With our move into working with the renewable energy sector over the past couple of years, Globe Environments has now become carbon positive through investment in solar and batteries.

After now ~4 months of operation our system is showing power generation at x10 more energy than our energy requirements – initially feeding into our batteries, then the surplus generated power feeding back into the Western Power grid. The batteries are meeting all our ‘post‑sun’ energy requirements (early morning, later afternoon, and night) with some capacity to spare (~20 %).  As we move into winter our energy production is expected to substantially drop …we have our fingers-crossed we still generate sufficient power to remain carbon neutral, or perhaps slightly carbon positive.

So the big question …are batteries worth it??  Well, if you like the warm-fuzzy feeling of being carbon positive/neutral then ‘Yes’. However, if considering an economic perspective the answer is ‘No’ due to the payback time still being significant (~10years). The pay-back time is largely due to the State power company currently paying pittance (2.5c/unit) for energy fed back into the grid – so even though >90% of our energy generated is fed back into the grid this doesn’t even cover the $1/day charge just to be connected to the grid. Whilst the economics are not currently great, worth noting is that battery set-ups are only likely to become more expensive in the future due to global demand for batter products, plus grid power costs to the community are also likely to increase. For now, the warm-fuzzy feelings will just have to suffice.

#renewableenergy #carbonpositive #solar #batteries #investment #economics #energy #powergeneration #qcells