Our power is greener: - ActewAGL Feed-in tariff `generous'

Canberra Times
Monday 16/2/2009 Page: 5

Buying electricity from ActewAGL's Greenchoice program would be more cost-effective and more efficient in protecting the environment than the ACT Government's feed-in scheme, ActewAGL's retail head Ivan Slavich said yesterday. The scheme, which Mr Slavich and the ACT Government say is the most generous in Australia, will pay almost four times the retail price of electricity to households and small businesses which produce electricity from renewable sources such as photovoltaic modules.

Mr Slavich said producing electricity from renewable sources was clearly more cost-effective from large-scale projects, such as wind and solar farms. Under the ACT Government's scheme, it would cost about $360 million to install photovoltaic modules on 10,000 premises to produce only 3% of the ACT's annual electricity need ... about the equivalent of the peak in recent hot weather.

Under the feed-in scheme, suppliers of electricity will be paid up to 50.05c a kW hour from March 1 to June 30, next year. Premium payments will be guaranteed for 20 years with the cost passed to all ACT consumers. This will include the cost of installing new meters to suppliers under the scheme. Under ActewAGL's Greenchoice, which has about 9000 subscribers, the extra cost of renewable electricity is 6.5c a kW hour, or about 50% of the retail price.

Mr Slavich said houses using 100% Greenchoice were more green than a house with a five kW photovoltaic capacity. He said this was about the capacity needed to supply the annual needs of average ACT houses. The installation cost of these modules would be about $60,000. The average ACT household electricity bill was about $1200. On average, people with photovoltaic panels would receive $4000 for the electricity they generated.

Energy Minister Simon Corbell said yesterday the feed-in scheme would produce only modest amounts of electricity but would encourage a greater level of economic activity at the local level. Based on projections of the scheme's take-up, the average annual household electricity bill would increase by $9 to $12. Larger consumers would bear a greater proportion of the increase. "The Government believes very strongly we need to protect low income earners as we make this transition," Mr Corbel] said.

The most obvious way of giving protection was to increase the energy subsidy. But the Government must consider what it could afford. The director of the ACT Council of Social Service, Roslyn Dundas, said 15% of ACT residents received an energy concession and small fluctuations of energy and food prices impacted disproportionately on these households. "This could push them over the edge," she said. On March 3, the ACT Government will conduct an industry consultation on an large-scale solar energy plant, capable of supplying electricity for 10,000 homes.