Solar-Biogas Hybrid Power Solution

AORA TO PROVIDE FIRST SOLAR-BIOGAS HYBRID POWER SOLUTION

FOR OFF-GRID COMMUNITIES IN AFRICA

Ethiopian Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy Meets with AORA Solar

Ahead of Deployment of its Tulip™ Technology

December 2, 2014 – ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia & REHOVOT, Israel – AORA Solar

(www.aora-solar.com), a leading developer of solar-biogas hybrid power technology, today announced it has met with the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (www.mowie.gov.et), to plan the construction of an initial pilot of AORA’s Tulip™ solar-hybrid power plant. The meeting follows the March signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the parties.

The project is tied to Ethiopia’s Climate-Resilient Green Economy Strategy, in which the country aims to enhance access to affordable and environmentally friendly renewable energy. The goal is to provide adequate uninterruptible and grid independent power to support the achievement of middle-income status by 2025 while developing a green economy.

"We are transforming our Green Economy Strategy into action and are pleased to partner with AORA to help achieve our vision,” said H.E. Mr. Alemayehu Tegenu, Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy for Ethiopia. "AORA’s unique solar-hybrid technology is impressive and well-suited to provide both energy and heat to support local economic development in off-grid rural locations in Ethiopia.”

Construction of the first pilot plant is expected to begin by mid-2015. Following the trial, the Ministry intends to expand deployment of AORA installations for rural economic development to off-grid communities in selected areas of the country. The AORA Tulip technology requires less land per kWh to generate usable power and heat than other systems. Each Tulip station is small and modular, producing 100kW of electricity in addition to 170kW of heat, while occupying less than 3,500 square meters (0.86 acres).

AORA’s technology runs not only on solar radiation, but also on almost any gaseous or liquid fuel, including biogas, biodiesel and natural gas. This enables a variety of operational modes – from solar-only mode, where electricity is supplied from ample sunlight, to hybrid-mode, where fuel helps generate full power when sunlight is insufficient, to fuel-only mode during night hours or heavily overcast periods. This guarantees an uninterrupted and stable power supply 24 hours a day in all weather conditions.

"We are pleased to partner with the Ministry and look forward to bringing our technology to Ethiopia to provide the population with affordable access to power,” said Zev Rosenzweig, CEO of AORA. "Such access will have significant social and economic impact on off-grid communities, helping to provide power to schools and medical facilities, refrigeration for food processing and post-harvest storage, groundwater pumping and much more.

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About the Ethiopia Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy

Ethiopia launched the Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy in November 2011, which aims to achieve the development objective of being a middle income nation by 2025. The Strategy's four pillars include the generation of energy from renewable sources for domestic and regional markets.

About AORA Solar

AORA Solar is a leading developer of solar-biogas hybrid power technology that specializes in small-scale off-grid solutions. AORA’s flexible power stations operate on both sunlight and biogas (or other alternative fuel sources) in order to supply uninterrupted green power 24hrs/day. Each AORA station produces 100 KW of energy and 170 kW of heat as a by-product, which may be used for a variety of heating and cooling applications for agricultural, industrial or domestic use. AORA stations occupy just a half-acre of land and may be standalone or linked together into centrally controlled power plants for increased output. For more information please visit www.aora-solar.com.

Media Contacts

Finn Partners for AORA Solar

Nicole Grubner

+972 58 444 5418

nicole@finnpartners.co.il

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young seeks answers on refugee rape victim

Legal & Constitutional Affairs [Part 1]

Monday, October 19 2015, 08:50

Proceedings 0910-1246

Extract from  10:50 am to 11:10 am

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First Assistant Secretary, Detention Services Division

Mr Neil Skill

Location

Customs House

Postal Address

PO Box 25, Belconnen ACT 2616

Telephone

(02) 6275 6242

Email

neil.skill@border.gov.au

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The Australian's @chriskkenny is on #Nauru and has spoken to "Abyan", who says she still wants a termination https://t.co/9jqp6v5Z8v

— Karen Barlow (@KJBar) October 19, 2015

So not only @TurnbullMalcolm @PeterDutton_MP not only they spent $130k on jet, they abducted this women: https://t.co/tu4iEq25rV #auspol

— 1WiseGamer (@1WiseGamer) October 19, 2015

Tax treaties and profit shifting

During the Global Financial Crisis South Korea's fiscal stimulus measures were greater than those of Australia.

One stimulus was a reduction in the corporate tax rate from 27.5 percent to 24.2 percent.

South Korea's corporate tax rate - reduced as part of its GFC stimulus

Australia's corporate tax rate has been kept at 30 percent.

Australia's corporate tax rate - left unchanged during GFC

As a result South Korean power and steel companies that import Australian thermal and coking coal obtain a tax advantage by raising the profit level of their South Korean operations and reducing the profit level of their Australian operations.

This is what they have done. By investing in Australian coal mines and lifting production, South Korean power and steel corporations have contributed to the fall in the price of coal so that they may now buy coal from their own Australian coal mines at a price near to or below the cost of production.

As a result the profit and tax payable in Australia has all but vanished, and the profit and tax payable in South Korea has substantially increased.

The moving of profits from Australia to South Korea is reflected in the changing share value of the Australian coal mining companies and the South Korean companies that both own them and import coal from them.

South Korean coal importer lifts profits at expense of its Australian coal mine

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Avoiding an international "race to the bottom"

"Competitive Devaluation" is where countries compete against each other to achieve a relatively low exchange rate for their own currency.

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) November 6, 2015

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We suspect Shenhua was wanting a coal mine in Liverpool Plains to undercut Aus suppliers #auspol https://t.co/FVa9AVoqBb …

— HRH Terry Australis (@AustralisTerry) November 4, 2015

Reason to think China will protect its ailing #coal industry (at the cost to Australia's) https://t.co/1Yu2wF0aDh pic.twitter.com/C2td5Wnzmn

— Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) November 1, 2015

A smart home market for buying and selling electricity

The customary 3-month billing cycle for utilities made sense when meter reading was done manually and electricity consumers weren't in the business of generating electricity from solar panels or supplying power from batteries.

Having to wait 3 months to be paid for electricity you supply to the electricity grid is no longer appropriate or necessary. Smart meters continuously measure power supplied from and to the grid and transmit this data at 15 minute intervals to the network provider.

"Cost-reflective pricing" - Pricing electricity to reflect short term fluctuations in supply and demand - can be most effective in influencing peak-period supply and demand when these price fluctuations are actually experienced in real time. If the averaged effect is only noticed once every 3 months in a quarterly bill for electricity, cost-reflective pricing has little or no chance to influence supply and demand decisions in the peak periods.

Though short term trading in the supply and purchase of electricity may not be for everyone, it could be available on the same basis as the stock exchange: for those who have an interest. A household or business with a large battery bank but no space for solar panels might wish to buy electricity at peak solar supply times when the price is low, then sell it back during overcast days in peak demand periods. The availability of a market to buy and sell electricity may be essential to encourage this type of entrepreneurial activity.

There are a number of Internet tools that are making it more secure and less expensive to construct such applications.

PayPal recently introduced a low-cost payment option for digital goods

PayPal recently introduced a low-cost payment option for digital goods. Though electricity is not a "digital good" it doesn't require PayPal to provide posting and delivery tracking, dispute resolution and return-to-sender processing as it does for physical products.

Using PayPal eliminates risks such as this one at mycause.com.au:

"On Tuesday July 29 2014 we discovered that there had been a data security breach in the mycause system and donor credit card data from transactions was compromised.
The theft has been carried out by a sophisticated and highly coordinated group of hackers who have managed to skim credit card data as it passed through the mycause server to the payment gateway."

Other modular components can be incorporated. For instance:

• There is no need to create user identifiers and facilities to reset forgotten passwords. Google account services take care of this functionality.
• There is no need to construct a community discussion forum facility. Disqus provides the functionality for this requirement.

Google provides free software development tools for building robust and flexible web applications. The Google App Engine software development kit (SDK) for Python is one of several powerful development tools available for the task.

There are recently devised software tools with which to dynamically reshape each web page after the web server has sent it to the client device. That is to say a web page can format itself to fill a Tablet or desktop PC screen and reshape itself to suit a mobile phone upon inspecting the screen size of the device in which it finds itself.

"Play YouTube videos on your T‑Box" is an example of a web site that takes advantage of these development tools and the available ready-built modules to supply a community discussion forum, subscriber accounts and secure payment for digital goods.

Investing in coal was once motivated by a desire to generate wealth

A look backwards through the Whitehaven Coal Annual Report of September 2015

A Year of Delivery - Whitehaven Coal Annual Report 2015 / page 79

DIVIDENDS

Paid During the Year

During the year the Company did not pay any dividends.

Declared After End of Year

Directors have resolved not to declare a dividend in respect of the 2015 financial year.

A Year of Delivery - Whitehaven Coal Annual Report 2015 / page 4

KEY ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION

We contribute to the social and economic development of the communities in which we operate. The Company’s economic contribution was $470.1m in 2015. This includes:

• $125.6m in payments including wages and superannuation to employees
• $214.9m in payments to suppliers in the Gunnedah, Narrabri, Tamworth and Liverpool Plains shires
• $129.6m in taxes and royalties to governments

A Year of Delivery - Whitehaven Coal Annual Report 2015 / page 2

FINANCIAL

Net loss after tax $342.7m

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Investing in coal is now the way to make charitable "key economic contributions".

In 2015 shareholders very generously chipped in a lazy $342.7m towards the $470.1m Whitehaven Coal paid for "key economic contributions".

Whitehaven Coal Annual Report 2015 - Financial

Treasury officials' blinkered view of innovation

"Australia's Economic Policy Challenges"

as seen through the eyes of

John Fraser | Secretary to the Treasury | 27 February 2015

I will spend a few minutes reflecting on the trends that we're seeing in the three drivers of long term economic growth — population, participation and productivity — and the implications for policy.

...the first key driver of economic growth in the medium term is population.

In recent years, Australia's population growth has been amongst the fastest in the developed world, driven by migration.

A growing population can be a source of dynamism for the economy.

The blinkered leading the blinkered

It provides a larger domestic market for business, increases the size of the labour force and facilitates the injection of new ideas.

But it also places additional demands on government budgets in areas such as infrastructure, health and education.
...

The Government has commissioned a number of policy reviews that will recommend ways to enhance Australia's economic prosperity.

Making the most of these reform opportunities is essential, where three areas stand out as priorities for raising Australia's productivity performance.

The first is tax reform.

Studies have consistently shown that tax reform offers one of the largest policy opportunities to increase incomes and living standards.
...
Tax reform can promote strong investment and encourage workforce participation.

Our company tax rate is high by international standards.
...
A second priority is continuing to modernise the workplace relations system.

Workplace regulation has been progressively and substantially reformed in recent decades.

A more flexible workplace relations system that supports the economy will help Australia respond to the challenge of lifting productivity growth.
...
A third priority area for structural reform is driving greater competition in goods and services markets.

Ian Harper proposes that we apply competition law and a new set of competition principles to all purchasing activities of government such as health, education and aged care.

Even small improvements here, where government has a large footprint and where Australia's population will impose greater demands on health and aged care, can deliver big benefits over time.

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Beyond the blinkered economics policy advice from Treasury - that must surely be overdue for a dose of its own advice on the value of fresh ideas inside Treasury itself - "a growing population can be a source of dynamism" - there are of course other places to look  for policy ideas for growing an economy.

Australia is the only OECD nation without a national research and innovation plan #FundOurFuture

— Sydney Uni Media (@SydneyUni_Media) October 7, 2015

For instance:

1. "The effect of our poorly planned mental health system is a massive drain on the wellbeing of people and families, and on Australia’s productivity and economic growth. The economic cost of mental ill-health is enormous. Estimates range up to $28.6 billion a year in direct and indirect costs, with lost productivity and job turnover costing a further $12 billion a year - collectively $40 billion a year or more than two per cent of GDP,” Prof. Fels said. (See National Review of Mental Health Programmes and Services Report released, 16 April 2015)
2. "The use of Information Technology in the production of goods and services has had a strong influence on productivity and economic growth in industrial and in newly industrialized countries... Information communications technology (ICT) is not only one of the fastest growing industries – directly creating millions of jobs – but it is also an important enabler of innovation and development." (See  Five ways technology can help the economy , 11 April 2013)
3. "The International Energy Agency (the IEA) believes that the world needs a clean energy revolution in order to break dependence on fossil fuels. Such a revolution would enhance global energy security, promote enduring economic growth and tackle environmental challenges such as climate change. It would break the long-standing link between economic growth and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions." (See  Clean Energy Technologies )

Planning to phase-out fossil fuels in Australia

Australia has over-invested in electricity generation and distribution infrastructure. It has not invested adequately in building strategic reserves of transport fuels.

THE cost of Australia's new fleet of submarines could blow out to $150 billion after the defence white paper confirmed the price tag.

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) March 2, 2016

.@BobNew8 Taxpayers to fork out $150 billion to assure petrol deliveries from Singapore. Cheaper to innovate. #QT https://t.co/DAqv4LTbsI

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) March 1, 2016

.@BobNew8 Senate inquiry was completed June 2015 but the information was ignored in the Defence White Paper https://t.co/NvLsFhfKVq #auspol

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) March 1, 2016

Dear @TheIPA, Oil companies prefer Singapore refineries. Aus taxpayers kick in $150 billion for submarines to secure fuel supply. Discuss.

— Askgerbil Now (@Askgerbil) March 1, 2016

"One version of electric vehicles might use a battery for short trips and activate a hydrogen fuel cell on longer trips after the battery charge is depleted." A plan for transitioning the economy to zero reliance on fossil fuels could take advantage of the first of these issues and overcome the second issue at the same time. The plan would increase the use of electricity generation and distribution that is presently not being effectively used for the benefit of the economy and reduce the reliance on transport fuels for which there are inadequate strategic reserves.

The transition from leaded to unleaded transport fuels begun in 1981 with a target end-date of 2002 is a good example of how the adoption of a long-term policy simplifies the making of investment decisions of stakeholders for new plant and equipment.

Vehicle manufacturers at present face considerable uncertainty in predicting which of the emerging clean fuel transport systems will win out in the long run.

Fuel cell electric vehicle with battery for short trips

Adopting a policy for the introduction of electric vehicles would reduce that uncertainy. Allowance can still be made for competing technologies that are quickly evolving. Fuel cells for instance that produce electric power from, say, hydrogen, are not that dissimilar from batteries that store and recharge electrolyte in situ. Vehicles using either, or both, of these energy supply systems would be powered by electric motors regardless of which these two evolving technologies provides the electricity. One version of electric vehicles might use a battery for short trips and activate a hydrogen fuel cell on longer trips after the battery charge is depleted.

Both renewable and fossil fuel investments for generating and distributing electricity can be utilised at close to full capacity to provide electricity for recharging electric battery powered vehicles.

Both of these investments can also be used to manufacture hydrogen for fuel-cell powered electric vehicles.

This plan would encourage continuing expansion and technological advances in renewable energy without the need to immediately write off substantial capital invested in fossil fuel power plants.

It would give this existing investment (or excess investment) in fossil fuel plants both an extended life and a definite expiry date. Rather than keeping them running at partial capacity to supply a diminishing share of fixed energy needs, they could begin to take over demand for transport fuels. The expiry date for these power plants would be extended to the date by which ongoing investments in renewable energy are planned to take over 100 percent of both fixed energy and transport energy needs of the Australian economy.

Update, 29 February 2016

Budget savings of $150 billion by eliminating dependence on imported transport fuel

The Australian Government's 2016 defence white paper reveals the economic impact of relying on imported transport fuel.

THE cost of Australia's new fleet of submarines could blow out to $150 billion after the defence white paper confirmed the price tag. 

The strategic importance of this military hardware is explained in a number of documents. This is a typical example:

ASPI Future Submarine Conference
The Role of Submarines in a Maritime Strategy
VADM Ray Griggs, Chief of Navy
9 April 2014

"Good Morning Minister for Defence, Senator the Honourable David Johnston, Mr Stephen Loosley, Mr Peter Jennings, Former Chiefs of Navy, Ladies and Gentlemen. I’m delighted to be able to speak to you about submarines in Australia’s maritime strategy.

My intention today is to provide as objective a view as possible of the strategic rationale for submarines in Australia’s defence forces. More than anyone else, I understand it’s about much more than the platform but I do want to focus on the role of the platform because, let’s not kid ourselves, along with the people, the platform is the key component in the capability.

…

The recent NRMA Study on Australia’s liquid fuel security is for me a significant case in point. Who here is really comfortable that a serious interruption to our liquid fuel supplies to this country would, within a month, have significant impacts on our economy and society?

That is why Navy’s contribution to the effective operation of the maritime global trading system is so important. Those contributions are needed around the system, not just in a tight set of concentric rings drawn around Darwin. These contributions are more sophisticated than traditional notions of SLOC protection and that is something we need to explore. So, as we discuss the role of submarines in our national maritime strategy, it’s important to keep in mind the stakes we are considering."

From a paper by Troy Whitford, Fuel Mandates have a History of Success and a Lesson for Bio Fuels Implementation. Australian Policy and History, April 2010.
URL: http://aph.org.au/fuel-mandates-have-a-history-of-success-and-a-lesson-for-bio-fuels-implementation/

"In 1981, Australian state and federal transport ministers met to address pollution problems. Driving the shift towards unleaded petrol were vast environmental and health concerns.

During the 1980s, automobile associations were critical of the introduction of unleaded fuel. The RACV opposed the implementation believing it was too costly. The oil industry was cynical, too, arguing the introduction of unleaded fuel did not follow from a technological breakthrough but rather a decision by ministers. Without doubt, the position taken by oil companies, automobile associations and other stakeholders regarding unleaded fuel changed over time.

Despite opposition to unleaded fuel, the Transportation Council adopted a program to mandate unleaded petrol by 1985. The implementation policy for unleaded fuel was undertaken in stages. Initially, regulations were made calling for all new motor vehicles made after January 1986 (manufactured within Australia or imported) to meet the new fuel requirements. The policy then called for a complete phase out of leaded fuel by 2002. Prior to the national mandate, states had led the way on unleaded fuel of which NSW took the lead. The decision to mandate was essential for implementing unleaded fuel. It forced car manufacturers, oil producers and consumers to make the transition."