The power revolution - winners and losers

It's a win-win-win-lose situation.

Those consumers smart enough and lucky enough to get in early certainly win.

The energy companies, Shell, BP, AGL and the other 'big-end-of town'suppliers and power generators certainly appreciate the government mandated over-priced and guaranteed market for their products - they're laughing all the way to the bank.

AGL, we are informed "operates the country's largest solar farm at Nyngan. Now, it's begun offering customers solar panels without upfront fees and in a few weeks begins to market its own battery."It's good business.

There are moves afoot to increase the RET to 50% by 2050. I can't imagine the energy companies being too upset about that.

To repeat myself - the rich get rich and the poor get poorer.

The Greens are happy, or they ought to be. Being a party of the CBD they don't have to pay the costs of their dream society, and in fact can feel quite self-righteous about their impact on the rest of us. They'll get their reward in heaven.

The biggest losers are those not in a position to take advantage of this 'power revolution'. Those who rent, those who can't afford the still significant capital outlay required, those not connected to the grid. They'll have to subsidise the winners.

Next in line, I suppose, are those who have installed systems hoping to sell their excess back to the utilities, but unable to do so because the infrastructure just can't cope. They'll just have to satisfied with a lesser return on their investment.

As for me - I guess nothing will really change all that much. My panels should last until about 2040, my batteries until about 2023. Statistically I should expire somewhere between 2022 and 2027, so I don't know if I'll be a winner or a loser. Maybe I'll buy shares in AGL.

Elon Musk says "You can actually go, if you want, completely off grid. You can take your solar panels, charge the battery packs and that's all you use."Sounds good to me, with two reservations. The Tesla batteries were designed for the Tesla car, which is capable of "accelerating from zero to a hundred in just 3.3 seconds". The batteries required for backup of a domestic power system have very different characteristics to those required to power a car, and I'd like to know that this problem has been considered. I'd like to know how much battery storage is recommended to provide adequate backup for a typical household's 3 kilowatt system if you're not connected to the grid, as this is likely to significantly affect the economics.

Who knows what will happen in the next ten years or so? Perhaps other technologies will make batteries, wind farms and solar panels obsolete. It's a brave, probably foolish act to forecast the future and claim any certainty.

Right now I'd consider myself a winner if the bloody generator, which is on the blink, would just start.