Category: Electricity
-
Know Your Government Rebates!
You may have noticed that I’ve just added a new page to the menu bar above these posts, [Australian Rebates](http://green-change.com/australian-rebates/). I’ve tried to collect all the information I could find on Australian federal rebate programs, as well as all the different rebate schemes for the various states. There are a lot of good opportunities in…
-
Gross Solar Feed In Tariff Petition For Australia
The Australian government is waffling on the issue of a nationalised renewable energy feed-in tariff for homes. Recent announcements seem to indicate that they’ll favour a net tariff, which is very much inferior to the gross feed-in tariff the solar industry is calling for. A gross feed-in tariff (where the energy-producing household is paid for…
-
Solar Power On It’s Way!
We received an email last night from Earth Utility confirming our order for a 1 kW solar power system. They also phoned today to make sure we were kept informed. I’m really happy with their service so far. **WARNING:** Earth Utility appears to be in trouble (updated 28-04-2010). Now it’s just a matter of waiting…
-
The Clean Energy Project – Distributed Computing Initiative
IBM and Harvard University have launched a new distributed computing initiative called [The Clean Energy Project](http://cleanenergy.harvard.edu/). They want to harness the spare computing power of thousands of computers around the world to crunch numbers and search for potential materials to be used in new-generation polymer solar cells. Polymer solar cells will be cheaper to manufacture…
-
Cheap Grid-Connected Solar Power: $2500 for 1 kW System
If you’re in Australia and have been thinking about getting a grid-connected solar power system, there’s a really good deal right now with Earth Utility. If you order before 15 December 2008, it’ll cost $2,500 installed (after rebates, RECs, etc and excluding utility connection costs). **WARNING:** Earth Utility appears to be in trouble (updated 28-04-2010)…
-
Guerrilla Solar
I just read an interesting article in [ReNew Magazine Issue 104](http://shop.ata.org.au/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16521&category_id=300) about the [guerrilla solar movement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Guerrilla) and one individual’s experiments with his unapproved DIY grid-connect solar panels. It’s not as dangerous as it sounds. Solar guerrillas use commercial mains power inverters which meet the relevant international standards to feed their electricity into the grid. You…
-
MS6115 Mains Power Meter Review
####What is it? The MS6115 mains power meter is a device for measuring the electrical power used by an appliance. It looks like an electronic timer switch (see photo at right). You plug it into your power point, and then plug your appliance into it to measure its power use. ####What does it do? You…
-
Using A Plugin Power Meter
>_When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts,…
-
Solar Hot Water Research
I attended the [Gerringong solar hot water information night](http://green-change.com/2008/11/19/solar-hot-water-information-night-gerringong/) on Friday. It was very well-run, and was a great opportunity to talk to lots of different suppliers all in one place. The presentation by [Jamberoo FutureCare](http://jamberoofuturecare.googlepages.com/) was excellent. They don’t have any particular axe to grind – they just want to present the facts and…