Some of the most severe climate impacts the world has experienced have occurred in 2016.
Continue reading “Climate change and extreme weather events”
Tag: renewableenergy
Climate Change and the Victorian Bushfire Threat
Climate change is increasing the risk of bushfires in Victoria and lengthening fire seasons.
- Extreme fire weather has increased since the 1970s in the east and south of Australia, including Victoria, with the fire season length extending from October to March.
- Climate change is now making hot days hotter, and heatwaves longer and more frequent. Drought conditions have been increasing in Australia’s southeast.
- Climate change is driving an increase in dangerous fire weather, which in turn is increasing the frequency and severity of bushfires.
Continue reading “Climate Change and the Victorian Bushfire Threat”
GridEdge and Earthworker meet with Peter Khalil
Recently John and Linda, along with several Earthworker members visited ALP member for Wills, Peter Khalil to discuss how he could offer support to Earthworker Co-operative in setting up their worker owned factory in Morwell.
Peter was excited about supporting a factory space in Wills/Moreland for Warehousing initially, then Recycling down the track. Continue reading “GridEdge and Earthworker meet with Peter Khalil”
Voters say yes to renewables
A recent poll found that almost two out of three people agree that more renewable energy is the solution to future energy needs, and a similar amount approve of Labor’s 50 per cent renewable energy target. In other significant findings 71 per cent think the Federal Government is not doing enough to ensure affordable, reliable and clean energy for households and businesses and 45 per cent blame blackouts on failures of the energy market during extreme weather.
Key findings of the Essential Research survey of 1006 respondents conducted online from February 16 to 19:
Climate change: 60% (up 6% since December) agree that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity and 25% (down 2%) believe that we may just be witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate. By age groups, those aged under 35 split 70%/15% and those aged 55+ split 47%/40%. People with higher education were more likely to think climate change is happening and is caused by human activity – those with university degrees split 72%/19%. Continue reading “Voters say yes to renewables”
Quoting for Storage and PV installations
We often get enquiries about our sodium nickel chloride battery with invertor and all wiring and configuration in our plug and play Quantum 
unit. It is the ideal battery for anyone looking for energy independence as it is much more reliable than many of the other current battery technologies available. The SoNick battery does not have any toxic materials, either in its production or use. It does not have any of the safety concerns inherent in many other batteries as it is a sodium and nickel based battery which are both non-toxic, non-flammable and abundantly available. There is no possibility of thermal runaway with the SoNick battery due to its components being basically molten salt. This is particularly important in any areas that may be prone to bushfire risk.
We have several brochures that have some information about the sodium nickel chloride battery and the Quantum plug and play unit as well as a document showing some of the safety tests that have been performed on the battery. These are available in the download section from our website at http://quantum.gridedge.com.au. Continue reading “Quoting for Storage and PV installations”
Battle royale brews over battery storage and control of energy markets
Large energy users, battery storage developers and some small energy retailers are pushing for a change in energy market rules that could have dramatic consequences for the industry – levelling the playing field for battery storage, lowering prices for consumers, and wresting control of the energy markets from the big generators.
Soaring wholesale prices have become a major issue in Australia in recent months, defying logic (analyst David Leitch has described them as absurd), and raising concerns among many energy consumers.
The finger has been pointed at the bidding patterns of some major generators, which is one of the main reasons why the South Australian government wants to build a new cable to the eastern states, because it says it has “lost control” of energy pricing. (Although some media chooses to blame renewables).
The proposal to change a relatively obscure rule in the running of the energy markets is seen as an opportunity to wrest control from big, bulky, slow-response generators and encourage smarter, smaller, fast-response distributed generation, particularly battery storage and software for energy management systems.
The proposal comes from zinc smelter operator Sun Metals, which has asked the Australian Energy Market Commission to change the rule. Currently, pricing is set every five minutes, but financial settlement is made only every 30 minutes. Even the AEMC admits that this can distort the market, and push up prices unnecessarily.
An example is illustrated in the graph below, which explains why operators of big generators, particularly gas or diesel-fired peaking plants, may object to the rule change.
Continue reading “Battle royale brews over battery storage and control of energy markets”
Tips to building an energy efficient house
The Best Form of Energy Efficiency is to Use the Free Energy of the Sun.
There are lots of pieces in the puzzle of combating climate change and every little bit helps and most of the actions taken are by people taking a stand and taking action.
It goes beyond building environmentally friendly buildings with renewable energy, including storage to all aspects of your life including your diet.
There are many features that can be included when designing and building a home to be sustainable or environmentally friendly. The following list gives many features that when incorporated can greatly increase star ratings and make a house much friendlier to live in. As an added bonus, heating and cooling costs are reduced which also reduces the impact on the greater environment.
Different climates will need an emphasis on different areas like window size and insulation so make sure you understand your area when designing your house. The list below works well in the cooler southern states of Australia. Continue reading “Tips to building an energy efficient house”
Majority of Victorians support urgent shift to renewable energy, poll finds
A ReachTEL poll commissioned by Friends of the Earth shows 68% of the state, including a majority of Liberal voters, want to see an end to reliance on coal.
The vast majority of people in Victoria – and even a majority of Liberal voters – support the state moving towards 100% renewable energy “as a matter of urgency,” a new poll has found.
The polling comes as the state government works to rewrite the Climate Change Act, including pre-2050 emissions reduction targets.
More than 68% of Victorians said they agreed or strongly agreed that “Victoria needs to transition its energy use from coal to 100% renewables as a matter of urgency”, according to the ReachTEL poll of 1,137 people conducted on 4 August and commissioned by Friends of the Earth. Continue reading “Majority of Victorians support urgent shift to renewable energy, poll finds”
For many people the need to protect themselves from power outages is becoming a more and more common occurrence and it is not unusual for it to take days for the power to be reconnected, particularly if you are not on a main line and other lines take priority.
Sometimes people lose power due to storm damage to power lines but often it is power being cut off by power companies so that they can do maintenance on the lines. Continue reading
Take-up of battery energy storage use
There are a variety of reasons that people choose to make use of battery storage.
In the domestic market the most common ones are to reduce the price they are paying for ever increasing electricity costs by shifting power from their solar panels collected during the day to when it is needed at night. This is particularly relevant to people that are on low “feed in tariffs” or higher “feed in tariffs” that are finishing in the near future.
Another reason is for stability of supply as many areas are getting more and more outages as pressure is put on a grid that has been privatized and may not be doing as much maintenance as is required.
Many people recognise that using renewable energy, including storage is not just about an investment and getting a return on moneys invested but it is a matter of reducing the reliance on coal powered electricity generation and protecting the planet we have for our children.
This take-up of energy storage will only increase as its usage increases, similar to the take-up of solar panels.
Continue reading “Take-up of battery energy storage use”