banning new electric hot water systems 2012

[Baddad (Marty)]

Hi Tornado33,

The tradies who installed our new Rheem today told us that if we had solar when we once had cricket ball sized hail, it would have destroyed the solar heating panels.

I am a little dubious, no, a lot dubious about the validity of the tradies statement. I have had in two houses, solar hot water systems.

The first; I lived in for 18yrs, the second has been six yrs. During that time there have been many hail storms. In recent memory was the storm of Mar 2005.
Orange sized hail pounded our roof like a machine gun firing rocks. Insurance covered the roof replacement on the house and shed. The hot water system only needed the metal skin over the tank replaced. The panels were unscathed.

Many tradies are good, but some give the good ones a bad name.

If a hail storm is so bad that it starts smashing the solar panels then the hot water system will be the least of your concerns.

Getting back to the first solar system. It was installed in the late 60's and to this day is still operating.

Cheers Marty

[space oddity]

It does not matter, as the world will end in December 2012 according to Nostradamus and the Mayan calendar.
What happens if you live in a block of units where gas is not available ? Have cold showers? Time to give the pollies a cold shower.Typical Rudd, making policy on the run without thinking about the consequences.I reckon that their ultimate aim is to destroy this country .
They would be better off with using energy efficient street lighing and banning the absurd practice of leaving office lights on all night if they were fair dinkum about saving a bit of greenhouse emissions.
PS water vapour is a bigger greenhouse gas than CO2. Try climate debate daily website for those who are climate change obsessed.

[Hagar (Doug)]

The argument for and against solar hot water and alternative power has raged for many years now. The fact that the amount of power used to make any form of solar collector far outways the savings made over the life of the system unless you happen to live in some very remote or sun drenged part of the country.

If you take a look at the cost of a new solar hot water sysytem and compare it to an old twin element system you will get quite a shock. On average a standard offpeak system costs about $1000 installed. The cost of the solar system is somewhere around $3000 installed.
The best saving in most east coast areas is about 50% of running costs. Based on an annual running cost average for a 3 bedroom home of $800/ year, the saving is somewhere around $400/year. That equates to 5 years to recoup the initial cost diference. At this point no allocation has been made for the REC's the government issues for solar or the massive amounts of power used in manufacture.

The whole debate seems flawed to me and is just a political ploy to be seen to be doing something for the environment.

My thoughts and I repeat, my thoughts are the money would be better spent on research and just planting more humble old trees on vacant land. The environment would benifit a lot more and research may well develope something which actually helps instead of the bandaid type patch a forced or semi forced system like this provides.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Precisely, Doug. None of the so called "solutions" that they've come up with are anymore than bandaids in order to salve the people's concerns and give the pollies time to hide away from the real responsibility of actually doing something constructive about it. Jump on the bandwagon, but hope that some other poor git is going to pick up the tab.

In order to solve this problem, it's going to take billions of dollars and lots of research, but in the meantime we also need to be making some sort of effort to reduce our emissions without fear or favour to anyone...least of all big energy and business. This legislation will barely make a dent in emissions, so what's the point of it, apart from another money grabbing exercise and shaft the "little" fella whilst in the meantime pandering to their big business buddies. It happens all the time, and not just in this instance.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Bandaids, the polititians answer to all ales.

Some changes are happening withing the energy sector and with government at the moment. I am a shift production manager with AGL Energy and can see the changes happening on a daily basis. AGL is committed to investing in carbon free or at least carbon reduced energy generation. With the government in Victoria finally seeing some sense and awarding a huge supply contract to AGL for green energy, AGL is now committed to building and operating another 2 very large wind farms in Victoria along with a new Hydro generating plant which will supply enough for this project and a bit more. They have also just recieved authorisation for a new large gas (Low carbon ) generating station in NSW plus the company is now working on building another 2 large wind farms in SA bringing the total in SA to five farms.
Not too bad working for a company who have their sites set on being the largest supplier of green energy and a true committment to producing green energy in the country and maybe doing something towards saving something for our children. I just wish government would follow the same tak.

Originally Posted by renormalised

Precisely, Doug. None of the so called "solutions" that they've come up with are anymore than bandaids in order to salve the people's concerns and give the pollies time to hide away from the real responsibility of actually doing something constructive about it. Jump on the bandwagon, but hope that some other poor git is going to pick up the tab.

In order to solve this problem, it's going to take billions of dollars and lots of research, but in the meantime we also need to be making some sort of effort to reduce our emissions without fear or favour to anyone...least of all big energy and business. This legislation will barely make a dent in emissions, so what's the point of it, apart from another money grabbing exercise and shaft the "little" fella whilst in the meantime pandering to their big business buddies. It happens all the time, and not just in this instance.

[rogerg (Roger)]

when I lived in a house with a solar hot water system it was always the case that when you wanted hot water (cold winter days) you'd have to turn on the electric booster, and when you didn't want much hot water at all (40 degree summer days) it would be boiling over

We have instant gas hot water now and find it brilliant. Costs us about $160/year to run for a house with two people. Neat temp control and other features too.

[beefking (Nathan)]

Originally Posted by Hagar

The fact that the amount of power used to make any form of solar collector far outways the savings made over the life of the system unless you happen to live in some very remote or sun drenged part of the country.

it takes 2-8 years, depending on the type of semiconductor, for a solar panel (PV, which are more energy intensive than hot water collectors) to produce the amount of energy it takes to make one. They have a life of 25-30 years.
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/17219

as for the money value of the energy, well yes, they are only economically viable if grid extension is very expensive and the only saving is the avoided cost of grid energy. Feed-in tariffs such as the QLD solar bonus scheme can means that grid connected systems can turn a small profit, but you're still looking at a simple payback of 8-10 years.

even so, that's good enough for some people.