WITHOUT action, Australia could be heading for solar disarray. Each state and territory has a different solar-power regime. The mainly state-owned monopoly owners of the poles and wires are not especially interested in the environment or efficiency unless it sounds in extra cash. And the limited competition among suppliers is made more difficult for consumers to exploit because charging regimes all differ.
Small wonder that a survey released by the Australia Institute this week suggests Australians are very keen to get off the grid and are very keen for Australia to do more with renewable energy.
Unfortunately, though, governments (other than the Act Government) are not listening or acting and the providers and networks remain more interested in profits and self-preservation than efficiency and the environment.
The survey found that 80 per cent of those with solar generation on their roofs (more than a million houses) would like to get off the grid by using battery power. It also found high support generally for more renewable generation.
The trouble is that the corporatised and fragmented electricity generation and supply industry aided by governmental inaction will do its best to defeat those laudable aims.
Replacing coal and gas generated power with renewables is critical. As electric cars become more practicable and economic, it will be environmentally self-defeating if the electricity they consume is generated mostly by coal.
The solar-incentive schemes are due to wind up in most states in the next year or so. This will leave solar households at the mercy of electricity providers. Most (the ACT excepted) charge around 20 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity consumed from the grid, yet pay around 7 cents for the excess solar-generated electricity sold by the household back to the grid.
It is a bit of an abuse of a monopoly position and a disincentive to go solar (even if it is an incentive to go off the grid once you have solar).
So it is almost certainly the reason why most households with solar want to store the excess themselves in batteries rather than sell to the grid.
But batteries are expensive. And you need a lot of them to go off grid.
And many households will need more panels and bigger inverters to generate enough power to run a household without threat of flattening the batteries at night.
The simple test for this is to look at your electricity bill and see if you used more electricity from the grid than you sold back to it. If so you will need more panels and maybe a bigger inverter.
The average household consumes 6000 kWh a year. A 20-panel system with a 5kW inverter should generate that. But households with big roofs usually have higher than average electricity use.
The low-hanging fruit (relatively wealthy home-owners who see a long term investment in rooftop solar) has all been picked.
It is a mistake to think that Australia can wean itself from coal electricity generation by relying on the existing trajectory of household solar generation and the projected battery uptake.
More action is needed. Given this week’s survey that shows the popular will is there, governments need to act on it, even if it means the generators lose the bulk of their business.
Initially, the generators liked a bit of solar generation because it helped with peak demand and took pressure of the grid. But from their point of view you can have too much of a good thing.
The biggest task is to get solar generation on the rooftops of rental dwellings. There is an equity as well as environmental reason for this.
At present, tenants pay for power, so landlords are not interested in installing solar. Neither are tenants because they cannot take it with them.
As more households go solar and more go off the grid we can expect the electricity companies to change their charging system by charging a lot more for just being connected. Nearly all providers are already charging a “service fee”. Watch this rise dramatically.
The upshot will be that renters will be slugged with much high power bills to maintain the poles and wires which will be used by an ever-shrinking customer base.
It may need a change in tenancy law so that landlords and/or bodies corporate must supply a basic amount of electricity to tenants, say 4000kWh per year with the tenant paying the excess. It could be part of the general duty of a landlord to provide a habitable dwelling.
As soon as that happens solar panels will appear on rental rooftops across the country.
Under present arrangements, 40 per cent of Australian households are unlikely to ever get solar power.
Household generation is important because it is so efficient. A lot of electricity is wasted in transmission from power stations and requires expensive transforming to higher voltage for transmission and back to lower voltage at distribution points and at the household.
That said, renewable generation at central points will still most likely be necessary if Australia is to eventually wean itself from coal. In places of high population density there is probably not enough roof space to generate enough electricity to meet demand.
Yes, it will cost.
But we have to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas generation (a great portion of which comes from coal, oil and gas electricity generation) if we are to avoid the much greater cost of not doing so.
The added prospect of using the sun through electricity generation to run the car and truck fleet on the roads should excite governments and business. Australia imports nearly all its fuel and nearly all of it refined overseas. It would be a great help to our trade deficit.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in Fairfax Media on 4 June 2016.