Conservatives and their road to a solar Damascus

OK, so who said Conservatives don’t get solar energy? Quite a lot people as it turns out, but it seems that even the most apparently intractable opponents of renewable energy are starting to see the sunlight, so to speak.

NSW Energy Minister Chris Hartcher was positively effusive about solar technology on Wednesday when he was on hand for the announcement that the 155MW AGL Energy solar PV project in western NSW would go ahead. The NSW conservative government is contributing $64 million to the project.

Hartcher’s words were interesting because it recognizes that Australian households are taking up solar, even without subsidies. This, said Hartcher, was a good thing, and he intended to make sure that large scale projects go ahead too.

He even got excited about his recent visit to Germany where he witnessed that country’s massive investment in solar. It seems that his journey took him along the proverbial road to a (solar) Damascus.

Here are his words in full:

“Can I say that  Australians are very excited by solar. We closed the solar subsidy  scheme in April, 2011, because it had become unaffordable and expensive. Since then, over 70,000 people in NSW have signed up (for rooftop solar).

“That is without any encouragement, without  any subsidy, they are interested, Australians like the idea of solar energy being one of the renewable  energies of the future.

“We are a country massively endowed with resources, and one of those resources is the sun. It is up to us to take advantage of it. No one is going to ride in on a white horse and do it or us, it is up to us.

“This is part of that process, to achieve that objective, to make full use of our resources and to tap into that natural stream that so many Australians do have in admiring new technology and new ideas.”

Eureka! This is significant because energy ministers and politicians on the Conservative side have been in the thrall of advisors who would inform them that solar PV would never be popular, or useful, or much of anything at all, without ongoing subsidies.

Hartcher, however, has come to the conclusion as the rest of the industry: solar is here and everyone will want it. Because, quite simply, it offers a cheaper alternative than relying entirely on the grid.

Hartcher went on:

“Only two weeks ago I was in Germany (which has 32GW of solar PV).  To see those fields and fields of solar modules in a country that only gets a reasonable amount of sunshine in summer – I wouldn’t like to be there in winter – and yet they’re prepared to put up that level of investment, that level of determination to achieve a result that we can so much more easily achieve here in NSW and in Australia.”

Later, in speaking about the AGL Energy project, Hartcher said:

“This is the sort of project that every Australian  – if you go into any pub or club – will tell you ‘why don’t they all get together, stop arguing with one another, sit down together and actually achieve something’. Well, it’s happening, state governments, federal government and private enterprise, all working together for a common purpose and a common good.

“We (The NSW government) are fully committed to these programs – we are fully committed to achieving the 20% target by 2020. This is a great step towards achieving that.”

Why should we be excited by such comments. Well, previously, conservative governments in NSW, Queensland and WA considered solar to be nothing more than an expensive indulgence of the wealthy that had been subsidised by least well off. Now it is dawning on them that rooftop solar is attractive to all Australians because it provides a cost-competitive alternative than to rely entirely on the grid.

The mere fact that this recognised should give us some hope that future policy making will be shaped with that in mind, rather than dismissing solar as an uncompetitive and disruptive intrusion into ancient business models. Disruptive it is, uncompetitive it is not. And there is an influential solar electorate watching with interest.

This is not the first example of a solar awakening. The Tea Party recently intervened in the state of Georgia in the US to ensure that the local utility agreed to allow up to 500MW of solar PV on household rooftops. It was, for them, a case of citizens rights, against those of the utilities who had sought to prevent it. The right, it seems, is coming to the conclusion that solar is a friend to their doctrine, not an enemy.

We should all feel equally uplifted.