Grid parity is coming all the astroturfers can say what they like the battle has nearly been won.

To make Solar PV work properly is to have a plug in electic car in every body garage then I could use my 6000KWH per Year of electritty properly

I read today that Australia spends 37 Billion a year on Petrol.

On your planet you are obviously never challenged when you put up dodgey links and believe that anything that is googled, especially very specific google searches should be taken as the gospel.

You obviously never have your particular views of your planet challenged.

Pity .. hasn't helped you grow as people.

Name them.

No brochures, no opinion pieces , real references.

So far you have not referenced any real information at all.

I have explained to you that you need to assess the validity of the web site, and actually gave you a reference which would help you.

This may be a first, but please some honesty.

As stated before. There are a number of studies on the Merit Order Effect and it is recognised by the German Government.

Anyone operating inside the energy industry will know too well what the MOE is.  The MOE could kick in a bit if everyone adds insulation.  Or if a Aluminium smelter goes out of business.  It's old hat for the energy industry.  Obviously you have little exposure and therefore are doing the equivalent of denying that the sun rises in the East.

But I guess people who argue rationally will just have to accept that, that is the job of a seasoned astroturfer.  To lurk (and in some cases get paid to lurk) and to provide commentary and (attempt to) attack the credibility of people who are doing hard work and providing reasoned solutions to the world's problems.

The websites I have used are 100% suitable for referencing for the purpose of this discussion to better inform the public.

Sounds like it.

Same sort of we know more than you.  We can prove it .. just Google it!  Have a look at this website .. they say its true ..

Some of the expert links actually go to opinion pieces by Giles P!

There are a lot of government departments, spending irrationally and funding research institutes that support what they are doing.  Just look at "it will never rain again Flannery".  This is one juicy gravy train.

Here is on one your links in English, same author.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508001717

There is no body of literature on the subject that I can find. Quoting brochures is not acceptable to those who seek real information.

As to the other link, I believed I had warned you of unsuitable websites and gave you a reference on how to assess them.

A simple search of the German  Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety's website will find many official government studies that reference the Merit Order Effect.

Search Google with

site:bmu.de "merit order effect"

This one is from the Fraunhofer Institute - the world's most esteemed technology research organisation. German consumers saved 5 Billion Euros in 2006 from the Merit Order Effect.

http://www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/gutachten_eeg.pdf

And ROAM consulting is the GOLD standard in Australia for electricity market modelling and analysis.  They have studied and published on the wholesale price suppression (Merit Order Effect) that comes from increasing penetrations of Wind in South Australia.

Posted on the South Australian Electricity High Voltage Transmission operators website.

http://www.electranet.com.au/assets/Uploads-2/Wind-Generation-in-SA.pdf

"South Australian pool prices are observed to decrease as larger quantities of wind generation capacity are installed, depressed by the increasing proportion of low priced wind bids."

Richard Simpson needs to tell readers what his qualifications are to comment on these matters, or what team he has behind him.  He's quick to question the Energy Institute at Australia's leading research University but doesn't give us any look in on how he knows any better.

Kieth, please.

You have not given me any academic papers supporting your fiction.

You quote two sites, neither mention Merit Order Effect. I like read these interesting articles,as well as many others for more than a decade, and some have merit.

There is no body of work in this field,(Merit Order Effect) only opinions.

The info you and others quote from MEI is not available.It is in peer review, so tell me how can you comment on same?Dishonesty or simple group think, and follow the leader?

This fiction does not take into account the capital required to purchase the cells(Taxpayer money) and the cost of ongoing subsidies, ie. FIT.

None of the limited info takes this into account, let alone the tens of billions needed to subsidise the purchase octhe amount of PV to make your dream come true.

Regards

There is no body of literature.

I have trawled through all the major journals through UNI.

Nothing on Merit Order Effect.

Mathew Wright says;

"The Merit Order Effect is recognised by the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.  The body of literature is in German, Danish and Spanish.   Here is some english literature for you. (an option is to use Google translate and work your way around - that's what those of us doing the hard yards have to do)

http://d154bq7zbq93tf.cloudfront.net/Education/Fact%20Finding%20Mission/brochure_electricity_costs.pdf

This is interesting also.

 http://www.solarwirtschaft.de/fileadmin/media/pdf/120131_Pr%C3%A4sentation_Preiseffekte_von_PV.pdf

These are brochures, not academic papers.

By the way, you keep quoting some research by the MEI, well, there is no paper available. I phoned them, and they advise it is under peer review, please do  not  pull that one. Do not quote same until available.

Everyone is wrong and he is right afterall.  

He lives on a planet where everyone is going solar and renewable. And apparently their global crisis has been averted by absolutely everyone going renewable and introducing carbon taxes.  They have unlimited supplies of taxes and can fund absolutely everything.

Wish we all lived on Keith's planet.

Can't quite distort reality enough to get there myself.

Russell - pvoutput.org uses the same terminology I have used.  Efficiency relates to what it is possible to achieve from the installed capacity.  Hydro has an efficiency which is around 70-80% for instance see http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/ret-hail-fellow-not-well-met.  This takes into account water availability and maintenance.  It may have a much lower load factor than this because it tends to get used as a top up source of peak load power.  The efficiency of these systems is a much more realistic way of looking at them than just looking at installed capacity.  Installed PV capacity looks impressive but when you take into account efficiency it is less so.  This is the point I wish to make.  You cannot escape the fact that on average the efficiency is only around 20% or less.  So the more useful figure would be MW hours rather than just MWs.  Have a look at some real world examples http://pvoutput.org/aggregate.jsp?id=390&sid=312&v=0&t=y and you'll see.  This one, little bit of sunshine, had an average efficiency of 4Kwh/Kw in 2011.  It's a big system at 29Kw of installed capacity.

With every additional solar PV panel installed the cost comes down.

A good example is my 40" LCD Televisions.  I paid $3000 for them 3 and 5 years ago respectively.  Today they can be replaced with a better unit for $550.

The same goes with PV.  With a halving of installed costs (no incentive) from $3.40 per watt to $1.70 per watt.

PV systems will win the daytime power market.

There is no reason not to bring forward this eventuality so as to avoid outdated plays in conventional gas and coal plant which will leave stranded assets, one big boondaggle we can avoid just by properly incentivising PV.

What's more applying the value of the merit order effect means that PV is cost neutral with a Feed-in-Tariff of about 40-45cents and delivering a divident to all consumers if the FiT is set at 35cents.

Because those two bids did not win the contest.  The bid by a 3rd party energy company consortium Pacific Hydro/BP/Fotowatio won.

I could imagine Grant King CEO Origin ripping the PPA up himself.

Its time to ditch the anti-competitive 3 player PPA market and replace it with Feed-in-Tariffs where everyone gets guaranteed off-take to build renewable energy.

You state that "For renewables, the cause of this difficulty is two-fold. There is a soft market for renewable energy certificates, and retailers are reluctant to enter into PPAs with third parties." which is fine of itself, but I understood that 2 of the shortlisted consortiums had retailers involved: TruEnergy and AGL.

So why then if there are already retailers embedded into the consortiums would they need to have additional retailers to sell PPA's to? They could either go long in RECs on their own books (holding and selling the excess later on)  or could reduce the price offered to the generator n the short term to reflect the oversupply that the station would create?

It just doesn't make any sense. 

Exactly, that would appear to be the argument.

You take away capital and funds from productive enterprise and you do everyone harm in he long term. This nonsense only exists because of massive subsidy, and middle class welfare.

This place is starting to sound like "Boys Own"

As usual, the discourse is all about "what it costs" and "payback"......  does anyone think of this when they buy a car or a flat screen TV?

Some things are worth doing because they're worthwhile, not because they "make money".

In any case, what everyone here is leaving out is the fact that money will soon be unavailable, and we're heading for a depression.  Those of you who have not installed PVs yet will feel sorry for yourselves then, won't you......

The Merit Order Effect is recognised by the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.  The body of literature is in German, Danish and Spanish.   Here is some english literature for you. (an option is to use Google translate and work your way around - that's what those of us doing the hard yards have to do)

http://d154bq7zbq93tf.cloudfront.net/Education/Fact%20Finding%20Mission/brochure_electricity_costs.pdf

This is interesting also.

 http://www.solarwirtschaft.de/fileadmin/media/pdf/120131_Pr%C3%A4sentation_Preiseffekte_von_PV.pdf 

Richard,

Not wishing to trade academic credibility, but you are seriously out of date and you are damning world leading academic institutions as lacking credentials.

The publication you refer to, while coming from leading German institutions (Fraunhofer Institute Karsruhe & University of Karlsruhe), is so out of date as to be meaningless. It was published in 2008 & looks like it was based on data from 2001-2005, when German solar power generation was between 0.2 & 2GW.  Today it is 24.8GW.  The landscape has changed dramatically. Solar power in Germany today is having an impact and the data stands.

The very recent work I referred to (based on 2007-2011 data) comes from two sources :

i) Melbourne Energy Institute : a multidisciplinary institute in Australa's premier University (Melbourne University), which brings together the work of 150 researchers.

ii) Institut for Future Energy Systems (IZES) connected to Saarland University of Applied Science. It is a major German centre focusing on "tomorrow's power supply and energy usage".  It has all kinds of clients in Germany and Europe.

If you dismiss these two major research facilities as providing "opinions of no worth", then I leave it to readers to draw conclusions about your own credibility.

Pay attention to what is happening in the world now.

Germany pays more because of what? I can explain that to you as well if you like.

There is no substantive body of literature on the Merit Order effect. Apart from Melbourne, here is one.What does that tell you?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508001717

It is flawed,and casts significant "buts".

You quote opinion not academic articles, referenced and peer reviewed.

The Australian taxpayer has already subsidised the purchace of solar cells to the tune of 7.5 billion plus, not including the ongoing FIT, and ever growing army of public servants at hundreds of millions a year in salaries.

Therfore your calculations, that of the fiction of Merit Order Efect is just that, fiction.

Richard,

What Germany pays for power isn't the point. If your power goes down by 10% in price, it's still a10% reduction wherever you are.

The calculations are that Australian wholesale energy price will decline significantly, due to mitigating the merit order effect (see the link I sent).  Surprisingly this makes solar PV pretty price competitive now... and think about what is happening as the world gears up for massive solar installation.  Volumes and more efficient PV means prices down.

... and don't forget, the amount of power we get out of a solar PV installation in Australia is substantially more than in cloudy Germany.

So it's win win win.

Stop complaining and help bring on cheaper power prices.

Look at what Germany pays per KWh and what Australia pays. I will work it out for you if you like.

They pay alot more because of what?

Richard,

A 10% contribution to cutting power costs is still 10%.

Fact is that a study by the Melbourne Energy Institute concluded that similar savings (12% in 2009) would be realised here.

see : http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/merit-order-how-solar-fits-could-cut-energy-bills-for-all

Why are you so defensive about interesting opportunities??  We need to find ways to reduce energy costs and if renewables is the way to do it, then we get a double benefit of reducing carbon emissions too.

Is it just me or do others think that by not signing PPA's on the one hand and actively calling for a review of the LRET on the other hand (as previously reported here in Climate Spectator, presumably in order to reduce their renewable energy targets), the big energy retailers are acting in bad faith with the government and the Australian public?

"Not sure how I rationalise a factual report from Germany that says solar PV has reduced electricity costs in Germany by an average of 10% (up to 40% when the power is expensive), with the report you refer to which says that renewables are impossibly expensive."

What is the retail price of electricity in Germany, and what is it here?

Let me know. 10% of a higher tariff means nothing in Australia.

http://www.energy.eu/#domestic

 A rooftop solar co-op will be able to auction our production to the highest bidder, Bring it on. (Or we can turn it off)

The fastest, simplest, most efficient, cost effective etc way to get massive volumes of solar power in Australia is to distribute it on domestic rooftops?

Even at FI tariffs at parity with peak power costs, the current generation of domestic PV seems to be delivering an easy 6 to 10 year payback.

The Solar Flagships are simply more evidence that our current government couldn't pick a winner even if it is staring at them from the roof tops of the suburbs that they live in.

Plus lets face it this growth has been happening even after one of the very first acts of the Rudd Givernment was to give these domestic PV systems their first head kick by cutting out the subsidies that were in place when he was elected.  This was just the first of a niumber of head kicks the domestioc PV industry received from Labour.

I should add I have a 5KW PV on the roof and with the grand fathered FI tariff .. sweet!

Peter,

Re nightime vs afternoon maximum power requirement.  Are you denying that maximum power surges (when power is most expensive) happen during business hours on hot days?  That seems to be what reports all over the world say.  Where is the data for night-time max power requirement?

Not sure how I rationalise a factual report from Germany that says solar PV has reduced electricity costs in Germany by an average of 10% (up to 40% when the power is expensive), with the report you refer to which says that renewables are impossibly expensive.

Germany has 25GW installed solar power today. China and the USA both have around 45GW wind installed. These numbers are more than sufficient to cover Australia's power needs and I presume they are an important part of Alistair's confidence that this is quite doable and the cost isn't impossible.

So Peter, with respect, whose statements are ridiculous and blinkered.  It's happening all around the world and we, with the best quality renewable resources, are trying to say it can't be done.

Someone isn't telling the truth.

See http://www.ergo.ee.unsw.edu.au/value%20of%20PV%20in%20summer%20peaks.pdf  It appears that PV output lags residential load figure 4, even at the height of summer.  If this is the case the merit order effect wouldn't help on occasions where PV output is out of phase with demand.  It does seem to correlate nicely with commercial load but this wouldn't help at home when you're about to turn your stove on for dinner.  To quote "For residential loads, the peak is typically in mid to late afternoon. In areas with high air conditioner penetration the peak load is significantly higher on hot days and can remain high up to 6 or 7pm. For PV tocontribute usefully to the peak, the PV output curve mustbe displaced or storage added."

We have the usual emissions of twaddle being emitted by the RE ideologues.  Devoid of any rationality.  Stubbornly innumerate.

Keith Williams says: "I am confused about you comments on night time power".  But he refuses to read anything that might enlighten him.  This will explain very clearly if you actually wanted to understand:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/

alistair clark titles his comment  “Nice seeing some intelligent posts here for a change”, then goes on to give a diatribe about those who don’t support his ideological beliefs.  He then says:

“What I find galling is that by realistically supporting distributed PV and wind, together with fossil fuel gas back up, Australia could, in a reasonably short period of time, transform (in CO2 terms) its energy grid in quite an affordable way with existing technology whilst also empowering a lot of consumers. We can have our cake and eat it too.”

What a ridiculous statement / belief.  Just look at the costs involved (read the link above).  Open your blinkered eyes.

Alistair,

I agree with your path to the future, noting that implementation is protected by continuing coal power generation until such time as it can be retired.

However, since there is a crisis looming on global warming, I suggest that solar thermal also has a place. Down the track gas, like coal must be retired.

I do think there is an urgency for action on two counts:

i) balance of payments problems as the price of oil continues to rise.  There needs to be an urgent focus on electric vehicles and renewable power generation to cover their power use.

ii) climate events : northern Australia is experiencing 1 in 100 year floods on a yearly basis and the climate science says this will get worse not better.  We see the effect of this on the bottom line already. Burning fossil fuels needs to be wound down urgently.