Yarra Climate Action Now!

Reminder:

SAVE SOLAR SYSTEMS RALLY – 5:30 FRIDAY 30 OCTOBER, PARLIAMENT HOUSE

The building of the first large-scale solar power plant in Australia is in doubt.

The Solar Systems power plant will create 1,000 renewable energy jobs, power 45,000 homes and uses home grown, Australian designed and built, world leading technology.

As the administrators look at whether funding for Solar Systems can be found, now is our chance to build momentum for clean energy and demand that state and Federal Governments live up to their rhetoric of supporting renewables.

Join us at the Save Solar Systems Rally, tomorrow, Friday 30th October at 5:30 PM at Parliament House.

Your voice counts. Tell the Government that we want solar not coal.

The Save Solar Systems campaign is asking for your support. The company Solar Systems has gone into administration making 100 workers redundant. This has put the construction of the first large scale solar power plant in Australia in doubt. It was to have been a $420 million project, that would have created 1000 jobs in construction and powered 45,000 homes.

State and federal governments had already promised $125 million to the project, but so far released less than $3 million of that money. We are asking that the federal government immediately intervenes to guarantee (i) that the Solar Systems factory in Abbotsford remains open, (ii) that the redundant workers are reinstated and, (iii) that a large scale solar power plant is built in Mildura.

We are asking you or your organisation to:
1 Sign the petition
2. Write or call Lindsay Tanner MP, Member for Melbourne asking for the three points listed above. Email him at lindsay.tanner.mp@aph.gov.au or call on 9602 2911
3 Endorse the Save Solar Systems rally, 2pm Sunday 11 October, 45 Grosvenor Street, Abbotsford (off Victoria Street, 109 tram from the city)
4 Publicise the rally, by emailing the details and information to your networks
5 Come to the rally
6 Let us know if you can provide photocopying or other resources for the campaign.
7 Come to organising meetings, every Sunday 1pm, at the Terminus Hotel, 605 Victoria St Abbotsford.

Contact via savesolarsystems -at- gmail.com - if you want further information. If you wish to be added to the email list, send a request with "please add me to you email list" to the same email address.

Below is an interview with one of the sacked Solar Systems workers (wind noise dies down after about 30 seconds), and another rally speaker from the first rally on 18 September:





For more information see the Solar Systems website, and media coverage (1, 2, 3, 4)

While climate scientists all over the world call for a rapid transition away from coal, the Brumby and Rudd governments continue to support this dangerous industry while allowing crucial renewable energy projects to fall over.

Over the weekend the State Government announced it was looking into exporting brown coal, the world's most greenhouse gas intensive fuel, to India. A week earlier, the company Solar Systems went into voluntary administration putting 150 jobs at risk. The company was not able to raise enough money from private investors to build what was going to be Australia's biggest solar energy plant (so far) in the north-west of Victoria.

Considering the scale of the climate crisis, the Brumby Government cannot allow this project, which is technically sound, and the valuable employment that it will create, to go belly up. If they really believe the things they say about the seriousness of climate change and the importance of clean energy jobs, then this project must not be allowed to fail. If private money will not invest in this project due to the global financial crisis, as John Brumby has said, then government must step in. It's time the government took responsibility for the transition away from coal to renewable energy.

Help us demand the Solar Systems project goes ahead:
Rally to save the solar plant
This Friday, 18 September, 12.30pm
Solar Systems Office, 45 Grosvenor St, Abbotsford

In May of last year, the State Government announced that a feed-in tariff would be introduced in Victoria. A feed-in tariff is a mechanism for encouraging the take-up of solar photovoltaic energy generation (otherwise known as solar panels). It has been very successful in Germany, transforming its solar power industry into a €2 billion export earner which employs 57,000 people.

The German feed-in tariff pays householders a premium rate for the energy that they produce from their solar panels, thereby reducing the pay-back period and encouraging take-up. This is called a gross feed-in tariff. However, unlike Germany’s model, Victoria’s feed-in tariff will only pay householders for the extra energy they feed into the grid left over after their own use, rather than the total energy produced. This is a net feed in tariff. Considering the Victorian model limits the size of eligible arrays to 2kW (which produces less electricity than the average household uses), it will be ineffective and will not result in mass take-up of solar technologies.

It was revealed last year when the decision was first announced, that the Victorian Environment Minister, Gavin Jennings was for a gross model, while the Energy Minister Peter Batchelor was in support of a net model. Mr Batchelor was able to convince Premier Brumby because he produced figures that showed a gross model would increase electricity costs to households by about $100 a year.

Last week, in a series of reports, The Age revealed that calculations by the State Government of the cost of a gross feed-in tariff was actually between $18 and $37 per year per household, and that the $100 a year figure was produced by Peter Batchelor at the last minute. It also revealed that senior state bureaucrats supported the gross feed-in tariff, claiming the State Government’s preferred model would be ineffective.

Peter Batchelor has yet to respond to questions on how he arrived at the $100 a year figure, and where it came from, considering his own department had already come up with a much lower cost figure in a detailed analysis. Did the Victorian Energy Minister simply make up the figures in order to quash a policy he didn’t like? A policy that would have seen thousands of jobs created and growth in a crucial renewable energy industry? And if he did, why did he do it when he knew the cost was not actually that great?

If these allegations are true, then Peter Batchelor has a lot to answer for. We still await his response.

To read the excellent series of investigative reports on this issue in The Age, click here, here and here.

It is not too late for the State Government to change its policy, adopt a gross feed-in tariff, and expand it to bigger solar photovoltaic systems and to commercial and community buildings as well as households. This is a policy that would do wonders for the take-up of solar energy technology, which is an essential plank of a science-based and just response to climate change.

There is currently a campaign to encourage the Federal Government to adopt a national gross feed-in tariff. Australia is a solar energy superpower, and our governments are failing to take advantage of it. To find out more and sign the petition, visit this website.