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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Some people seem to be missing the point. [b]We are talking about rooftop solar rather than vast solar farms.[/b]

The huge surge of popularity in rooftop solar panels in Australia has essentially created a good problem, too much solar energy.  The state governments drove this surge through their incentive schemes. The uptake was not driven by altruism but by what made financial good sense. My Australian mother has not paid an electricity bill in about 20 years. In fact, she usually receives money for generating electricity.

The huge popularity is a problem nonetheless. It has produced instability due to the fall in demand from a grid which was designed around coal fired power stations rather than rooftop solar energy. It is difficult and expensive to redesign an entire electricity grid.

Following on from the success of the state government schemes, the federal government has now introduced a scheme for a 30% rebate on the installation of solar batteries for homes businesses and for communities.

This use of solar energy does not need to be a political issue. But it does need government support to pave the way.

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Australia generates 20% of its grid power through large scale solar farms. In addition it generates another 12% by residential solar. Australia has just introduced a program for residential battery. “Cheaper Home Batteries Program” has added 2 GW of storage in the last 4 months with 100,000 solar small scale batteries installations. The program was funded through 2030 but looks likely to run out of money in the first 6 months. I think is Vermont or New Hampshire the power company subsidizes batteries with solar installations. It situation where the grid is stress the power company can pull from these distributed batteries network. I do not know if Australia is doing this.

Residential solar in the US is 2-3 times more expensive vs Australia and EU because of tariffs and governmental red tape design to discourage installation. If the government would get out of the way, residential solar would be cheaper vs grid power by a significant amount. [/quote]

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