Simply Solar

Solar is the flavour of the month in Australia with the 3rd International Solar Cities congress being held in Adelaide from the 17th to the 21st February. This is a major international conference and it’s being held in one of the five designated Australian solar cities, which are trialling solar energy options, smart metering and energy efficiency. The other areas are Townsville (in Queensland), Blacktown (NSW), Alice Springs and Central Victoria. These projects are partnerships with the local communities, industry, electricity companies and the Australian government.

Considering how much sunshine Australia receives, we use an extraordinarily small amount of thermal and photovoltaic solar systems. Germany, on the other side of the world and with much cloudier skies, is a global leader in producing electricity from the sun, with 15 photovoltaic plants employing about 40,000 people. Certainly, one motive for this investment is energy generation, but the other is technical know-how, and Germany has developed an industry already exporting solar panels to supply the growing demand around the world.

Australia has ridden on the “back of the coal train” for too long now, and we need to make concerted efforts to reclaim our position as a world leader in developing and using solar technology. The Solar cities project and the conference are to be congratulated, as well as Solar Systems plant planned for Mildura. Let’s look forward to the time when most cities and towns in Australia derive heat and power from a very warm and very abundant Aussie sun.

picture UpMarket Pelican Town (actually Stockton) by Yewenyi ex Flickr