Gross vs Net Feed-In Tariff – Where’s The Community Conversation??
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March 11, 2009Remote Grey Nomad Jobs – Mataranka NT, Bonang Tubbut, Vic.
March 15, 2009Today The Age reports that the Victorian Government will put $100m towards a solar energy plant condemned by some of its own experts as probably doing nothing to encourage and increase the take-up of solar panels – unlike the 10 year old success story in Germany.
“Solar has huge potential in Victoria and large-scale solar is the most economical form of solar energy generation which is why we are providing this funding,” says Premier Brumby.
His Government will support a net feed-in tariff for electricity produced by domestic solar panels. Households will be paid a premium of 60 cents per kilowatt hour for surplus power fed back into the electricity grid,
BUT
WHERE is the discussion of successful European gross feed-in tariff schemes where premium payments are made for ALL the solar energy produced?
In January 09 The Age investigative writers reported on
“confidential advice to Environment Minister Gavin Jennings from Department of Sustainability and Environmental policy executive director Fiona Williams, warning that the net scheme favoured by the Government would do nothing to encourage solar use.
Last year Energy Minister Peter Batchelor argued against the gross scheme, claiming it would add $100 a year to household power bills. But the leaked memo rejected this, saying the real impost would be $7 a year.”
NOW,
the State Government hopes to attract the Federal Government offer to match any commitment to producing solar energy and
“the tariff has been altered to lift the subsidy cap from a mooted 2 kilowatts to 3.2 kilowatts an hour, making the scheme marginally more generous than the one flagged by the Government last year.
Environment Victoria welcomed the plan for a large scale solar plant but slammed the feed-in tariff plan.
‘Unfortunately this announcement seems designed to disguise that the Brumby Government has made only very minor amendments to its flawed solar feed-in tariff,’ campaign director Mark Wakeham said.”
WHERE is the discussion? Wotif Climate Action groups ran some community forums on the topic?
5 Comments
people willing to invest in solar power generation (with along payback period) should be rewarded by receiving a premium price for ALL solar power they generate … after all, such people are potentially saving the government billions in needing to invest in additional new power stations to meet excaslating demand
and, incidentally, anyone wanting to instal an air conditioner should be forced to instal compensating solar generation capacity .. at least that way their high energy consumption is offset (partially, maybe fully, depending o use, time of use etc) by co-generation
There are over 40 countries around thw world with various forms of Feed in Tariffs. They are not all the same and one size doesn’t fit all. That said, we in Australia have gone hot and cold about renewable energy for decades and the latest episode is a typical example of a knee jerk reaction – close down the scheme prematurely. No doubt due to the failure to see the demand was much greater than they thought and the money was running out.
So what are we striving to do here? What should a REAL policy be based on? Let’s say, reduce greenhouse gases, but we could also say create new industry, jobs etc. If we take the first driver as the most important then we must be striving to offset or ultimately replace coal as a major fuel for electricity generation. I’ll use WA as an example because I know the data. Electricity for most of WA’s population is derived from coal. There is about 6000MW of installed generation capacity in the South West. Coal and gas. At last count, about 2400 customers had signed up as roof top PV grid suppliers. (I am one) The extent of this resource is a tiny 7MW. I suspect that even if ALL the domestic roofs in the south west were to acquire a 1kW system, it still would not make that much difference to the big picture – say 1000MW. This is discounting growth in demand for electricity – something we do little about, but could achieve massive reductions in demand if we had the will.
On the other hand, take a number of warehouses, and we are seeing huge growth in this area. One supermarket chain has 56,000 square metres of roof space. 1kW/metre squared? You get the picture.
I think this subject is being done to death with emotive language instead of good old arithmetic.
You make some excellent ‘big picture’ points Bill. When you consider the potential of solar panels on commercial roofs, and also reducing the actual demand for electricity, you wonder where the leadership might come from to develop – as you say – REAL policy that cuts through the emotion and presents some clear pathways – based on good old arithmetic – that both business and households can adopt. Will this come from our politicians or from activist group advocacy do you think?
Bill, The Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council’s recent report – ‘The Second Plank – Building a Low Carbon Economy with Energy Efficient Buildings’has been recommended to me. It’s based on the premise that demand side management and energy efficiency in Australia’s buildings can have a very significant role to play in abating Greenhouse Gasses. It says “the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) alone will not unlock the large scale abatement potential locked within buildings and that a range of measures, complementary to the operation of the CPRS will be required to cost-effectively meet the nation’s greenhouse targets. The report details these measures and demonstrates how they can work to provide the Government with the policy options they’re looking for.”
You can download the report here – Second Plank Report 2.0_0.pdf
shit man