Comments on: Australian Businesses Switching to Solar Power Because…

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 00:02:00 +0000

exactly http://cleantechnica.com/2012/10/18/if-youre-neighbor-has-solar-panels-youre-more-likely-to-solar-power-is-contagious/

By: Lilia Rhodes

Lilia Rhodes — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 02:02:00 +0000

This is great! Many are already converted! Solar energy seems so contagious these days. =)

By: Ronald Brak

Ronald Brak — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:31:00 +0000

People have suggested that is why it was done that way, and it may have been what some people involved wanted, but what we got was probably the result of the interplay of different forces with a considerable amount of randomness thrown in. In hindsight we could have done a better job, but we did end up doing a better job than some other places.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:34:00 +0000

thanks. will update the post.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:34:00 +0000

i imagine that route also increase citizen support for solar and against GW much faster. that goes a long way.

By: Ronald Brak

Ronald Brak — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 23:47:00 +0000

Australia has mostly residential point of use solar and until recently not much commercial point of use solar. We sort of got things the wrong way around as it’s generally much easier and cheaper to install solar panels on a large, often flat, commerical building roofs than residential roofs. And it can also be more energy efficient as putting angled panels on a flat roof can significantly reduce air conditioner use. There are several reasons why we ended up like this. Basically subsidies and feed in tariffs were better for small residential systems and also businesses pay less for electricity than households. But on the bright side, now that point of use solar pays for itself, we have lots of free roofspace for low cost installations on many buildings owned by people who often pay spot prices for electricity. This is useful because they will angle their solar panels to best meet their demand rather than just facing them due north, so they will be even more effective than residential solar on average at reducing the load on transmission infrastructure. Not that it really matters at this point how demand for grid electricity is already dropping.

By: Zer0Sum

Zer0Sum — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 21:19:00 +0000

Sydney is the Gay capital of the world. Didn’t you know Bob?

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 19:07:00 +0000

Thanks for the link. Before taking a look I thought you were attributing the increase in solar use to gays and I just couldn’t make that connection…. ;o)

By: jonesey jonesey

jonesey jonesey — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:01:00 +0000

It’s all about the Nellies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Australian_dollar