Climate Change Canberra are throwing a Solar BBQ to celebrate 19,000 Canberran homes using solar panels, and to answer questions for anyone still on the fence about making the move to solar power.
The press released doesn’t state whether the barbecue itself will be solar powered, but I hope so because that would be awesome.
Sunday April [...]

Riotact Hivemind, I’m getting with the times and going to install solar panels to help reduce my electricity bills.
Problem is – Solargain is currently the only provider I can find that installs in Canberra. There are plenty of companies that come up with a google search, but none of them service the Canberra region. [...]

The Liberals have taken to pre-announcing their estimates questions. Which indicates they’re not that interested in the answers.
Yesterday they were trying to present the feed in tariff scheme (homeowners paid over the odds to make electricity on their roofs with solar panels by the rest of the non-homeowning community) as “a second carbon tax”.
ACT Opposition [...]

I’ve read Graham Downie’s excellent arcticle in the Canberra Times regarding the almost useless and expensive solar power system we Canberran’s have been stuck with.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/high-price-paid-for-low-solar-return-20120422-1xfca.html
At peak radiation times, not even 1% of power is generated by solar.  And during peak demands, on cold nights, yes Sherlock, it’s 0%, not doubt due to the slackness of [...]

With hot weather on the way and energy prices continuing to rise, it’s time to install solar panels and save hundreds of dollars a year in energy bills.
And you can now buy quality solar panels from a locally-based company that has been operating in Canberra since 2004 and have them installed by reliable, accredited installers. [...]

Hi all,
Inspected a rental property recently and became aware during the inspection that the property had a solar panel.
Although the lessor stated that he had been disappointed overall with the investment (something about failing to get the promised amount of kWs), he said that having them still resulted in a ~30% reduction in electricity bills.
I’m [...]

The Liberals’ Alistair Coe has a bee in his bonnet over delays in solar panel installation.
“I’ve been contacted by constituents who have to wait until February 2012 for ACTPLA’s approval of their panels,” Member for Ginninderra Alistair Coe said today.
“After ACT Labor cut the scheme early, people are now being forced to wait for the [...]

To All Solar Free Clients
Thank you for been part of the Solar Free journey, while we continue to grow our brand. Your business is very much appreciated and while some of you are still clients of Solar Free, a very few number of our clients have experienced delays and left us due to various reasons [...]

EnviroFriendly have put out a media release saying solar panel buyers are going to be better off without the feed in tariff after all:
Effective midnight Wednesday, the ACT Government announced the closing of the ACT Solar Feed In Tariff. The demise of the program has been described as a disaster by everyone involved in the [...]

The Greens’ Shane Rattenbury has responded to this morning’s shock ending of the solar feed in tariff scheme
The unexpected overnight re-closure of the feed in tariff scheme has highlighted the need to remove the cap on the scheme according to ACT Greens Energy spokesperson Shane Rattenbury.
“No-one anticipated this cap would be reached in just [...]

At midnight while most of you slept Katy Gallagher announced that the re-opened feed in tariff scheme for rooftop solar panels had again exceeded the cap and was being shut down after just two days.
And if you missed the cutoff there’s no grandfathering like last time, even with a signed contract:
“The Government warned against re-opening [...]

The ACT Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate have announced the formal re-opening of the solar feed-in tariff scheme after the Liberals and Greens over ruled Labor in the Assembly.
Further to amendments recently passed in the Legislative Assembly, a revised ACT electricity Feed-in
Tariff will re-open on 11 July 2011, said David Papps, Director-General of the [...]

The Greens’ Shane Rattenbury is celebrating opening the “medium scale” feed in tariff for solar panels to installations down to 0 kW (so all of them).
The Liberals were needed to support it and Zed Seselja has a circuitous explanation.
The upshot is new installs will be able to get 30c per kW on power they generate.

Shane Rattenbury’s people have sent in a picture he took this morning of the solar industry protest rally from the tradesman’s side of the Legislative Assembly.

Last week the solar industry announced they would be protesting outside the Legislative Assembly this morning at 8am against the capping of the feed-in tariff which has effectively shut them down.
So your correspondent got out of bed early on the darkest day of the year and made his way down to the Assembly to take [...]

Back in Feb, I signed up with an interstate energy provider to install a 1.5kw solar panel array, to connect to the grid. The panels were installed in a reasonable timeframe- within 4 weeks of signing up.
This is when things went bad. ACTPLA came to inspect and informed me that there was an issue [...]

I’ve had my Solar panels for just over a year in  and wanted to check if there are any maintenance and/or reporting requirements?
Does the PV panels or inverter need some sort of regular inspection from ACTEW?
Also what sort of cleaning is needed on the actual panels, will some dust affect performance , how [...]

The Greens’ Shane Rattenbury is saying a few words over the body of the solar industry after Simon Corbell’s dramatic decision over night to close the feed-in tariff scheme:
“The failure has been the artificial brick wall created by the Government, and supported by the Liberal party, by capping the small scale solar scheme at 15 [...]

Simon Corbell has announced the opening of a new solar panel array for the Westwood Farm.
Minister for Energy, Simon Corbell, today launched one of the largest solar field-based arrays in the ACT which is the result of a series of ACT Government energy grants.
The ACT Government provided joint funding of $73,000 from the ACT Community [...]

I have been noticing the Solar Free ads re getting 1.5kWh 7 panels for around $3k. 
They say you get around $1000 per year back through the rebates – so it would pay for itself in three years. 
Are there any catches?  I looked at our last quarter bill and we used around 1,300kWh so [...]

Thus far we have had a negative experience regarding the installation and implementation of our solar panels. All the initial dealings with the company were courteous and professional, and the workers who installed the panels were professional. Problems arose when,
1. Our paperwork was not submitted to ActewAGL until about ten days after the panels were [...]

So apparently the ACT let’s you have a home based solar system that has 10kw capacity per phase. One Canberran seems therefore to have gone whole hog and installed a 29.7kw system. To put this in perspective most home systems are 1-2kW.
Now a look at his site shows 120+ kWh generated per day since [...]

The O’Connor Uniting / Cambodian-Vietnamese Alliance Church has recently been swathed in the exciting scaffolding that only an A-frame roof line can generate.
But the scaffolding is gone, the solar panels are revealed, and one has to admire the way they’ve been arranged. And with churches built on an east-west axis it’s easy to get a [...]