Generation
I HAVE calculated how much Aurora, nee the government, will collect from electricity I generate in the next quarter. Electricity I paid hard cash for, to install solar electricity and hot water systems.
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Governments encouraged people to invest in systems that were “environmentally clean” that take some load off the state electricity system. The government will get $180 worth of my electricity for nothing. I even pay for the transmission and energy charges for this electricity.
How much water have solar producers saved Hydro Tasmania over the last six years? Water is an essential that Hydro has no control over. They did try, with expensive cloud seeding but still ran our storages down so much they spent more than $20 million to bring in generators. Encouraging people to install solar systems that save water should be a no-brainer.
A recent review of the FIT made dubious claims saying solar energy production in Tasmania is marginal, that it doesn’t take any load off the system in winter months.
According to Aurora metering, my solar system still produces significant electricity in winter. Sounds to me like, “this is my intended opinion now let’s make the facts fit the case”. It is unfair for governments to skim money from socially responsible people who have invested their own capital to reduce the energy and environment crisis, by paying them 13.5 cents/kwh for the energy they sell at 26.4cents/kwh.
Jeff Jennings, Bridport.
Solar mandate
WHY the disappointment by Anne Layton-Bennett with our local and state governments regarding solar panels not being mandatory in planning regs? Is she not aware that the state is 90 per cent renewable hydro-electric generation with a large chunk of wind power as well and looking to add wind power-pumped hydro?
Fitting buildings with mandatory solar panels would be a grotesquely inefficient way of mandating renewables versus simply continuing down the renewable path it started on decades ago. In this state, it would simply be doubling down on the hydro investment.
If the answer is to sell the excess to the mainland then the smarter solution would be for the mainlanders to mandate solar panels and all those vile, off the plan dog-boxes they are building and plant an awful lot of trees in their treeless cul de sac commuter warrens with all that bitumen and concrete infill. That indicates the real planning problem.