Feed-in tariffs in Australia
Australian FIT schemes tend to focus on providing support to solar PV particularly in the residential context, and project limits on installed capacity (such as 10 kW in NSW) mean effectively that FITs do not support large scale projects such as wind farms or solar thermal power stations.
[4][5] The Federal Parliament has not yet enacted a national gross feed-in tariff scheme for renewable energy.
In response to the German feed-in tariff for solar, he suggested that Germany's solar subsidy meant German consumers paid more than €1 billion in additional power bills in 2007 to generate around 0.5% of Germany's gross electricity consumption, suggesting that the policy does not deliver value for money.
have suggested that Martin Ferguson's comments are ideologically driven and do not take into account the Merit Order Effect which in some instance negates or almost negates the cost of funding FiTs and in other instances shows funding FiTs delivers a net dividend to consumers.
On this basis payback for a 1 kW system costing $5,000 net (includes $8,000 federal rebate & 22 RECS) would be around 5 years.
The submission of the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission 25 February 2008 was that there were issues to be resolved including: On the grounds that a capacity cap of 30MW had been reached, the FIT scheme in the ACT was closed to micro and medium scale generators at midnight on 13 July 2011 just days after the legislation was amended (by the Greens and Liberal parties voting together against the will of the government Labor party) on 12 July 2011 to enable micro-generators to continue to access it.
In September 2006, it was announced that the Electricity (Feed-In Scheme-Solar Systems) Amendment Bill 2008 would come into force on 1 July 2008 and run out on 30 June 2028.
[27] The result is that not only will thousands of South Australian homes have solar systems installed, but many businesses will now have the opportunity to embrace this technology and turn their roofs into mini-renewable power stations.
The minimum retailer payment will be determined by the Essential Services Commission of South Australia (ESCOSA) has been estimated to commence at about 6 cents from 1 January 2013, and will be reviewed and is expected to increase with the price of electricity over time.
Estimated payback: It's very hard to calculate, but it will be best for systems of largest eligible size, where the domestic demand is smallest, or mainly occurs at night and low power consumption during the day.
Under this 20-year scheme, some residents, schools, small businesses and community groups will be paid $0.60 per kwh for the net amount of electricity sold back into the grid.
[33] In April 2011 the NSW FIT (Solar Bonus) scheme was retrospectively closed to new applicants and removed for current users after a Ministerial declaration was made under s.15A(8C) Electricity Supply Act 1995 (NSW) that the cumulative total installed capacity cap of 300 MW had been reached.
A new feed-in tariff is proposed, with the constraint that it not raise the cost of electricity and not involve funding from the NSW government.
This inherently limits the FIT to less than the consumer electricity cost, and does not conform to the normal definition of a feed-in tariff.
[34] By the normal definition of a feed-in tariff, the cost of a new and expensive generation source, e.g. solar panels, is borne by all of the consumers rather than the early adopters, who instead are rewarded.
[35] The Western Australian Government had committed to a limited Gross feed in tariff for household scale PV.
After the capital cost is paid back the tariff will revert to a lower rate or the existing Renewable Energy Buyback Scheme (REBS).
The $13.5m of funds had already been allocated to systems installed prior to 1 July 2009 implementation date in a public display of support for the concept.
New customers will need to sign up the Renewable Energy Buyback Scheme from their state electricity provider, Synergy.
On 1 August 2011, the state government suspended all new applications for the Feed in Tariff, citing the expense of the programme as the reason.
[39] The scheme provided for 44c/kWh (around twice times the general domestic use tariff of 21.35c/kWh (including GST)) on the net amount exported to the grid, subject to having proper metering installed.
[40] Whilst the government scheme has now ended for new installs, energy retailers still offer competitive feed in tariffs.
[42] In November 2009 Victoria set up a net metered feed-in tariff scheme, under which households were paid 60 cents for every excess kilowatt hour of energy fed back into the state electricity grid.
Environment groups and renewable energy companies called for the Victorian feed-in tariff to be paid on gross metering with a 10 kW cap on array size to overcome these problems,[45][46] but these concerns were only partially addressed in the 2009 scheme.
[49] Northern Territory is yet to make an announcement on feed-in tariffs as a means of subsidising and encouraging solar PV, other than in relation to Alice Springs.
If successful, the Alice Springs project would involve solar power generation plus investigating energy efficiency, smart metering and tariff pricing.
[51] In Alice Springs, an official Solar City, from May 2008 people with grid connected PV systems can sell all the solar electricity they generate back to Power and Water Corporation at 45 cents per kilowatt–hour, which is more than double the cost of purchasing electricity from the grid.
* 50.05c below 10kW / 40.04c below 30kW system ** 45.76c capped at $5 per day, 23.11c for each kWh above $5 per day in Alice Springs, At purchase rate elsewhere in NT [55] According to the COAG communiqué released in November 2008 COAG agreed to a set of national principles to apply to new feed-in tariff schemes and to inform the reviews of existing schemes.
A Bill for a national feed-in tariff introduced by Senator Milne has not progressed after the Rudd government indicated it would not support such legislation.
It has been reported that NSW households could pay an extra $600 on their electricity bill over six years ($8.33/month) to cover the $2 billion cost of the tariff scheme.
