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OLD ROCK STAR WILL GIVE YOU $8000 30-Apr-2009 At 6:09:09 PM JamesMc

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There's been a lot of talk about this at uni lately (I'm studying sustainable energy). Sales of PV cells are flat out at the moment. If you want the rebate you need to order this financial year but you don't need to install for 9 months.

Here's something to think about. The cheap prices quoted assume that you hand back your renewable energy certificates to your supplier. They will sell them to a power company who the uses YOUR PV cells in complying with THEIR legal obligation to create renewable energy capacity. So you create a zero net gain in renewable energy capacity. The system is going to change so you get 5 times the number of RECs that your PV cells are worth. This means that if you hand back your RECs then for every one Mw of renewable energy capacity you install, a power company gets out of installing 5 Mw of renewable energy. This means that the total renewable energy capacity in the world is reduced by 4 Mw because of your PV system.

If you sell your RECs you are being an environmental vandal, and if you don't sell your RECs then you probably can't afford the PV system.

My cynical view of the PV incentives is that they are a government response to strong lobbying from a solar energy industry who's product is unaffordable and can't exist without subsidies. And it's made so much worse for the environment by the government pushing the cost onto the power industry with super RECs. PV is about 5 times the cost of wind power.

If you want to save electricity and save carbon emissions, try energy conservation. Buy a new fridge, small TV, water saving shower head, compact fluoro lights, solar hot water, turn lights off etc. Or buy ACCREDITED green energy.

JamesMc