Silence

I haven't posted in a while - because nothing much has happened. Or maybe too much has happened. We're still waiting for a big project to get off the ground. And meanwhile we have been busy with many little ones. Here is a glimpse.

- There are only 4 non-native trees left in our entire garden. They are only there because they either fall under Council's tree preservation act or they are providing shade and shelter for a native tree to grow, and will go once the native is bigger.

- We have established a worm farm. Our only problem is what to do with all the fertilizer they produce. I think we might have to start giving it away to the neighbors.

- Since we abolished plastic bins in the rubbish bin, our weekly garbage bin has is only half full.

- I am now a Wildlife Carer - you can find out more on my new blog http://wildliferescuestories.blogspot.com/

And I have plenty of ideas for small posts. Better start writing ....

Means Tested Solar Rebates

Earlier this week, the Federal Government (newly elected at the end of last year) announced its first ever budget. Overall, it seems pretty good. But as far as I'm concerned, there are two major flaws with it.

The Government’s decision to means-test rebates for Photovoltaic Cells on household roofs is quite frankly stupid.

We thought long and hard about PV cells. Economically they make little sense. But ideologically, we totally believe in them, and despite the cost, we were planning to install some in the future. It’s not something we could afford now (what with all the other disability related cost we’re facing at the moment). But we felt it’s necessary to “walk the talk” and follow through on your beliefs, even if they cost a bit extra. And hoping that one day a feed-in tariff would surely come into place, we felt it would be our duty.

Well, no more.

Bye bye solar power for us.

You see, a one kilowatt system cost about $20,000 to install. The Government provided a rebate of $8,000 – which meant we were still facing a $12,000 price tag on equipment that would take 20 years to pay itself back. Clearly makes no economic sense (especially since we are on 100% Green Power). But still.

Now, the 8,000 rebate will only be available to households with an annual income under $100,000. Environment Minister Peter Garrett (yes, the one from Midnight Oil fame) said that means testing would ‘ensure the solar rebates go to those who need them most:.

Sorry, but hat’s bulldust.

We can barely afford the things, and I can’t see how anyone on less that 100,000 can really afford to spend 12,000 on solar panels?

Bulldust, Peter.

Oh - and the other issue I have with the new budget? You'll have to check out my other blog...

Poor Laundy

With three kids, i hang up laundry every day. We run the washing machine on a timer at night (we do the same for the dishwasher) to make the most of our off-peak electricity. In the morning, after i've taken the kids to school and Boo Boo to therapy, i take a dry load off the line and hang a wet one up. Then i fill another machine, turn on the timer, and the next day, the process repeats itself.

It's only when we have weeks of rain or some school uniform emergency that i use the dryer.


Every time i hang up the laundry, i think of this newspaper article i read. Some US organisation did a study and found that most Americans prefer to use a dryer over a laundry line. The most common reason given against the laundry line has nothing to do with the false shame of hanging your underwear on the line, or even the fact that in many housing estates is the US, laundry lines are actually forbidden. The most cited reason not to use a laundry line is:


"Because that's what poor people do".


Yeah, right. Boy, we have a long way to go.

Solar Hot Water Decision - Pending

Things are never that simple, are they?

Over the summer holidays, we've had many quotes for a solar hot water system. I posted about this before, so you will remember that this was a frustrating experience. Anyway, the long and short of it is that we still haven't come to a decision.

You see, the offer from Origin Energy was pretty good - but we have since talked to some friends who've had it installed, and the one complaint they have is that it doesn't work too well on cloudy days. I'd be OK with that. But then, the evacuated tubes we have on the roof to heat the pool are terribly efficient, they absorb not only sunlight but also radiant heat from the air, and so they even work on warmish, cloudy days.

Now, we have been talking to the company that installed them, Suntrap, about using the same panels to provide our hot water and use a heat exchanger. That means that in winter, when it's too cold outside for our kids to swim, but still sunny, we would use the hot water from the tubes on the roof to warm our house via a heat exchanger which would pump hot air through our air conditioning system. This is not a new idea, but is only just being trialled in domestic settings.

We like the science behind it, love the way we would be able to use our existing panels to heat the house rather than the pool on those days we don't use the pool anyway (so less energy goes to waste). We would love to put our hand up for a trial.

The main contact from the company we've had, an inspiring guy called John, is working on a system for us. He's even contacted Origin Energy, and is trying to get them to come to the party and invest some R&D money into our system as a trial project. Sounds brilliant to me.

Only problem is, it's nearly April now, and we still haven't got any concrete plans and prices, let alone an operating solar hot water system. And we started this in January! I'm getting impatient (yeah, that's me).

I so hope this will happen, it sounds like brilliant technology.

Solar Hot Water Rebate

The current, relatively new government had made some promising noises about increasing the rebates for solar hot water systems and other sustainable building conversions (solar panels, rainwater tanks etc.).

So I did what we all do, and checked the website. As far as I could tell, nothing much had changed. The rebate still stood at a thousand dollars, and is still means tested ; you can only apply if your family income in the last tax year was under $100,000. That doesn’t’ seem to make a lot of sense to me – surely our climate does not care about someone’s income. Is the aim not to install as many systems as possible to lower our national energy consumption? Anyway, I can live with that. But what really bugged me was the replacement issue.

The government states that ‘[t]o be eligible for the rebate, a hot water system must replace an existing electric storage hot water system (…)’

Did I understand it correctly that I could only apply for a rebate if I chucked my current system out and installed a totally new one? That did not make a lot of environmental sense to me. Our current electric hot water tank is relatively new, and solar convertible. Why would I have to toss this perfectly fine working tank on the scrap heap in order to collect the rebate? That seemed a bit contradictory to me, so I send off an e-mail to the Solar Hot Water Rebate Team of our new government’s Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.

Here is their reply:

Your understanding is correct. Retrofitted solar hot water systems are not eligible for the Solar Hot Water Rebate.

In order to be eligible for the rebate, a hot water system must be eligible for at least 20 Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 ('the Act')and Regulations state that in order for a solar water heater to be eligible for RECs under the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) it must be a newly installed complete system that complies with the relevant Australian standards. A review of the operation of the Act and MRET was conducted in September 2003. The review specifically examined the issue of retrofits of solar water heater panels to existing tanks and concluded that while the retrofit kit may be tested against relevant Australian Standards, residual (possibly ageing) equipment such as the tank was not subject to renewed testing against Australian Standards. The review panel was not confident that the residual equipment had the necessary reliability and durability to warrant RECs deeming.

So, we can fly to the moon but there is no way we can include residual retrofitting equipment to be tested?

Their e-mail ends with a note, typed in green, “Please consider the environment before printing this email”

Sure.

But what about considering the environment before telling hundreds of households to add their electric hot water tanks to the scrap heap?

I think I might pass on the rebate…

Solar Hot Water Confusion

We decided during the Summer Holidays that the time had come to buy a solar hot water system. We spend most of January getting various quotes. It was an interesting experience.

We had Solar Shop, Solar Harvest, SolaHart, Origin Energy and Suntrap come round for a visit and a quote. They were all completely different.

The first issue concerned the tank.

We have a 340 liter Rheem electric hot water storage tank. It’s relatively new, and in good nick. Most importantly, it’s solar convertible.

So to me, it makes sense to keep the tank and connect it to a solar panel, rather than toss the tank out and install a new one. Some companies will simply not do that. You can only buy their system with a tank, either installed on the roof, or installed on the ground.

And then there is installation and plumbing. All the different quotes contain totally different installation details. Some include all plumbing. Some include a 100 meters worth of pipes, others none at all. That doesn’t make it very easy to compare prices…

After many hours of comparing we concluded that Origin (our current energy supplier) was the best quote for us in terms of solar hot water. We could use our existing tank, and the price was certainly competitive.

I haven’t called them yet, though.

We have a bigger decision to make first.

Ceiling Suckers Photo

As promised, a photo...