Solar power dims

Courier Mail
Tuesday 2/12/2008 Page: 14

HERE's no digging involved, it requires no water, it comes free at the source and Australia has more of it than any other continent on Earth. So just why has our share in the world market for solar electricity been dwindling to a flicker over the past decade, where once there was a blinding light? Since 1998, Australia's share of the world's solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity market has been overtaken by the US, Spain, Germany and Japan.

The reason, solar industry experts claim, lies in a shameful decade-long litany of bad policy that has conspired to leave lingering clouds over their industry. "I think we should be appalled," says Trevor Berrill, who has been working in the solar industry for the last 30 years.

"We've developed some of the best solar technology in the world. When Europeans come here they expect to see solar panels all over the place. They're stunned when they can't find any." Given Australia's high-profile efforts to cut greenhouse emissions and reduce its water use, solar looks on paper at least to be holding all the cards.

Electricity from the sun, via photovoltaic panels, is established technology that, unlike coal, does not emit greenhouse gases or swallow huge volumes of water to drive turbines. But Berrill, a co-ordinator for lobby group Sustainable Energy Policy Queensland, says even with these advantages, investment in solar PV is dwarfed by support for clean coal.

"Look at the technology that is available now, then what you find is renewable energy technology solar PV. Not clean coal, that is still 15 years away." The biggest incentive for Australians to install solar electricity is a Federal Government rebate of up to $8000 for a solar PV system. But in a move that angered the industry, earlier this year the Rudd Government introduced a means test for the rebate, excluding any household with a combined income of $100,000 or more.

"That stymied the uptake," says Klaus Coia, owner of Redcliffe-based solar energy company Sunelec. "The problem was it excluded those households that had the disposable income and wanted to do something." He says while the headlines created through the means test raised awareness of solar PV, the size of the average installation actually has dropped.

Federal Government figures show Queensland has 1889 grid-connected solar systems, which ranks the Sunshine State below New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, which has 4019. Before any solar panel is installed, consumers are faced with a squall of rebates, certificates and tariffs many of which differ across states.

Coia says it's not only consumers who sometimes struggle with the policy. He says it's common for electricity companies to mistakenly charge consumers for the solar energy they produce, rather than the other way around. The most contentious issue for the solar industry is the concept of the feed-in-tariff the amount of money a consumer is paid for the electricity they produce.

In the run-up to last year's federal election, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told the industry he would consider a feed-in-tariff for the whole country. So the solar advocates were expecting welcome rays of sunshine from last weekend's meeting of the Council of Australian Governments, which has been tasked with investigating the tariff.

"We are getting increasingly impatient and frustrated with the lack of considered attention given to the national feed-in-tariff, given it was an election commitment 12 months ago," says Andrea Gaffney, national government relations manager for the Clean Energy Council. Earlier this year, Queensland joined South Australia in introducing a feed-in-tariff of 44C per kWh. But the consumer only gets paid if their panels are producing more electricity than they are using.

Lobbyists for the solar industry say this net tariff system is unfair, as the price doesn't reflect the environmental advantages of solar energy or the fact it is produced during peak periods when demand for electricity and the wholesale cost is at its highest. The Clean Energy Council wants the Federal Government to follow in the footsteps of Germany, which installs more solar panels than any other country in the world.

There the Government pays a gross feed-in-tariff on all the electricity that panels produce, not just the bits left over. Gaffney says introducing a similar tariff in Australia for domestic customers would cost somewhere between $7 and $12 annually per household. "That's just two or three cups of coffee," Gaffney says. "We are going to need everything at our disposal to reduce Australia's emissions. We need support that is balanced across technologies."