Solar power use doubles in a year

Adelaide Advertiser
Wednesday 17/9/2008 Page: 29

THE number of South Australians who have solar panel systems in their homes has more than doubled in the past year, figures show. ETSA Utilities figures provided to The Advertiser show 3700 homes have a solar system and are generating power for the electricity grid. This is 2000 more systems than at the same time last year. ETSA is receiving an average of 300 applications a month for systems to be connected to the grid, compared with 30 applications a month last year.

Connecting to the electricity grid enables solar panel owners to supply excess electricity, which is not used by the household, to the grid and be paid for the energy. The increased federal government rebate for households, which was doubled from $4000 to $8000 in May last year, has made it more attractive for householders to install panels and generate emission-free electricity.

Solar SA general manager Rob Jung said business had boomed in the past year because of the rebate. But he said the Federal Government move to means-test the rebate - which prevented households with incomes above $100,000 from receiving the rebate - had led to a decrease in the number of large systems being sold. "The average size (of the system) has gone down now, so there are more jobs - but the volume (of electricity) hasn't changed a great deal," Mr Jung said.

"The majority of the larger sized systems don't exist any more because the households that could afford them are the ones which earn over the $100,000 mark. More and more people are looking at ways they can reduce their ongoing costs - and with solar, they will definitely do that." Greens MLC Mark Parnell said it was great news that the number of solar panel systems had increased substantially.

"It shows that given appropriate incentives and support from government, people are really keen to do their bit for climate change," he said. "But there's still work to do to bring the two big retailers (AGL and Origin Energy) into line to make sure they pay for the electricity that's being produced and don't just pass on the Government's feed-in tariff."