Talk:Renewable energy in Australia

Good article nomination on hold

This article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold. During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of July 23, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: I'm not particularly fond of the lead...it doesn't really work for me. I can't put it into words...I guess the tone isn't that formal, and it doesn't seem to fully summarise everything. Sorry if this makes no sense. I've tried to "improve" it, please try and follow my lead there and make it better.
There are quite a lot of subsections, and some (such as Solar photovoltaics, and Public opinion as noted under thorough) are quite small. Merging or expanding them would help.

2. Factually accurate?: Y

3. Broad in coverage?: Some more information on public opinion would be nice, as this isn't something that can be dealt with without considering the community views (and for the record, I'm Australian :D)

4. Neutral point of view?: Y

5. Article stability? Y

6. Images?: Y

Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far. — Giggy _U^CP 06:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Giggy, and thanks for reviewing. I have expanded the Solar photovoltaic section and the Public opinion section, and expanded the lead. How does the article look now? -- Johnfos 01:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, passed. Well done! By the way, I really don't know which category at WP:GA to add this too. Could you suggest one? I have it in Geology and geophysics, but that may be wrong...so if you could find one it would be great (and place it there yourself if you like, or you can tell me and I'll do it). Giggy _U^CP 04:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I had a close look at the categories and am really not sure where the article fits in either, so will just go along with what you think. Thanks. -- Johnfos 04:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

You're happy with the current position? Ok, that's all that counts :D Giggy _U^CP 04:52, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

This article is about as neutral as a GreenPeace flyer. :-( It is very selective about the information it cites in order to give the most favorable outlook for renewables. One of the typical signs is when "spending taxpayer dollars" becomes "creating jobs", and this page is full of that sort of thing, which makes it hard to take seriously Kestasjk (talk) 04:25, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move. JPG-GR (talk) 06:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

This article should be moved from renewable energy commercialisation in Australia to renewable energy in Australia to conform to the same format as all the other RE in country articles because there is no such thing as renewable energy without the commercial development of that energy. It doesn't grow on trees. Oh wait, it does, in the form of biomass. However, you know what I mean - it takes commercial development to provide that energy in a usable form, whether it is wind, wave, tide, solar, hydro, geothermal... 199.125.109.134 (talk) 05:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose move. This is a perfectly good WP:GA article and I am against moving the page at this time, as I believe article quality would suffer. WP articles need to have titles that match the actual content of the article, and that would simply not be the case if the name was moved. Johnfos (talk) 02:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

  What you are doing is building a garage where there is no house. Where is the RE in Australia article? Create that and use this as a subarticle. Until that is done, there is no point in having this article, and it is extremely unlikely that there ever will be a need for a subarticle only about commercialisation. All of this article is better used as a basis for an RE in AU article. Add whatever is needed, but what is not needed is a subarticle when there is no main article. It's like writing an article about yo-yo commercialisation with no article on yo-yo's, or since this is Australia, an article about boomerang commercialisation with no article on the boomerang. It just doesn't make any sense. We have an expression for it, too, it is calling putting the cart before the horse. Plus it violates naming conventions - use the most common name. Want to know how many google hits there are for REC in AU? 622. How many for RE in AU? 13,600. That would be more. A lot more. 199.125.109.134 (talk) 02:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support move. It's not a perfectly good article. It is a perfectly flawed article because it fails to cover the subject matter properly, pretending to be only about commercialisation of a subject for which there is no article. 199.125.109.45 (talk) 16:16, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support move. This would be a sensable move. It make the title a bit more concise and a bit more generalized, and the article looks to me like it neatly fits the title "RE in Australia" better than it fits the current title. I also agree with the above statement that it is silly to create an article about "the commercialisation of" something that does not rate an article of its own. Also, while it is true that this article has passed the WP:GA process, that means most of the work is already done for you, if you want to improve it further and get it through the process again. Remember, Wikipedia is not about achievement, it's about improvement. Good luck! Wilhelm meis (talk) 12:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

  AFAIK an article retains its GA or FA status if the name of the article changes. The reasons for a name change tend to be unrelated to the quality of the article. 199.125.109.45 (talk) 16:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Removed section

I have removed the following section, which was located immediately after the lead. It is poorly written, poorly referenced, and not properly integrated into the article: Johnfos (talk) 02:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Renewable resources

With a ready availability of land relative to population, sunny climate, winds, long coastline and existence of underground geothermal resources, Australia would seem to have a natural advantage in developing renewable energy technologies. 12% of Australia's electricity comes from renewables, mainly hydroelectricity.

Solar

Australia is home to one of the largest solar projects in the world, the 154 MW Solar power station in Victoria.

Wind

The country has ample wind resources, but has been slow to build wind farms. The largest are the Portland Wind Project and the Waubra Wind Farm.

Hydro electricity

Australia is mostly a relatively flat continent, but does generate about 10% of its electricity from hydroelectricity. The most famous project is the Snowy Mountains Scheme. The country has invested AU$6B in hydro, with 200 million of that in the last ten years.

Geothermal

There are no geysers or naturally hot rock formations, but many locations have temperatures of over 200°C at a depth of 5 km. The largest geothermal power plant, at Birdsville, Queensland, provides 150 kW of power from a depth of 1221 m.

References

Hydroelectricity

Is there a reason the article goes into details of virtually every form of renewable energy except hydro-electricity? Shall I start working on it, or it is excluded for other reasons? -- Chuq (talk) 05:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Please start working on it. Johnfos (talk) 06:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

See above. 199.125.109.80 (talk) 05:36, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Delisted GA

I've added some tags to this article, indicating what work is needed. In the meantime I've delisted it as a GA. Feel free to re-nominate it at WP:GAN later on if you wish. Johnfos (talk) 07:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Not rewrite - reorganisation

The article seems very incoherent to me, a few points to note:

Under the heading of Key initiatives

• A typical wind turbine can meet the energy needs of up to 1000 homes. Wind power in Australia is clean and renewable and, at the end of 2006, there were 27 wind farms operating in Australia with an installed electricity generation capacity of 817 MW.[8] The technology is proven, fast to build and economical compared with other renewable energy technologies.[9] However, wind power may be unpredictable and difficult to store for use when most needed.
• A list of wind farms in South Australia
• A description of what photovoltaics is
• A plan to build a solar power station
• A type of PV technology
• Australia has developed world leading solar thermal technologies, but with only very low levels of actual use. Domestic solar water heating is the most common solar thermal technology.[19]
• History of solar hot water
• The statement: There are no large large scale solar thermal power stations in Australia, although the country has significant research, development and commercialisation efforts.[21]

I would continue but I think I have made my point that none of these topics are very initiative like. This constitutes the main body of the article. Some of the information is relevant but not under the heading of key initiatives. I changed the introduction and made a point to note that citation were not available at the time of edit but can be made available. Most of what I have done is reorganisation of the article and included more information that was relevant, I think if you were to read my revised version you understand where I am coming from. GG (talk) 06:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, let me say that I understand that you are an enthusiastic newcomer who has something to bring to WP. From what I've seen, you seem to have detailed knowledge of PV, and you also have an appreciation of the industry/policy side of things, which is great.

But I don't think it is fair to say that the article seemed "very incoherent". This article was a GA until recently when I demoted it because we were looking at expanding the scope and updating it.

If you had a problem with the "key initiatives" approach, you should have raised that here on the Talk page before proceeding any further.

Whether you call it a re-oganization or a re-write, there is no way that an article should be totally worked over without any fore-warning. We try to make sure that major revisions reflect consensus here on WP.

I'll leave it at that for now and will give some thought to how this article might best be structured. Perhaps others may have some thoughts too... Johnfos (talk) 07:12, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I would very much like to see my version reverted back and edited as people see fit. I did put a lot of work into the article that we both agree did not register as GA. The article was nominated a year ago for the rating, while on the other four lists the article is nominated on it is only rated B-class. Some of these categories are more relevant than geography (hardly relevant at all), such as Energy, Environment and Australia. The article was only reviewed by a single candidate which thought the most appropriate category for the article was geology and geophysics, this says a lot about the coherency of the article. I do not mean any offence, looking back through the history you are the creator of this article and back in early editions you had identified a few key issues which to me have lost their presence in the article, to name a few:

• Key government policy initiatives (not separate sections government policy and key initiatives)
• Section on Australian technology developments (a very important section, many of which are omitted from the article as it stands)

You noted that the article needs more scope and I think we should work on this, I think that I developed a good platform to proceed. I am happy to discuss the article but people reverting my edits without good reason is a little frustrating, if the only reason for the revert is my boldness I think it should be reverted back and improved from my version. You will find that I have not edited much of the content, I have removed sections which had no clarity, no context to Australia or should be found on other pages. Everything is there and more. I think a suitable compromise would be to revert the article t my version while retaining the original introduction.GG (talk) 08:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

...

You obviously have a very high opinion of your own work. But as I said in my recent edit summary your edits resulted in loss of much sourced material, and inclusion of unsourced. For example, consider the opening paragraphs of the article. This is how they used to look:

Australia's renewable energy industries cover numerous energy sources and stages of commercialisation. Renewable energy technologies currently contribute about 6 per cent of Australia's total energy supply and some 8 per cent of Australia's electricity supply, with hydro-electricity by far the largest single contributor.[1]

Following the introduction of government Mandatory Renewable Energy Targets,[2][1] more opportunities have opened up for "new" renewable energies such as wind power, photovoltaics, and solar thermal technologies. The deployment of these technologies provides opportunities for mitigating greenhouse gases.[3]

These are the opening paragraphs that you came up with:

Renewable energy in Australia became a serious issue of public contention in the period 2006-2007 culminating in Australia's ratification of the UN's Kyoto Protocol in December 2007 following the election of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Although historically Australia has played a key role in research and commercialisation of renewable energy technologies[citation needed] much of this is being exported to Europe, Asia and the US[citation needed] with little representation of renewable energy in Australia's own energy mix[citation needed].

More recently, following the introduction of long term renewable energy targets more opportunities have been realised for deployment of new renewable energies[citation needed], such as wind power, photovoltaics, and solar thermal. Australia's renewable energy industries now span numerous energy sources and stages of commercialisation[citation needed].

I also think that your work is poorly structured, but that is another story... Johnfos (talk) 23:32, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

So we are agreed, reverting to my version minus the introduction. GG (talk) 00:52, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Personal attacks are not necessary "You obviously have a very high opinion of your own work" GG (talk) 00:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

As per the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle I have reverted back and started a sandbox page at User:GGByte/Renewable energy in Australia. But I would like to state that this discussion hardly constitutes a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

I urge interested parties to check User:GGByte/Renewable energy in Australia and comment on this discussion. GG (talk) 02:05, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Splitting off articles

I think that one problem we are running into now with this article is that there is just too much relevant information which needs to be included, and the article has too many sections and sub-sections. So I would suggest spinning off two other articles: Renewable energy industry in Australia (which would include company info and initatives) and Renewable energy policy in Australia (which would include politics, government issues, and public attitudes). These articles would cover the non-technical aspects of renewables, and summaries of them could then be easily included in the main Renewable energy in Australia article. This approach would comply with Wikipedia:Summary style. Johnfos (talk) 23:34, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree As it stands there are many overlapping articles particularly relating to technology relevant issues and can be integrated into this page nicely, leading to a complete summary page of all the issues relating to renewable energy. As it stands however there is not much content relating to either of the proposed sections. Perhaps this page should be used to develop that content first? GG (talk) 01:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Historical figures

If someone has them, can we include historical figures on renewable energy in Australia? I'm thinking of something like "in 2000, 2001, 2002 etc. Australia produced this many megawatts of wind/solar/biomass etc." That could be summerised quite nicely in a table. I added the wind power figures from here, p21:

Year	Total (MW)	Wind Power	Solar Power	Geothermal	Ocean Power	Biofuels	Biomass
2000		32
2001		73
2002		105
2003		198
2004		380
2005		708
2006		817
2007		824

It would allow for a nice overview of how renewable energies are getting traction (or not). --invenio tc 23:04, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Renaming of Ocean Power to Tidal Power

Suggest to rename Ocean power to Tidal power to be in line with the naming of the main article. --invenio tc 23:14, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Solar power station in Victoria

I'm just wondering about the phrase "will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 400,000 tonnes per year". To declare my bias, I'm a climate activist and a renewables enthusiast, but it's a bit misleading to claim that installing 154MW of solar power will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It won't - it will just produce electricity without emitting greenhouse gases. Energy demand is increasing in Australia, and the coal-fired electricity sector is in expansion as is the renewables sector. Renewable energy only reduces greenhouse gas emissions if it meets more than all of the new demand and begins to eat into the amount of power created by coal-fired generators, forcing coal-fired power stations to close down or reduce their output. At the moment there aren't even any plans to stop building new coal-fired power stations, and therefore the renewable energy sector is not doing anything to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (although it is producing energy). Renewable energy doesn't reduce greenhouse gas emissions - closing down coal-fired power stations does. --Sumthingweird (talk) 01:06, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Opinion, emotion, Polls have a place?

I am curious as to the opinion of others if this article is too loaded with opinions, and polls? Can we balance this with hard numbers? For example is the number of people having taken up paying their energy producers for the 100% Green energy schemes available ANYWHERE? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.180.92.240 (talk) 20:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I think is fair to have a "Public opinion" section, but you make a good point regarding the difference of supporting something the Government is responsible for or doing something yourself. GreenPower uptake data is available and relevant [1]. --Elekhh (talk) 23:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Policy Updates

Sections of this article, relating to the Australian Government policies and legislation require a significant update. Notably:

• References to MRET - "Mandatory Renewable Energy Target" is now an out-of-date term, as the Renewable Energy Target is no longer referred to as such. See the ORER website. Australia now has a "Large-Scale Generation Target" (LRET) for power stations and a "Small-Scale Renewable Energy Scheme" (SRES) for rooftop solar and solar hot water.
• Targets are now 41,000 GWh by 2020 for the LRET and "uncapped" for the SRES (calculated as 28 million "Small-Scale Technology Certificates")
• The history of the MRET section needs to be updated to reflect the recent actions of the Labor Government. --Kincuri (talk) 03:18, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Major Companies

This section also needs a revision, as some significant companies have not been mentioned and some probably should not be there in the first place.

• Edwards and Solahart are subsidiary companies of Rheem Australia and they each produce Solar hot water systems, I don't know if they fit as I thought this article was about renewable electricity.
• Solar Systems is now defunct
• Infigen Energy should be on this list as a major wind farm developer
• AGL should be on this list as they own several wind farms and landfill gas power stations
• Energy Developments Limited and Landfill Management Solutions should be there as a major Landfill Gas power station owners
• Hydro Tasmania is just as significant as Snowy Hydro
• BP Solar no longer produce panels in Australia and perhaps would be better replaced by Silex or even Solar Shop Australia

The Clean Energy Council provides a better indication of industry players here --Kincuri (talk) 03:17, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Renewable energy in Australia/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

*Rated as high Australian importance as this is matter of national importance. Giggy UCP

Last edited at 01:48, 1 January 2012 (UTC). Substituted at 04:09, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Quality of page

Hello all

The article (Renewable energy in Australia) almost needs a complete rewrite in my opinion.

The introduction is extremely basic, starting with a sentence on what types of renewables exist, followed by some numbers that are not friendly to newcomers.

There is a misplaced/incorrect table up the top as well (biomass really generated more than wind, solar and hydro in 2018? I think not). The only graph up to date is the one with two pie charts (Australian Electricity Generation, by type, 2017).

The "Australian renewable power plants" map is extremely outdated, given its title is "Australian Renewable Power Plants Above 3 Kilowatt Capacity". Anyone with a relatively modern Solar PV system has more capacity than that (unless you want to include millions of houses on the graph, then this needs to be updated or removed).

The two photos of wind farms are not representative of modern developments, and the article includes a photo of the White Cliffs Solar Power Station, now decommissioned, but lacks any photos of a modern Solar PV farm.

I'm sure some of the info in this is helpful, but it really needs a rewrite because as it stands it is a conglomerate of uncoordinated facts and figures.

I have started rewriting the page and is accessible from my user page, but it is still in need of much more work.

DiamondIIIXX (talk) 04:16, 11 July 2019 (UTC)