Sydney Morning Herald
Friday 12/6/2009 Page: 6
The NSW Government is set to miss its own deadline for bringing in rooftop solar panel tariffs, which it announced last year as a centrepiece of the state's climate change plan. The delay is causing further confusion for thousands of people considering switching to solar, many of whom learnt this week they had missed out on the Federal Government's solar installation subsidy when the cutoff date was changed.
The NSW Environment Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, pledged in November to decide by January what sort of tariff would be paid to people with solar panels, and to have a scheme running "by the middle of the year". Yesterday a spokeswoman for Ms Tebbutt said a final decision would be made "shortly". Last month, the Energy Minister, Ian McDonald, told parliament a decision on solar tariffs would be made "in the near future", which he said meant "some time shortly".
The reference to the scheme starting this year has since been removed from the Department of Energy's website. The Herald understands the delay is due to disagreement between the departments of environment and energy, and the Treasury over what sort of tariff to adopt. Some in the Department of Environment and Climate Change favour a "gross" tariff, in which people would get a small payment for every kW of energy they generate from the sun and which would do more to stimulate the solar industry in NSW.
The energy department is thought to prefer a "net" tariff, where only surplus power that is fed back into the energy grid attracts a bonus. This would mean far fewer people can take advantage of it. But the Government is concerned that a strong tariff would mean people who cannot afford the installation costs of solar panels would be subsidising those who can, because the tariff would be paid for by a small rise to all electricity bills. However, a study by Access Economics found that even a strong tariff would mean a rise of only about $2 a year on power bills. The gross tariff plan is backed by the NSW Greens, the Property Council and Unions NSW.
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