Muriel Watt

Life‐cycle air emissions from PV power systems

This paper addresses the air emissions of grid supply versus grid-connected and off-grid photovoltaic power generation, using the framework of life-cycle assessment, in the context of rural household energy supply in Australia. Emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides are calculated for the three life-cycle stages of manufacture, use and disposal. Sensitivities to materials and data inputs, as well as to component efficiencies, lifetimes and sizing are discussed. For each supply option, demand management options, including insulation and appliance choice, and the substitution of solar heating or bottled gas for electricity, are considered. The best option in all cases, in terms of life-cycle air emissions, is a grid-connected photovoltaic system used to supply an energy-efficient household with a mix of solar, gas and electric appliances. However, in financial terms, with current Australian energy prices, this option represents a high capital and life-cycle cost. Additionally, for the grid options, electricity costs do not significantly disadvantage the high demand scenarios. Both results provide a clear illustration of current Australian energy-pricing policies being in conflict with long-term environmental sustainability.

Australian and international renewable energy policy initiatives

Despite efforts in Australia and other developed countries, greenhouse gas emissions from most countries continue to rise and the targets set in 1997 for emission reductions in the Kyoto Protocol are becoming more difficult to achieve. Without coordinated policy development and successful policy implementation, there is a chance that the major players will not ratify the Protocol and efforts at a global response to emissions control will be abandoned. Renewable energy technologies offer the only long term strategy for emissions reduction. This paper summarises policy initiatives used around the world to support their development and use and suggests some strategies for Australia.

Economics of Solar PV Systems with Storage, in Main Grid and Mini-Grid Settings

Abstract The remarkable growth in deployment of grid-connected photovoltaics (PV) in recent years has, in large part, been driven by its rapidly improving economics. System costs have fallen almost fourfold in some markets over the past five years. The future success of the technology will, however, depend on the value that it can contribute toward delivering affordable, reliable, secure, and sustainable energy services to end users. PV has some highly valuable characteristics in this regard. It can be deployed at almost any scale from household to utility plant, typically generates at times of higher demand and hence higher value, and has very low adverse environmental impacts. However, its variable and somewhat unpredictable generation does raise some challenges within an industry aspiring to ensure that supply must meet demand, at appropriate levels of quality, at all times and locations across the electrical network. These challenges become greater as the penetration of PV increases. Energy storage is inherently valuable in a power system, but direct storage of electrical energy, and distributed small-scale storage, have to date played only a limited role in most electricity industries, although they have been widely used for off-grid applications. Growing penetrations of PV in grids will create both a greater need for energy storage, but also new opportunities for distributed direct storage to play a valuable role in the industry. These opportunities include better managing end user demand patterns and aggregated network flows, improving end user reliability and power quality, and sharing balance of system components between PV and storage equipment. This chapter explores these opportunities, highlighting the diverse range of potential value propositions from integrating PV and storage, identifying how these different values might be estimated for particular contexts, and providing suggestions on market arrangements that would facilitate these economic opportunities actually being achieved.

PV applications in Australia

For a vast, sparsely populated continent like Australia, effective remote area telecommunications, power supplies, navigation aids and transport route signalling are critical and expensive. PV provides an attractive alternative to diesel and central grid supplies for maintaining these links. Over the last 10 years, another PV market has developed in water pumping and in remote electricity supply. Solar car races have also generated significant public interest in PV and created an important market for high efficiency cells. The PV market in Australia is now entering another phase, with growing interest in grid connection. The author describes how this market is set to expand rapidly due to technical advances, cost reductions, a strong push towards environmentally friendly energy supplies and active electricity utility interest.

Photovoltaics research and development in Australia

Australia has had an active photovoltaic device research and development program for the past 30 years, with more sporadic interest shown in photovoltaic systems, components and markets. Exciting new developments continue to come out of Australian research laboratories, yet many are commercialized elsewhere and local deployment now lags behind that of many other countries. This paper examines past achievements, current research activities, research support and the potential for PV to contribute to future energy supply in Australia. It also examines some of the institutional and energy policy issues which provide the framework for continued development and increased deployment of photovoltaics in Australia.

CHAPTER 18:Grid Parity and its Implications for Energy Policy and Regulation

The transformational possibilities of photovoltaics (PV) were recognized very early in its development but it has taken more than 50 years to begin to fully realize this potential. Recent years have seen extraordinary uptake and price reductions driven by ongoing technology progress yet also, critically, PV specific deployment policies in some key markets. Underlying these policies was the goal of ‘grid parity’ where PV can compete against grid supply without explicit policy support. In a growing number of countries this goal has arrived for some residential and even commercial energy users. The widespread availability of affordable PV, producing electricity at prices cheaper than retail electricity tariffs is creating a new category of ‘prosumer’ (an electricity consumer who is also an energy producer) whose growing options and engagement in their energy services seems set to transform the energy sector. However PVs success has highlighted some of the limitations of the ‘grid parity’ concept, and the growing importance of broader electricity market policy and regulatory arrangements. In particular, highly variable and somewhat unpredictable PV is not functionally equivalent to the very reliable grid supply present in many electricity industries. However, current retail electricity tariff arrangements, against which PV is increasingly competing, often do not appropriately reflect the true underlying cost drivers of grid supply. Of course, the key environmental benefits of PV are also generally not reflected in these electricity tariffs. Particular challenges now arising include managing the threat that PV poses to incumbent market participants and current business models. This chapter follows the growth of PV markets, the policy support strategies employed to stimulate deployment to date, and the new impacts and implications of low-cost PV for electricity systems the world over.