Age
Saturday 17/5/2008 Page: 9
AUSTRALIA is taking a wrong path by offering subsidies to install solar rooftop panels, instead of promising households high prices if they sell excess power to the grid, a leading German MP has warned. Hans Josef Fell, the Greens' energy spokesman and coauthor of Germany's pathbreaking Renewable Energies Act, said renewable energy now made up 14% of Germany's electricity generation, mainly due to good prices for selling excess power.
On a visit to lobby Australia to support a German move to set up an International Agency for Renewable Energy, Mr Fell said the Government's budget decision to end subsidies on solar panels for households earning more than $100,000 showed why subsidies did not work. "They're revised every year, and if companies are to invest in new technology, they need to know that the market will be there for 10 years," he said.
"Feed-in tariffs do that, so long as the tariffs are high enough, the grid is required to take the power, and the period of tariffs is long enough." In his state of Bavaria, in Germany's relatively sunny south, 2% of all power is produced by rooftop solar panels, Mr Fell said. By contrast, coal prices are rising so rapidly that to invest in coal for a 30-year power station is now risky as well as an environmental threat.
The solar industry in Australia has reported a collapse of orders after the decision to limit the $8000 rebate for solar electricity panels to households earning less than $100,000 a year.
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