solar power in australia

read the entire article from the sydney morning herald

After spending some time here and witnessing first hand the amount and strength of the sun in this part of the world I can't help but think they are well positioned to be the first country to get 20% of their total electrical output from a distributed solar grid. All that is lacking seems to be the policies to reward people for making the huge financial sacrifice of going solar.

Australian researchers lead the world, but our consumers are lagging, writes Peter Vincent.

The president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Professor Ian Lowe, remembers a time when solar had all the answers. "In the 1970s, the case for solar energy was the case against all other forms of energy," Lowe says.

It was the superstar solution to the energy crisis. The expectation was that because solar offered no-risk electricity generation and would never run out, it would swiftly dispatch coal-fired electricity to the dustbin of absurd human inventions. And with our climate, it seemed better suited to conditions in Australia than almost anywhere else.

But 30 years later solar is the renewable power that never grew up - at least in Australia.

While global growth in the installation of rooftop solar panels is estimated at 40 per cent a year (and higher in booming solar markets such as Germany and Japan), in Australia it is about 16 per cent, says the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

And that growth is on such a small base that solar barely registers in figures from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resources Economics figures on how our electricity is made.