Who'd have guessed? Increasing renewables really does decrease carbon emissions

Renewable energy, especially solar and wind are growing and supplying an ever greater percentage of the electricity in many countries. Common sense would tell you that as solar and wind increase and coal and gas generation goes down the amount of carbon pollution and other toxic gasses emitted from fossil fuel plants will decrease. Like anything in the climate and clean energy though, there are "skeptics" who don't agree with this, but data are better than opinions and the NREL lab at the Department on Energy in the US have crunched the numbers to find out.

The area of contention is that the intermittent nature of (some) renewables means fossil fuel plants need to fire up and then down more often (cycling). When you fire up a plant it tends to emit more, at that moment, than if it was running steadily. Kind of how like starting a car uses a burst of fuel. So what is the overall impact of this?

NREL found that:

"The negative impact of cycling on overall plant emissions is relatively small. The increase in plant emissions from cycling to accommodate variable renewables are more than offset by the overall reduction in CO₂, NO_x, and SO₂."

I.E:

"Emission Impacts of Cycling Are Relatively Small Compared to Emission Reductions Due to Renewables"

 NREL found that moving to 1/3 renewables from solar and wind would cause carbon emissions to drop by 1/3. Toxic gasses would also decrease. This is because although there might be a small increase in some emissions associated with cycling a plant on and off these are tiny compared to the decrease in emissions due to less fossil fuels being burnt, because 1/3 of the power is now coming from renewables. The claims of some "skeptics" is like claiming you should leave your car idling for an hour instead of turning it off and then on again an hour later because turning you car on uses more fuel that idling would at that second.

Here's the impact for 1/3 renewables:

So there you have it, increasing renewables decreases carbon emissions (as well as other toxic gasses that coal plants especially produce a lot of). Common sense right?

TTKD Sept 13 Meeting: Fossil Fuels and Alternatives

TTKD Meeting Flyer Sept 13

Fossil Fuels and Alternatives 

Thursday September 19 

7.15pm for a 7.30pm start 

Kenmore Library Meeting Room 

Lloyd Hamilton will present information on fossil fuels, and Will Booth will present information from 350.org on the impact of these fuels and alternatives.

As usual the meeting will be followed by supper and conversation. Please feel free to bring along a plate to share (preferably locally produced or homemade!). No need to RSVP.

2013 election: What the major parties will do about climate change, clean energy and public transport.

As you go into vote this weekend you may want to consider how the various parties rate on issues important to Transition Town Kenmore (TTKD) such as action on climate change and increasing resilience in the face of resource depletion (a good example of this would be policies on active and public transport). While TTKD does not endorse any particular political party I've written a bit of a guide to the policies of the major parties.

With regards to climate change both the Climate Institute (CI) and the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) have climate policy scorecards, which are very quick to look at.

See the CI pollute-o-meter here.
See the ACF environmental scorecard here.


Summary of policies on Climate and Public Transport
Price on Carbon:
Both Labour and the Green support price on carbon pollution where major polluters pay for each ton of carbon they emit. Total emissions of pollution are capped and decrease each year. Most people are compensated for price rises that occur as a result of polluting companies paying a carbon price. Such market based mechanisms are generally agreed to be the cheapest and most effective means of cutting pollution. The Green aim for a much more ambitious cut to Australia's carbon emissions.

The Coalition plan to scrap the polluter pays carbon pricing scheme and instead use general taxpayer revenue to pay major polluters to "decrease" the amount of pollution they emit. I say "decrease" because it is not totally clear to me if a polluter actually has to decrease their emissions. It may well be fine for a polluter to accept money to increase their emission, but by a smaller amount than they originally expected too. Credible estimates suggest by 2020 Australia's emissions will increase under this scheme. This is for 2 reasons. Firstly not a lot of money (in the scheme of thing) is available for grants to polluters and secondly because while some polluters will decrease their emissions using the grants, other companies not involved in the scheme will increase their emissions.
The Coalition also plan to fund a "green army" to plant trees and look after local environments.  This is unlikely to have an significant impact on Australia's carbon emmissions but may help in local re-vegetation and improve health of creek catchments etc.

Climate Change Authority:
Labour and the Greens plan to keep the Climate Change Authority (CCA), an independent body set up to advise the government on addressing climate change. The Coalition plans to scrap the CCA.

Clean Energy Finance Corporation:
Labour and the Green plan to keep the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which has $10 billion dollars to invest in clean energy and energy efficiency (ie: helping fund wind and solar farms, helping businesses to decrease their energy costs). The Coalition plans to scrap the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

2020 renewable energy target:
All major parties support the renewable energy target. However The Coalition plan to review the target in 2014.

Public transport:
The Greens will probably support any worthwhile public transport scheme and also support an eventual Brisbane to Melbourne (via Sydney and Canberra) high speed rail line.
Labour support new rail lines in Brisbane (ie: cross river rail), Melbourne and elsewhere, generally through these project being recommended by Infrastructure Australia as projects of national significance.
The Coalition will stop all federal funding for commuter rail. Locally this means Cross River Rail will not go ahead as it is very unlikely the State Government can afford the cost on its own. Without cross river rail much of the rail network will hit capacity in 2016 and not be able to take extra passengers at peak times.

South Australia on verge of being 30% powered by renewables

In the race to transition to renewable energy in Australia, one state is way ahead of the pack. While Australia as a whole has a renewable energy target of 20% by 2020, South Australia is now close to getting 30% of it's power from renewable electricity in 2013. You can read more about this achievement here in the Climate Spectator.

Mostly SA has done this using wind power, 10 years ago wind barely rated a mention in it's electricity generation, but now it is well over 20%. Solar PV is starting to have an impact as well, generating about 3.5% of the state's power. SA households are very keen on solar PV, but as you can see large scale wind is producing a lot more power than distributed small scale solar (at least currently). Where the solar does help though is in reducing peak demand.

The big loser in SA, as the Climate Spectator articles shows, has been coal fired generation. Since the running costs of renewable energy plants are close to zero, they can out-compete the least efficient/ most expensive generators, and in SA that has seen a number of old coal plants shut down or wound back.

The other important lesson from SA is that the power grids with a large percentage of renewable electricity can be reliable. Plenty of people have said over the years that the intermittent nature of (some) renewables would limit them to a small percentage of electricity production before we'd be in rolling blackouts etc, SA is showing this isn't true.

Is the carbon price reducing emissions?

Good article at The Conversation looking at the carbon price one year on. We know that in the last year electricity demand and emissions have fallen, but how much of this is due to the carbon price, the renewable energy target (RET) or other one off events?

As I have mentioned here a few times here and is explained in the article, the main impact of carbon pricing is to change long term investments decisions. Once built power plants are around for a long time, so once a coal plant is built you essentially lock in it's emissions for the next 30-50 years. Carbon pricing (along with the RET) are changing investment decisions and so planned new power plants in Australia are now dominated by gas and wind not coal. That this is already occurring as can be seen by the list of electricity projects underway or planned as of late last year. (Since then, it is worth noting, one of the two coal projects underway has been scrapped). This data also shows how over the last few years a much greater percentage of power plants being built are renewables.

So while it is hard to say exactly how much of the emissions reductions in the electricity sector in the past year are due to the carbon price, it already seems clear that over the long term it is driving us towards a low carbon future.

Clean Energy Finance Corp inks first deal - $100 million for business in renewables and energy efficiency

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), set up as part of the Clean Energy Future/Carbon Price law, has just signed it's first deal to supply up to $100 million dollars in loans to businesses looking to improve their energy efficiency, buy solar panels or set up cogeneration and trigeneration plants.

The CEFC, which will have $10 billion dollars to invest over the next 5 years, was set up to help fund renewable energy, low emission technologies and energy efficiency investments. The general idea is the fund will partner with the private sector and chip in some of the money for these investments, for example this new deal includes $50 million from both the CEFC and $50 million from the Commonwealth bank. In this way the CEFC can use it's $10 billion to stimulate much greater amounts of investment in clean energy and energy efficiency. Operating at arms reach from the government, the CEFC also aims to make it's money back in the long term.

Unfortunately, the Coalition has vowed to scrap the CEFC if it wins the election, which would be a shame because the CEFC plays an essential role in promoting renewable energy. Currently it can be difficult for renewable energy plants to attract financing and get built, this is especially so where the technology is new and/or the first of a kind in Australia. This so called "valley of death" makes it extremely difficult for renewable technologies to get started and start to power Australia. By making at least part of the financing required available, the CEFC makes such projects more attractive to the private sector and spurs investment in renewable. Scrap the CEFC and it will likely be much harder and more expensive for Australia to meet it's targets for generating renewable electricity and lowering greenhouse gas emissions, as well as for companies to bring new and innovative technologies to the market.

Obama takes climate action in the USA

You might have missed this in the Gillard vs Rudd rumble in the jungle, but earlier today President Obama outlined a wide range of actions to tackle climate change.

In the USA the conservative controlled congress is hostile to any action on climate change, this means that Obama cannot, for example, introduce carbon pricing but he can pursue regulatory action. Hence Obama has chosen to exercise his executive powers at President to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions, forge international action and increase resilience to a changing climate.

You can find a list of the major actions here. One of the more important actions will be using the Environmental Protection Agency to put limits on emissions from new and existing power plants. This will have the effect of either shutting down or forcing the clean up of many coal plants and since coal plants produce a large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions in the USA, this will cause a large decrease to emissions in the long run.

Other actions include higher standards for appliances and buildings so they use less energy and for trucks so they use less fuel. More renewable energy production on the vast amounts of land owned by the US federal government will also be encouraged etc. etc. 

Overall, while not as effective or efficient as carbon pricing, Obama's actions make it possible for the US will meet it's targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and therefore help to limit global warming.

Queensland electricity prices to soar by 22%, who's to blame?

Many of you will have heard that electricity prices in QLD are skyrocketing by 22% this year. For the average household this is predicted to increase bills by $268 a year, while "the average electricity bill for a family of four will increase by $343 a year".

But why? 

If you listen to Campbell Newman or the energy minister Mark McArdle you might be forgiven for thinking that this increase was due to carbon pricing or renewable energy. With McArdle complaining that "Ninety-two thousand homes don't pay any power bills at all in Queensland" - well yes Mark, that's because they produce their own electricity. 

However with the help of this article and Queensland Competition Authority price determination I've made this little graph of where the price rises are coming from:

As you can see, less than 20% of price rises are due to carbon pricing or paying people for the solar power they produce. Much greater is the price rise due to the end of the Newman government's electricity tarrif freeze, which only lasted for 12 months. This policy might have sounded great during the last state election, but there's no free lunches in this world, and we are paying for it now.

"Other*" is the biggest category, breaking this down is hard, but it includes increased network prices (ie: the poles and wires), increases in the costs of generating power and then some mind-blowing stuff like electricity companies being allowed to increase prices because power demand has been dropping and they have been making less money than they want to.

So it seems that the government is very concerned about the 20% of the price rises due to polluters no longer being able to pollute for free and for actually having to pay households who are producing clean energy from their solar panels. Instead they seem rather unconcerned (or want to shift our attention from) what is actually causing 80% of the price rises. This is like the captain of the titanic blaming the water on drinks that were spilled when the ship hit the iceberg rather than the gaping hole in the ship.

From all this I draw two conclusions:

1. All that kerfuffle from certain politicians that the (basically one off) 9% rise in power prices from the carbon price was going to ruin us all was self serving nonsense. A year later we are facing over double that rise for different reasons and the idea this will ruin us all has been conveniently forgotten.

2. We as a community are going to have to start demanding explanations for what's causing 80% of our power prices rises and then demand useful ideas for what to do about it, or we'll continue to see politicians scapegoating renewable energy and a continuation of massive price rises.

Could we have have 100% renewable electricity?

Yes, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which has just released its draft results on whether Australia could run it's electricity supply off 100% renewable electricity by 2030 or 2050.

As noted here, this should kill off the idea that the intermittency of supply in renewable electricity prevents it from supplying all our electricity, especially in a country like Australia where we have good renewable energy resources. Some may remember that Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) released a report a couple of years ago that also outlined a plan for Australia to move to 100% renewables. One difference with the AEMO is that these are the people who manage the electricity market and so their conclusion that 100% renewables could provide reliable supply will probably carry more weight.

Similar to BZE the AEMO report sees an important role for solar thermal with molten salt storage and also biogass for helping to meet the meet peaks in electricity demand and to provide supply when there is little incoming solar and wind energy.

Obviously moving to 100% renewables isn't cheap, but as noted at Renew Economy, by 2050 most existing coal and gas fired power plants in Australia would need to be replaced anyway, so while the total cost may sound like a lot, it may not differ all that much from what would be spend over the next 40 years to maintain a fairly polluting power sector.

There are also a couple of interesting critisms of the report from Renew Economy, stating that the AEMO are likely overestimating the cost of renewables and ignoring a role for energy efficiency improvement in decreasing the actual amount of electricity required. Both of which would make 100% renewables cheaper and easier to obtain.

To learn more, you can find the draft report and executive summary here, as well as some good commentary here, here and here.

Clean energy 2012: year in review

Now that 2013 has begun, here's a look back at the top ten clean energy stories from 2012, thanks to Renew Economy.

Stories include:

1. Australia introduces a carbon price, the world doesn’t come to an end

2. The opening of Australia’s first utility-scale solar PV farm

3. Australia passes 2,000MW mark on household rooftops

4. South Australia’s wind success story

5. Germany’s solar success story.


Read about these and n.o.s 6-10 here.


Happy new year everyone.

Community renewable energy - locally owned renewable power stations

Community renewable energy is something we will hopefully be hearing a lot more about in the future. The idea, which is popular overseas, is for members of a local community to get together, combine their money and build a much larger renewable energy "power station" than they could individually afford. The proceeds from selling the electricity created then provide a return on investment.

The classic example of this in Australia is Hepburn Wind in Victoria where roughly 2000 people got together and installed a ~4MW wind farm. Recently another project has been announced for Sydney where a community scheme will put 400 kW of solar panels on the roof of the new convention centre in Darling Harbour. Helping drive this (and many other proposed projects) is Embark a not for profit group aiming to spur along community renewable energy by providing know-how and also seed funding.

Although community owned renewables are unlikely to generate a large percentage of the electricity we produce any time soon, they provide an opportunity for people who can't otherwise create their own electricity (renters, people living in apartments, home owners whose roof isn't suitable for solar panels etc etc) to get involved. Importantly they also allow the local community to own and benefit from their local renewable energy resource (whatever that might be) and for people to make money out of being green.

For a more detailed look at community renewable energy and it's benefits and possibilies, see this article in Renew Economy.


So what about in QLD? Well, recently Energetic Communities, which aims to develop community renewable energy in SEQ got up and running. Hopefully I'll have more to say about them in the near future.

Emissions sink as consumers turn off coal

Interesting article in the fairfax papers a couple of days ago about how falling demand for electricity across the eastern seaboard is causing a drop in electricity generated from coal.

"Weak demand for electricity across eastern mainland states has sparked a “dramatic fall” in greenhouse gas emissions from Australia's power stations, the latest review of data by consultants Pitt & Sherry has found.

While demand for base-load electricity from black coal-fired power stations has been in retreat for about three years, the decline has extended in recent months to two of Victoria's emissions-intensive brown coal-fired plants, Hazelwood and Yallourn"

You can read the whole article here.

We have mentioned the squeeze that is being put on a lot of coal plants previously. The electricity sector is complex but several things seem to be happening at the moment.

1. Demand for (and use of) electricity is dropping and has been for several years. This is likely a response to higher prices causing people and businesses to use less electricity and, at the residential level, has been helped by the widespread uptake of solar panels and solar hotwater. This fall in demand then squeezes out the least competitive generators, which are often coal plants.

2. As the amount of renewable energy available increases but demand does not then the generators who can sell their power for the least cost have an advantage. The renewable energy target means that much of this renewable energy must be used and because their electricity costs so little to generate many renewable energy generators can undercut fossil fuel plant prices anyway. This phenomenon, known as the merit order effect, again squeezes the least competitive generators, often coal plants.

3. The carbon price, which makes makes more polluting electricity more expensive to generate then amplifies points 1&2, making the dirtiest generators even less competitive.

The net effect of all this: C02 emissions from the electricity sector are falling, which is a very good thing.


Update: Giles Parkinson at Renew Economy wrote about this as well, and his article also contains graphs showing the change in the generation mix and energy use in each state.

1 million Aussie homes to have solar panel within 12 months

More evidence (if you really needed it) of how much Australian's love solar:

"858,000 homes have solar PV panels with an installed capacity of just under 2 gigawatts"

According to the story in the SMH, with current rates of uptake, we'll hit the million mark in the middle of 2013, by which time over 10% of homes will have rooftop solar panels (read more here).

Also, last week saw the switch flicked on Australia's first "utility scale" solar farm/ power plant in WA. It's just 10 Mw, but with the price of solar panels still decreasing hopefully it will be the first of many.

TTKD September Meeting: Microalgae Biofuels

Thursday 20 Sept

Kenmore Library Meeting Room 

Kenmore Village corner Moggill and Brookfield Roads 

7.15 for 7:30 pm start 

Light refreshments provided 

TTKD Meeting Flyer Sept 2012

TTKD July meeting: The UQ Solar Array Project

Professor Paul Meredith will share with us his passion for large scale renewable energy, by discussing the amazing UQ 1.2 mega watt PV array project he has recently managed.

Paul has extensive experience in the renewable energy field, and currently is a Professor of Physics at UQ, a Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow, and a co-founder and co-director of the Centre for Organic Photonics and Electronics.

We have blogged about the UQ solar array previously, see here. The 5000 panels that make up the array made it the largest flat panel solar array in the country when it opened. Paul might be able to tell us if that is still the case.

Also given the recent changes to the household solar PV feed-in tarrif due to the state governments' back-flip, we will have Garry Willet who works on the solar PV industry on hand to help answer questions about what this means for you and for the future of the solar PV industry in QLD.

As usual the meeting will be followed by supper and conversation. Please feel free to bring along a plate to share. No need to RSVP.

Thursday July 19

7.15pm for a 7.30pm start

Kenmore Library Meeting Room

Solar scuttled - QLD govt slashes solar feed-in tarrif

The new Queensland LNP government has slashed the amount of money householders will be paid for feeding power from rooftop solar panels into the grid from 44 cents a kW/h to just 8 cents a kW/h for new installations, effective July 10.

Although existing solar PV owners will continue to receive the old feed-in tariff, it will also be lost upon the sale of a house, so anyone buying a house will also receive only the new 8 c kW/h. Although even this rate will be up for review in 2014.

Effectively households with solar panels are now going to earn 8 c kW/h for the power they produce but have to pay ~22 c kW/h for the power they use.*1 *2

This kind of out-of-the-blue promised-we-wouldn't-do-it-but-we-are reminds me of when the old NSW Labour government suddenly decided to slash their much more generous feed in tariff with no real thought as to how it might affect the state's solar industry and the people who work in it.

Despite what the new QLD energy minister might tell you, QLD had quite a well designed solar feed in tariff in that it was a 'net', not 'gross' scheme and so incentivised solar power without costing all that much. According to the energy minister the scheme has so far cost $112 million over 4 years, not a small amount, but not bad when you consider it has stimulated a reported $2.37 billion worth of private investment as well as providing renewable energy and helping to grow a reported 10 000 + jobs in the solar industry.

Many in the solar industry had been calling for a gradual reduction in the feed-in tariff as solar panel prices decreased and I think most people will have supported a gradual reduction down to around the retail price of electricity over several years ie: the price you get for the electricity you produce is the same as what you pay for it. However this government has already shown they Can't do clean energy, cutting highly successful programs like the Climate Smart at Home Service which was taken up by hundred of thousands of Queenslander's. Hopefully they will change tack and not try to scuttle the solar industry too but things don't look good currently.




*1
Chances are that the PV power you produce is used by your neighbours, or another home/ business close by, so the cost of distributing the power is low, compared to say transporting it 500 km from a coal plant along high voltage lines and through a number of substations. So it would seem some company will be making a nice profit off your power.

*2
Apparently 8 c k/w is the wholesale price of power, ie: what the big coal fired power plants get paid. However unlike you, generators can also take advantage of times when wholesale power prices are high (due to high demand) to sell power for much more that that. Also I imagine the carbon price will push up the price of wholesale power (because so much of it comes from dirty coal), but there'll be no increase for PV power to match this. Effectively this means you'll have to sell your clean solar energy for less than the big polluters get for their coal fired electricity. How's that for priorities? 


See also

Solar shame - election promise broken (Courier mail)

Can-do Campbell slashes Queensland solar PV tariffs (Renew Economy)

King coal dethroned

Interesting article published at The Conversation about the skyrocketing amount of investment in renewable energy, which now far exceeds that invested into coal: King coal dethroned

In 2004, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the International Energy Agency, investment in renewables was $52 billion, with $250 billion invested in fossil fuels. By 2008 the peak in fossil fuel investment had arrived: it dropped to $140 billion, while renewables overtook it with $155 billion in investment.

By 2010 the amounts were $90 billion in fossil fuels and $211 billion in renewables, and by 2011 only 14% or $40 billion of investment was in fossil fuels while 86% or $260 billion was in renewables.

King coal has in fact been dethroned. It will take a while for the global power system to phase out old power stations and be dominated by renewables, but the transition is proceeding much faster than imagined by most institutions, as well as media

Reads the full article here.

Good on yer Dave

Now for a good news story. The ABC reports that winemaker David Bruer is on his way towards making his already organic winery carbon neutral. To do so he's persuing a number of strategies including lightweight bottles, carbon farming, revegetation and solar power.

Carbon neutral next step for organic winery

Best of luck Dave and I hope other wineries follow in your footsteps.

Can't do clean energy in Queensland?

One big area of change with the election of the LNP government in QLD will be in sustainability and climate change. Probably the easiest way to summarize it is that (baring the feed in tariff) the Queensland government will no longer be taking action on climate change or promoting clean energy*.

This means that along with the Office of climate change, the:
Queensland Climate Change Fund
Queensland Renewable Energy Fund
Queensland Smart Energy Savings Fund
Queensland Future Growth Fund
Solar Initiatives Package
Solar Flagships Program
Waste Avoidance and Resource efficiency Fund
Local Government Sustainable Future Fund

are all being scrapped.

These LNP plans didn't get much airing during the campaign, mostly because they weren't released until a day or two before the election. 

Most galling for supporters of clean energy will probably the the LNPs decision to pull out of the 250 mega watt Solar Dawn project in western Queensland. If this ends up killing the whole project another big loser, along with the environment and prospective employees, will be the University of Queensland, which, I have just discovered, was to get $60 million in research funding to use the Solar Dawn plant as a test bed for research into improvements and innovations in solar thermal technology.

Cambell Newman has stated that state based schemes are now unnecessary because of the impending national carbon price. However, I assume this is not a tacit admission that carbon pricing will be effective in tackling reducing greenhouse gas emissions, although it most likely will be.

Although there is some truth some Newman's argument, it also misses a very important point. Which is that climate action will bring with it investment in clean energy and pollution reduction technology. Investment means money and jobs for the states it occurs in. Call them what you want but states provide subsidies, co-investment, tax breaks and build infrastructure all the time to attract investment to their state. Not doing this in QLD just means we'll be less attractive to invest in.

The LNP policy document (view here) does state the government will instead help business access the $10 billion + dollars for clean energy that is part of the carbon price/ clean energy future package. However, since the state LNP opposes the clean energy future plan and the federal Lib-Nats plan to scrap the clean energy package if elected, this appears to be a policy the LNP hope not to implement. And again without the full support of the state government it is less likely QLD will get that money now anyway. 


There is also concern amongst conservation groups that the new LNP government will allow more pollution from farming to reach the great barrier reef due to their "regulation busting". With a new report indicating that the herbicide Diuron is being found way above safe levels on the reef at the moment, the impact of agricultural runoff on the reef will be an ongoing concern.


* If I'm wrong on this please comment and I'll make a correction.


This post represents my personal view and before anyone gets upset note that I've have been critical of Labour governments in the past as well.

Household energy links from Dr David Mills

Here are some of the links for more information and government rebates Dr David Mills showed in his talk earlier this month on reducing your household energy use.


GreenPower
http://www.greenpower.gov.au
- Power your home or business with Green Energy (this is Green Energy in addition to the MRET: mandatory renewable energy target).

ClimateSmart Home Service
http://www.climatesmarthome.com/
- Popular scheme to help households save on the electricity bill and help the environment at the same time.

Solar Hot Water
http://brightthing.energy.qld.gov.au/rebate-and-incentives/solar-hot-water-rebate/
- states based rebates are still available to switch to solar hot water and slash your power bill

BCC Ezygreen program
http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/environment-waste/green-living/green-homes/ezygreen/index.htm
- what's available from the Brisbane City Council

Green Vehicle Guide
http://www.greenvehicleguide.gov.au
- provides mileage and air pollution rankings for all new cars on the road. Find the most fuel efficient cars on the road.