Rooftop Solar Energy in Australia sees a Boom leading to Subsidy Cut Pressure in Spain,Czech Deja Vu

Australia has a convoluted Renewable Energy Policy with frequent changes and a multitude of Federal and State Subsidy and Regulations.This has led to a situation where neither the government nor the renewable energy producers are happy.While some states like New South Wales have already cut their generous solar subsidies

New South Wales Generous Solar Bonus Scheme reaching the 50 MW Limit Prematurely Unsurprisingly Surprises the Australian Bureaucrats

New South Wales,Australia had started a very generous Feed in Tariff Scheme known as the “Solar Bonus Scheme” for solar installations under 10 Kw in size.This program which had been started in January 2009 had initially proven to be a failure because it was based on net feed in tariffs which resulted in insufficient returns for solar households.A Change in the scheme in Nov 2009 to change it to Gross Feed in Tariff from Jan 2010 has resulted in a very fast uptake as returns became quite large at 60c/KwH.The Australian Bureaucrats had expected the 50 MW scheme to last till 2012 but the upper limit got hit in 2010 itself.A Simple Calculation of the Returns on Solar Installations at 60c/KwH would have made it clear to anyone that the scheme would be wildly popular and the upper cap would be hit much before 2012.However the Bureaucrats were surprised by the rapid speed of solar installations under this scheme.No wonder State Control Communism Ideology lost out to Capitalism.

Other states are looking to do so as well.Like other Solar Subsidy Programs elsewhere in Czech,Germany,Spain,Australia too has seen solar energy costs fall much faster than subsidies.This has led to a boom in solar installations as the returns become very high.These costs are ultimately passed on the customer electricity bills drawing howls from the states.Large Wind Energy Producers like Origin Energy have also seen the prices of  RECs decrease so that is not feasible to build new wind farm projects.On top of all this confusion,the Australian government can’t make up its mind on a Carbon Tax which will help it to meet the 2020 20% Green Energy Target.

States call for solar subsidy cut

JULIA Gillard is under pressure from the states to roll back generous subsidies for rooftop solar schemes amid predictions that escalating costs from the federal renewable energy scheme will add as much as $90 to yearly household power bills. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has urged the Prime Minister to reconsider the subsidy for rooftop solar schemes, worth $6200 in most cities, to relieve the burden on household budgets from rising power prices.

he scheme was split into two parts from January 1 – one for small-scale generators such as rooftop solar panels and the other for commercial systems such as wind farms. But the costs of the small-scale scheme grew as householders took the government up on incentives for installing solar panels.In January the renewable energy regulator increased the number of certificates power retailers had to buy to deal with a glut caused by a flood of solar panel installations.