Age
Tuesday 6/5/2008 Page: 6
A SCHEME that will pay households a premium for solar power generated on their roofs and fed into the grid is below global standards and will do little to promote clean energy, experts say. Energy Minister Peter Batchelor yesterday announced a scheme that will pay households about four times the retail rate for their excess energy - the best rate offered in Australia.
From next year, households will be paid 60 cents per kilowatt hour fed into the grid. This compares with 45-cent schemes in South Australia and Queensland. Mr Batchelor said it would cut the time it takes for households to pay off the cost of installing solar panels to less than 10 years. But the clean energy industry attacked the scheme, arguing it would have little impact.
Environment Victoria campaigns director Mark Wakeham said the Government had "shunned the experience of 40 countries internationally." Most countries with solar schemes pay a premium rate for all energy generated, whether it is used at home or fed into the grid. "They've clearly designed a scheme that they know does not lead to a rapid uptake of solar power," Mr Wakeham said.
Alternative Technology Association energy policy manager Brad Shone said the claim households would be able to pay off panels in less than 10 years was "so far from the truth it was not funny." That would need a payment rate of at least $2, he said.
A further $200 million of taxpayers' funds should be directed towards the dredging of Port Phillip Bay in today's state budget, according to Victoria's major business lobby group. A spokesman for the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry said business groups had not given up hope of more funding grants for the $1 billion project.
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