April 11, 2022
ENERGY EPIPHANY:
Bad for coal and good for consumers: Leading rooftop PV critic shifts his views (Sophie Vorrath 11 April 2022, Renew Economy)
A leading energy executive who once described rooftop solar tariffs as a hidden "scam" has now concluded that Queensland's nearly 4.5GW of distributed PV has helped displace 1GW of coal and gas generation and has proven to be "welfare enhancing."Paul Simshauser, a former AGL chief economics who is currently CEO of the Queensland state-owned transmission network operator Powerlink, and remains a professor of economics at Griffith University, pointed to his newly published paper "Rooftop Solar PV and the Peak Load Problem" on LinkedIn late last week.The extensive and highly technical paper, published on Science Direct here, examines the supply-side impacts of rooftop solar in Queensland, an energy market market historically dominated by coal plants, but where household solar uptake now leads the world at 41.8% penetration.
Posted by Orrin Judd at April 11, 2022 12:00 AM