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SOLAR ENERGY RESOURCES LTD
THE
PRESENT SITUATION
THE PRESENT SITUATION
For maybe 40 years now, N Z has lived off the luxury of the Maui Field (both oil and gas). Within a few years from now, its potential will be exhausted, much of it misused, knowing that its life was finite. Decisions about it, and associated small fields, have been made the basis of economics, not reality. (Recently, what appears to be quite a large field, has been found offshore from Taranaki. The resources in this field will not be available for at least 3 or 4 years.) For tens of years now, ignoring greenhouse sources of electricity, such as coal, our electricity has been largely from hydro generation. But resources are starting to become a bit stretched. In the early 90’s and again more recently governments have called on the nation’s people to take more care with such a resource as electricity. We only have so much, but enough, to be largely independent of needing to supplement our wants (not needs) to avoid unnecessarily adding overseas debt through misuse of this valuable resource.
The sources mentioned above are potentially more traditional sources of energy. Every day billions of petajoules of the sun’s light fall on our country, a potential source of energy (of heat and electricity, forms of energy) to give us ample supplies to meet our needs. The technology exists, actively promoted by governments in such countries as Australia, USA, Denmark and Germany, to name some. In N Z such activities are only promoted in a very limited way. We have a little support for wind power, but virtually none by Government for Solar heat and power. The potential is immense; the technology is well established. Each year its price falls as improvements are made and as the market grows, just as with computers.
For Solar electricity, rather than feed excess into batteries, which are still high in price and have a limited warranty period, why not feed it back into the national grid, from where we get our electricity at present. And when the electricity is not available because it is nighttime or on a cloudy day, draw our power from the national grid. Here is a considerable potential of overall savings. At present the supply companies have a monopoly on the situation, given to them by Government, limiting alternative sources of electricity from entering the market and being in competition with the supply companies. They want to charge the consumer a lot for the electricity for what the consumer takes from the national grid, but are not prepared to pay the consumer the same amount per unit that the consumer feeds back into the national grid. Hence the supply companies want the consumer to have dual electricity metering or two meters, one in each direction of flow, so that the supply company can charge different amounts in each direction. It is up to Government to step in and get rid of this situation. The supply companies are misusing the powers Government gave them.
It is up to Government to take the lead and promote, by financial incentives, this potential. Also encouragement should be given for potentially using less electricity by using associated technology. Hence low energy uses should be charged less per unit in comparison to high energy users. If the supply companies have their way this will not happen. Such a technology should be subsidized by Government, like other leading countries, to reduce unnecessary electricity consumption. Hence we can be more independent and self-sufficient nationally.
Peter Sale BSc, GradDipScience (Auckland)
SOLAR ENERGY RESOURCES LTD
