The Northern Territory Environment Centre is urging the Northern Territory Government to make the new city of Weddell Australia’s next solar city.

As a solar city, Alice Springs residents are given financial incentives to install solar cells, and produce their own power to sell back to the grid.

The Environment Centre’s Stuart Blanch says the same initiatives should be used for the proposed new city of Weddell, 15 kilometres south of Palmerston.

“The Chief Minister recently said that Alice Springs could be solar powered by 2030. Could we not do the same for Weddell?” Stuart Blanch said.

“There are going to be 10 thousand new houses, 40 thousand people, couldn’t we require every single new house to be built with either photovoltaic cells on the roof or solar hot water heaters?”

The Centre is also calling on the NT government to make renewable energy a priority when it releases its climate change policy.

The government is expected to release the policy this week, after input from business and industry, as well as environmental groups and scientists.

“The Government needs to support households to put photovoltaic cells or solar hot water heaters on their roofs by putting subsidies on the table, and providing feed-in tariffs to households who generate electricity, and feed it back into the grid.

“It’s actually a much cheaper, smarter way to power our future,” Mr Blanch said.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/16/2492918.htm

The CSIRO is developing solar cells that can be printed out by the metre, like banknotes.

Scientists say the cells would be printed onto large areas of flexible light plastic using technology already developed by CSIRO for the latest banknote production.

The cost of current solar cell technology remains an obstacle for domestic households.

The CSIRO’s Gerry Wilson says once the printable cells reach the market in about five years, the cells will probably be much more efficient.

“The print trials that we were conducting today, those printers typically run at 200 metres a minute, which is 100 kilometres per day.

“If you were printing a solar cell that had only 10 per cent efficiency say, then we calculate that over five months, you’d be able to print enough plastic solar cells to generate a gigawatt of power.”

The CSIRO says the technology could end up being used within the windows of houses.

Dr Wilson says printing solar cells heralds an electronic revolution.

“You could obviously put them on the roof or any other solid frontage like walls and things like that,” he said.

“But because we can lay down these polymer films with different thicknesses you could make them transparent or semi-transparent so even windows or architectural features like that could all be used.”

He also says the technology could even, in principle, be used on water.

“These plastic films that we’re making now also float you don’t necessarily have to be constrained on putting them on land,” he said.

“When you consider the amount of water we lose through evaporation on dams, wouldn’t it be smart to put a whole heap of films on top of your dam.”

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/19/2496458.htm

The ACT Government has announced the price households and small businesses will be paid for the solar electricity they generate from next month.

Canberra homes with solar panels can expect to be paid about $2,000 dollars a year on average for the energy they produce.

Energy Minister Simon Corbell says from March small scale generators will receive 50 cents per kilowatt hour, or four times the normal cost of electricity.

“You’re looking at the pay-off for the scheme over somewhere between seven to 10 years for a household installation,” he said.

The scheme will be limited to homes and small businesses with solar panels producing up to 30 kilowatts.

Mr Corbell says the 50 cent rate will be offered for the first 12 months of the scheme.

“The minister is required to review that rate every 12 months, and that means the minister can make adjustments to the rate to take account of movements in the price of electricity and other factors,” he said.

“It’s important to remember that whatever rate you sign up to is the rate that you’re guaranteed to receive for twenty years.”

Installer Justin Ryan says the price was not quite as high as he had hoped but that it is still good news.

“Perhaps if people are really, really looking at just the return on investment and not thinking about the environmental factors at all, they may be a little bit more discouraged than what they were if it was 60 cents a kilowatt hour,” he said.

The scheme will be limited to small scale generators producing up to 30 kilowatts at first, with larger generators like solar farms to find out in June how much they would be entitled to.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/10/2487715.htm