New South Wales Government has claimed its Solar Bonus Scheme, has been successful in meeting its aim of supporting and encouraging renewable energy generation.
The NSW Solar Bonus Scheme was introduced by way of legislation in 2009, providing a gross feed-in-tariff of 60 cents a kilowatt/hour for the solar electricity generated.
The Government has now completed a statutory review of the program – as required under the law when it reached 50 megawatts (MW) or 2012, whichever came first. NSW reached 52 MW by mid-2010.
The review showed the take-up rate of the scheme had been faster than expected (about 50,000 customers have joined) and demonstrated the scheme has created about 100 MW of renewable energy capacity.
Due to the review, the State Government planned to immediately close the current program at midnight; and introduce a new and more sustainable program with a third of the current tariff rate, or 20 cents/kWh.
Off the back of the revamp of the State’s Solar Bonus Scheme, the NSW Energy Minister planned to introduce the Electricity Supply Amendment (Solar Bonus Scheme) Bill 2010 to enact the changes.
Off the back of the revamp of the State’s Solar Bonus Scheme, the NSW Energy Minister planned to introduce the Electricity Supply Amendment (Solar Bonus Scheme) Bill 2010 to enact the changes.
These were approved by State Cabinet on Wednesday, but will require Opposition or Cross-bench support to pass the legislation.
Changes includes; immediately closing the current program to new applications (as of midnight from the date the Bill is introduced into Parliament).
Customers who have already purchased/leased a generator will have 21 days to lodge their applications to join the program; introducing a replacement program with a tariff rate of 20 cents / kWh and the same program end date (31 December 2016).
Further to the scheme, the Government planned to introduce an overall capacity limit of 300 MW for all generators connected under the Scheme;
establishing an interagency Commercial Scale Renewable Energy Working Group, including representatives from the network businesses to investigate opportunities for installing mid scale solar systems as an alternative to network expansion; and give responsibility to NSW Fair Trading and Industry and Investment NSW to determine whether a compliance and safety regime is required and develop a suitable model.
The new program would be subject to a review on the first of July 2012 and at the end of the program in December 2016.
However the Clean Energy Council of Australia believed households in NSW still face big electricity price increases while the State’s solar energy industry will be devastated by the NSW Government’s decision to slash its Solar Bonus Scheme.
The changes proposed Government – cutting the solar bonus scheme by two thirds – will seriously damage the state’s solar panel industry, Clean Energy Council chief executive Matthew Warren claimed.
"This is a repeat of the boom-bust cycle the solar industry has been trying to avoid," he said.
"A year ago we welcomed the NSW Solar Bonus Scheme, but warned the government it was too generous. More recently we advised the best way to fix this was to ease the scheme down and provide more long term certainty.
"Instead they have compounded their first problem with an even bigger problem. Damaging the solar industry in NSW won’t stop big electricity price increases but it will cost jobs and damage confidence in this important clean industry.”
Mr Warren believed the proposed 2012 review and an end date of December 2016 did not provide the industry with adequate certainty or support.
"The cost of improving the electricity network in NSW will cost more than $14 billion over the next five years. By comparison, based on 100MW installed capacity, the cost of the solar bonus scheme is less than eight percent of this,” he said.
"The NSW Solar Bonus scheme has effectively built a clean energy power station across the rooftops of NSW households. This new generation capacity has been co-funded by all electricity users and the households themselves.
"We just needed to get that funding balance right, not effectively shut the scheme down," Mr Warren said.
The Clean Energy Council was a peak body for renewable energy in Australia, representing 450 companies.
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