Our Home and Garden

There are those who would argue that a solar power house does not contribute to the community or the economy. Firstly on a small scale it is too expensive to set up. Secondly individuals produce power only in the middle of the day and then need to be supported by the grid for power in the evenings and at night. And thirdly solar power isn’t ec onomic

on a large scale and the proponents are using scarce resources that can be better used elsewhere.

The issue of scale is very relevant but whether it is cost effective for an individual household is very dependent on the location, the local cost of power, any grid purchases of the power you produce and any government subsidies provided. There are some communities where the payback time for your solar power house is as low as 2 years and others where it is as high as 35. You have to do your own sums.

It is easy to respond to people who think solar power is useless because people and businesses need power all day and not just when it is sunny. No-one is suggesting that solar power will be the one and only source of power for the whole community. The greatest need for power is when industry and the commercial sector are working to capacity. This is during the day which is exactly the time when solar power is able to contribute to the grid, whether it is from a commercial solar power station or from an individual solar power house.

The comparative costs of solar to gas and coal can also be addressed. As we are talking about bringing new technology online it is important that we compare like with like. We need to compare both the costs of the new systems and the ongoing costs between coal, nuclear, gas or solar. All power plants are expensive to develop, whether solar, coal or nuclear. The issues comes down to comparing all costs without shifting costs off on to another group of people. Too often I see people comparing the full cost of solar power brought online now with an already established government subsidised coal power station priced in 1970s dollars or with a nuclear power plant that takes no account of 50,000 years of storing ongoing pollutants. Comparing costs should be done without cost-shifting to the taxpayer or to individuals or to our children’s and grandchildren and it should be done in today’s dollars.