CSIRO’s Black Mountain Solar Installation

Posted on October 22, 2018 by Mike — No Comments ↓

CSIRO’s Black Mountain facility is set to have a further 2,900 solar panels installed in a plan to save around $900,000 a year. They’ve called for tenders this month and hope to have a decision made this week.

CSIRO’s Black Mountain Solar Installation

Federal government agency CSIRO are doubling down on their previous solar investment – with an existing 380 solar panels at Black Mountain set to be increased by around 700%. The first 480 panels were installed earlier this year, and according to the Canberra Times, over 880kW of solar systems have been rolled out at other CSIRO sites since 2016 – including Black Mountain, Armidale in NSW, Werribee in Victoria, Kensington in Western Australia and Darwin.

According to a CSIRO spokesman, 1.2MW of solar will also be installed in Pullenvale (QLD) and Waite (SA) – with a further 4.2MW planned for the ACT, NSW, Victoria and Western Australia.

“Once installed, these [photovoltaic] systems will deliver more than $900,000 [in] annual savings on energy bills, save close to 8000 megawatt hours of energy and reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by about 7400 tonnes each year,” the spokesman said.

All together, the plans are to install five megawatts of grid-connected, on-site renewable energy across its building portfolio by 2020.

“A key opportunity exists for CSIRO to hedge against the predicted upward price trend in electricity prices by investing today in alternative renewable energy sources to power their sites,” the CSIRO tender document says.

“The installation of large scale on-site renewable energy generation is a key mechanism to reduce CSIRO’s carbon footprint.”

The CSIRO have called for tenders for the Black Mountain solar upgraded and have advised that they will sign a contract this week, before deciding on a timeline to complete the upgrade. Some more fantastic news for government-installed solar and another step in the right direction for Australia’s renewable energy future.

Darwin Solar – What’s Going On?

Posted on August 22, 2017 by Mike — No Comments ↓

As Australia’s sunniest capital (Darwin gets more sunlight year-round than any other major city – an average of nine hours every day), Darwin solar is certainly in the doldrums. As per the Australian PV Institute, the entire Northern Territory’s PV solar output as of January 2017 was a mere 4,049MWh (the lowest in Australia, less than Tasmania, and a ridiculous amount behind state leader Queensland who output 126,629MWh that month). What’s wrong with solar power in the Northern Territory, its capital Darwin, and what can be done to fix it?

Darwin Solar – the situation

According to the Australian Energy Council‘s latest report, residents of the Northern Territory are paying the second highest for electricity in the country, behind Tasmania. The ABC website quotes John Grimes of the Australian Solar Council that a third of homes (freestanding) in QLD and SA have PV solar installed on their roof, but this number is only 11% in the Northern Territory.

Darwin Solar - Australian Solar Installs 2016 — Darwin Solar lagging behind in Australian Solar Installs for 2016 (source: abc.net.au)

The Northern Territory has a renewable target, which is to reach 50% renewable energy by 2030 – so it’s obvious that something needs to give if they’re going to get anywhere close to that. ABC quote an adviser to the NT Government, Alan Langworthy, who notes that the number of solar installations in the area is “artificially low” – noting that 40% of occupants in Darwin are renters, and as solar power for renters is still a tricky and mostly unexplored topic, it makes sense there will be less solar installations.

“Having a very high transient [and] rental population in the NT tends to have driven down enthusiasm in rooftop photovoltaics,” Langworthy said.

Also to note is that solar panels need to be signed off by a building certifier, which adds ~$900 to the cost of each installation. Perhaps another reason uptake has been slow is that back in 2011 when states were offering high tariffs to incentivise initial uptake, the gov’t offered 19.23c/KwH to feed back into the grid – in comparison to 44c/kWh in WA and QLD, or 60c/kWh like Victoria.

Perhaps the answer is for the government to consider some sort of subsidisation scheme or generous tariff for residential solar – maybe something targeted specifically to landlords could be a step in the right direction.

We will see what the NT have in store when they release their policy on how they plan to reach the 50% renewable energy target.

It’s not all doom and gloom for the area, however – Alice Springs solar has been boosted by the $8.3m BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) which Vector Energy will be installing by late 2017 to help improve the reliability of base-load power for Territorians. We’ll wait and see what impact this has on Northern Territory solar and which steps they take in order to try and reach their Renewable Energy Target.

Alice Springs Solar to end blackouts

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Mike — No Comments ↓

Some big news coming out for residents suffering the solar drought in the Northern Territory – the new Battery Energy Storage System will transform Alice Springs solar and is slated to be one of the largest grid-connected storage solutions in all of Australia.

BESS and Alice Springs solar

Solar Energy in the Northern Territory has lagged far behind the other Australian states in terms of residential and commercial solar uptake (January 2017 PV output was 4,049MWh vs Queensland’s 126,629MWh) – so it’s great to see new government owned company Territory Generation announce the Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).

Territory Generation Logo (source: territorygeneration.com.au)

The cutting-edge BESS will be installed by Vector Energy and will be a 5mW storage system, capable of supplying energy to the grid for up to 40 minutes if required.

It will cost approximately $8.3 million to develop and modelling done by Territory Generation, or ‘T-Gen’, shows that this will be recouped within four to five years. Chief Executive Officer of Territory Generation Tim Duignan, was quoted as saying “We’re replacing aged electricity generators with the latest equipment, to provide efficient and reliable power supply, drive down the cost of producing electricity and to support a transition to renewable energy.”

Duignan also noted that this is an important project as it improves the reliability of base-load power – imperative as we transition to renewables (there are overcast days even in the Northern Territory). Just having solar panels or wind generators isn’t enough – as we saw in South Australia last year if base-load power isn’t sufficient it will lead to widespread blackouts. On that note, in the same week as the ABC are reporting that South Australian power prices will be the highest in the world as of Saturday, it’s good to see projects with clear modelling and positive financials – there is quite a lot of short-medium term pain coming up for energy bills nationwide.

The BESS is set to be completed by late 2017.

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CSIRO’s Black Mountain Solar Installation