State governments abandon solar energy future
Wed 19 October 2011
Philip Calder, Bachelor of Journalism
Reducing your carbon footprint is becoming harder as state governments of Australia pull the plug on rebates for solar power.
In the last six months, the governments of South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia have all either reduced or abandoned their assistance to households who install the clean energy generators.
The moves are concerning for the Clean Energy Council of Australia (CECA), which claimed solar panels were an affordable option for Australian households looking to reduce their power bills and generate their own clean electricity.
Clean Energy Council media manager Mark Bretherton said the cuts to the schemes were a worrying sign for what had become a successful program.
“We’ve certainly seen a lot of success in the solar industry over the last couple of years,” Mr Bretherton said.
“It’s been unprecedented in terms of where the industry has come from or where it’s gone to and how many solar panels have gone up on rooves across the nation.”
Mr Bretherton said the problem lay with schemes like the New South Wales Government’s going beyond what was required, inflating the industry.
“It was warned by the industry that it was a bit too generous and they soldiered on regardless,” Mr Bretherton said.
“While that has been extremely successful in getting panels on rooftops, what has actually happened is that the cost to consumers as a result of the scheme has meant that it’s tarred the idea of such schemes around the nation.”
Mr Bretherton said governments needed to be more careful about the feed-in tariff rate they set, ensuring it was not too high, but not completely turned off.
“Essentially we’re trying to land a plane,” Mr Bretherton said.
“We’re still on the descent and if we sort of just turn off all the controls now it’s likely to crash.”
Sunshine Coast Solar Centre director Mike Trust said the reduction of the feed-in tariff in NSW would ruin the entire industry in that state.
“It’s an industry in turmoil,” Mr Trust said.
“What you’re losing is good people out of an industry and they won’t go back into that industry.”
Mr Trust said that government rebates were so important for his customers that most people would not install solar without some sort of government incentive.
Since the government incentives to install solar power were first introduced, the industry had grown dramatically.
The Clean Energy Council said since the end of September, 2010, over 300 megawatts of solar capacity had been installed nationwide, an increase of 1000 per cent in less than two years.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics had found that wind and solar photovoltaic (solar panels) power generation had experienced the most growth among other methods of renewable energy production by far, growing 2333 per cent between 2001-02 and 2007-08.
The incentives to install solar come in the form of either a rebate for the initial installation cost of the equipment or a feed-in tariff, by which customers who generate more electricity from solar than they are drawing from the grid feed the surplus back into the electricity grid.
This surplus is sold to their energy provider, and householders pocket an extra amount from the government per kilowatt hour sold.
Mr Bretherton said the incentives were aimed at growing the industry to a point where solar power would no longer be too expensive for the average household, and this had worked to an extent.
“Solar power is coming down in price a lot, and that’s what we want to see,” Mr Bretherton said.
“We’re expecting solar to drop to around about the cost of mainstream electricity somewhere in the middle of the decade.”
But bringing and end to the schemes could see prices jump back up.
“A lot of those gains may be lost in the near future so we probably might actually see a bounce in solar prices in the next couple of years trending back upwards a little bit again,” Mr Bretherton said.
Mr Bretherton said the Victorian scheme, which had its feed-in tariff cut from 60 cents per kilowatt hour to 25 cents per kilowatt hour only last Thursday, was an example of a reduction which had gone too far.
“We had some modelling done in Victoria and we found that an appropriate rate we would think would be about 35 to 40 cents per kilowatt hour,” Mr Bretherton said.
“At about that level it should sustain the industry, help it to grow modestly and keep the demand for solar fairly high.
“At the 25-cent level you would be looking at a contraction of the industry.”
Mr Bretherton said the Queensland scheme, of 44 cents per kilowatt hour, was the standout of the country.
Mr Trust agreed that it was the only state with a reasonable feed-in tariff.
“I don’t think the Queensland tariff will be changing,” Mr Trust said.
“It’s a more sustainable tariff and I think it will be here for a long time.”
Householders wishing to find out what incentives for solar power are available in their state can visit Silex Solar’s Solar Information for your state.Image(s) designed by www.sxc.hu