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Kogan Creek power station debacle continues.

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The eight year long Kogan Creek power station saga has come to a head as a solar liquidation by a French company leaves an Australian civil engineering firm $1.6m out of pocket.

Kogan Creek power station

We wrote about the failure of the Kogan Creek Solar Boost program back in 2017 where it was labelled a $45m disaster. According to the Brisbane Times, the project was lost with the liquidation of  Areva Solar KCP, an Australian-registered company which is controlled by the French state-owned energy giant Framatome SAS (part of Electricite de France).

The project was to provide 44MW of solar thermal in addition to the 750MW Kogan Creek Power Station (which represents the equivalent of 44GWh each year of operation). 

Areva Solar KCP told the Supreme Court in October 2016 it had “paid-up capital of many millions of dollars” but liquidation reports show just $5700 in their account. This has left Dalby businessman Hermes Speziali, who owns Nortask – the civil engineering firm working on the project, $1.6m out of pocket:

“The Queensland government didn’t want to hear. CS Energy didn’t want to hear. We tried to talk to ARENA, the entity that supplied the subsidy to the project at federal government level – they didn’t want to know,” he said.

The Brisbane Times have an article which embeds a video showing the ‘solar panel graveyard’ – a real shame for everyone involved and a disgrace for those happy enough to leave Nortask holding the bag. This highlights the issues Australia has with allowing overseas companies to work on big tenders – there’s likely to be little recourse for Mr. Speziali which is extremely unfair.

If you’re interested in reading more about the Solar Boost Project and how it turned into such a miserable failure, ARENA have an ‘End of project report on the Kogan Creek Power Station Solar Boost Project’ download available on their site, dated September 5, 2018. So it doesn’t have anything about the myriad issues which have continued since that date, but it has a lot of useful information on what not to do if you have $45m sitting around and want to build a solar farm. Click here or on the image below to download/read it.

Kogan Creek Power Station Solar Boost Project End of Project Report
Kogan Creek Power Station Solar Boost Project End of Project Report (source: ARENA.gov.au)

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GAF Energy to sell residential solar.

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Standard Industries has announced it will launch a rooftop solar company named GAF Energy in the US – they are already the world’s largest roofing and waterproofing manufacturer.

GAF Energy Rooftop Solar

GAF Energy Decotech Rooftop Solar
GAF Energy Decotech Rooftop Solar (source: standardindustries.com/solar)

As per a post on the Standard Industries website, the new company, GAF Energy, will work together with GAF to offer their DecoTech® solar roofing solution to “everyday consumers”

It’s an interesting niche to walk into – GAF’s new product offering has some competitors in the PV integrated roof tiling space, such as the Tesla Solar Roof, Tractile Solar Roof Tiles, Monier Solartile, or Sonnen/Bristile’s Solartile  These are all fantastic products but fairly expensive at this point in time – hopefully having more competition in the market leads to more competitive prices and more powerful roofs.

“GAF Energy capitalizes on the historic challenges facing the rooftop solar industry – acquisition and installation costs – and turns them into demonstrable strengths – making it easy for customers to say ‘yes’ to solar rooftops,” said Martin DeBono, President of GAF Energy. “Our product is smart, integrated and economical, and we hope it will mark a fundamental shift in rooftop solar adoption around the world.”

Rooftop solar in America is a lot less developed than in Australia – according to Renew Economy, only 3% of USA homes had solar panels installed in 2017 – in stark comparison to Australia’s 30%. As such there’s plenty of opportunity if the product and price is right, and the governments get on board to help. Will integrated solar roof tiles be the way forwards in the future for domestic solar? We’ll soon find out. In any case, it’s exciting to see 

For more information about GAF, visit www.gaf.energy. If you’d like to read the press release about launch of the company and new DecoTech solar roof, please click here. 

It shouldn’t be long before we have some more information about how these solar roofs are performing, and as the results trickle in we will be creating a solar roof tile comparison document for anyone interested in integrating solar panels into their roof. Please watch this space! Exciting days ahead for rooftop solar.

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REC Group Announce Upgraded Solar Panel Warranty

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The European based REC Group have announced that they have upgraded their product warranty from 10 to 20 years – and they’ve also reduced the power degradation of the REC TwinPeak and REC N-Peak high performance panels.

REC Group Announce Upgraded Solar Panel Warranty

The REC Group was founded in Norway in 1996 – their panels are made in Singapore and the Group is owned by a Chinese corporation, so it truly is a global company.

“REC’s new warranty, which now ranks as one of the best in the industry, is a testament to our consistent excellent product and performance quality,” says Cemil Seber, Vice President Global Marketing & Product Management at REC Group. “The extended warranty terms for REC Solar Professionals further demonstrate our strong commitment to building and maintaining long-term alliances with our partners who install and maintain installations with our panels around the world.”

According to the news release about the new warranty, REC Group has by far the lowest claims rate in the industry, with “well below 100ppm”. 

In addition to these new terms, the company are also offering an extra 5 year product warranty for installations done by REC-certified ‘Solar Professionals’ – which results in an industry-leading 25 year warranty. REC Solar Professionals are trained by the company to “ensure best practice”. 

If this interests you and you want to find an REC certified Solar Professional in Australia please click here to use REC’s ‘find installer’ tool. 

REC Group Announce Upgraded Solar Panel Warranty
REC Group Announce Upgraded Solar Panel Warranty (source: recgroup.com)

REC Group employ 2,000 people across the globe and are able to produce 1.5GW of solar panels every year – so it’s great to see such a massive company take ownership of their solar panel technology and products and stand by them! 

For further information please contact:
Agnieszka Schulze
Head of Global PR, REC
Tel.: +49 89 54 04 67 225
E-mail: [email protected]

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Recycling Solar Panels | What to do with old solar panels.

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Recycling solar panels is a topic which will be a lot more prevalent as the initial ‘wave’ panels begin to reach their end of life. Let’s take a look at what the plans are for trying to minimise the environmental impact and maximise the value  of a used solar panel.

Recycling Solar Panels | Will there be a waste crisis for old panels?

Australia has one of the highest PV solar uptakes in the world. There are plenty of us who have had solar installed for a long time. So long, in fact, that people are talking about end of life strategies to dispose of/ repurpose solar panels, so that they don’t cause a problem for the environment. 

Total Environment Centre director Jeff Angel has been crusading for the implementation of such strategies for solar panels, calling it a ‘systemic problem’:

“We’ve had a solar panel industry for years which is an important environmental initiative, and it should have been incumbent on government to act in concert with the growth of the industry so we have an environmentally responsible end-of-life strategy,” he said in a quote to the Sydney Morning Herald.

We’ve written previously about solar panel recycling and, although it’s good to see things like the ELSi project in Germany, there’s still a ways to go before we figure out the best way forward to recycle solar waste.

Reclaim PV: Recycling Solar Panels
Reclaim PV: Recycling Solar Panels (source: reclaimpv.com)

According to the director of Reclaim PV (the only dedicated photovoltaic recycler in Australia), Clive Fleming, they company recycles 90 per cent of materials in a panel. The company has been lobbying for state bans on landfill disposal of solar panels. 

Australian Council of Recycling chief executive Peter Schmigel also had a quote in the SMH about how a proper plan for recycling PV cells could have a positive effect on the economy:

“Recovery rates have been out of sight since the beginning of the scheme, nobody has said anything at all about there being an inbuilt recycling cost. It generates jobs, it generates environmental outcomes and yet for some reason we have policymakers who are hesitant about [establishing similar schemes] for solar PVs and batteries,” he said.

We expect over the coming year or two we’ll hear a lot more about this, with Sustainability Victoria working on a ‘national approach to photovoltaic product stewardship’, with their recommendations presented to the environment ministers around the middle of this year. 

Victoria have already announced they’ll ban electronic waste in landfill from July 2019, so it’ll be interesting to see if/how the other states follow suit.
 

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GreatCell Solar Enters Administration

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Last month one of Australia’s longest running solar tech companies, GreatCell Solar, went into administration after the double blow of the death of their lead scientist and a failure to secure funding for its Dye Solar Cells prototype facility. 

GreatCell Solar Calls In Administrators

GreatCell Solar have unfrotunately had to call in administrators in December 2018 due to the death of their chief scientist and a problem with funding.

“The decision follows a series of unfortunate and unwelcome developments in recent weeks, including the untimely death of chief scientist Dr Hans Desilvestro in a mountaineering accident on 10 November,” Greatcell (ASX:GSL) told investors in mid-December. 

According to Stockhead, GreatCell has developed a third generation photovoltaic (PV) technology called Dye Solar Cells (DSC). DSCs are based on dye-sensitised films and are able to convert any visible light (including indoor low light) into electricity. They have been trying to get more funding for the tech but they’ve had problems with that too.

GreatCell Funding Fail

“Despite a global search and chasing down every potential funding opportunity, GSL has not been able to attract sufficient long-term equity investment,” the solar company said in a statement published on RenewEconomy:

“This is an extremely disappointing outcome for Greatcell Solar, its directors, employees and shareholders given the considerable investment already undertaken over many years to achieve an advanced, pre-commercialisation status for its 3rd generation photovoltaic technology.

“The Company is widely considered amongst its international peers to be pre-eminent in the field of Perovskite Solar Cell PV technology” the statement continues.

In late 2007 GreatCell were the recipients of a $6m ARENA grant to help fund research into perovskite solar cell technology. Unfortunately it appears that they’re somewhat stymied at the moment – but they still have a tech roadmap up on their website which leads us to still have some hope:

GreatCell Solar
GreatCell Solar Technology Roadmap (source: greatcellsolar.com.au)

Perovskite solar cells are gaining traction lately and this is the tech used in these prototypes. No word yet on what’s going to happen to Greatcell in 2019, but its statement didn’t leave a surfeit of hope: 

“With the appointment of Administrators, BRI Ferrier, the outlook for shareholders is uncertain at best” it reads. Fingers crossed they’re able to secure some more funding and get back to work with a new team. 

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