A new report, commissioned by Solar Citizens, has found that small solar pv systems in NSW saved energy consumers between $2.2 and $3.3 billion in the last year.
The energy melodrama continues to escalate. According to some interpretations, renewables are now so cheap that they don’t need any subsidy. Meanwhile, business concerns about energy policy uncertainty are reaching a crescendo, while voters see a government bumbling in the opposite direction to what much of the public actually wants.
The chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Rod Sims, holds out the prospect of an absolute fall in electricity bills over coming years – but says this will require focusing centrally on affordability, not just reliability and sustainability.
Globally in the past seven years, the cost of wind-powered generation has more than halved. Domestically, solar PV costs have dropped more than 50%. By 2020, costs of battery technologies are expected to fall 40-60% and over 70% to 2030.