted value proposition and all offer to deliver similar functionality. As a result, this rapid rush to market of these products and their advertising has created the […]
Big solar’s ascendancy as coal slips in the popularity stakes. How ready is the Australian solar industry?
The Adani-owned Carmichael mega-mine inches ever so slowly towards a final approval amid falling coal prices and fierce community opposition. At the same time Adani has recently expressed interest in solar farms in South Australia and Queensland. What will the growth of Australia’s large scale solar sector be set to experience? The large scale solar […]