Jaluma vested interests its not just the labor government its the Utilities want to maintain the status quo note they only attempted to fund large scale centralised generation!
In the centralised utility model 15-20% of power produced is lost (this includes large scale solar). The best gas generation can manage approximately 60% efficiency.
This equates to 50% efficiency at consumers point of use.
If we compare this with the best gas fuel cell we approach 80+% efficiency and if we consider renewables distributed Solar/Biogas is 15-20% more efficient than the centralised approach. The pressing question to me is are utilities deliberately resisting free market economics in attempting to limit market access for alternative generation. It would seem that any utility embracing the decentralized model will exploit this 15-20% potential profit accordingly. It appears E.on's investment in Bloom Energy is part of this change, now why not CFU well costs aren't quite there yet (Bluegen) and why would they throw out their huge existing investment in centralized generation?
Their is also a big pressing problem for replacing centralized generation the LV monitoring infrastructure isn't there. To truly decentralize the grid you need Black Start capability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_start Now I understand Kombikraftwerke 2 is currently working on this issue with some success.
CFU Price at posting:
4.2¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
