Barnett axed solar power scheme to kill off a rush

West Australian
2 August 2011, Page: 12

The State Government was forced to shut its popular solar panel subsidy scheme yesterday to prevent a "run" on it from householders who feared they might miss out, Premier Colin Barnett said. A day after saying the feed-in-tariff scheme, which pays households for electricity from rooftop solar panels fed into the energy grid, was "being monitored", Energy Minister Peter Collier suspended it. The West Australian reported yesterday that the scheme would soon hit the Government's 150 MW capacity cap, imposed to prevent the cost getting out of control.

The industry believed the cap would be hit within weeks but Mr Collier, after discussing the issue with Mr Barnett yesterday, suspended it immediately. "The decision had to be made", Mr Barnett said. "It was on the front page of The West Australian. "Once that appeared we had to act, otherwise there would have been a run on the scheme".

The scheme has been slashed twice before and the industry and Opposition said ending it would cost hundreds of jobs. Mr Barnett conceded the Government could not say how much capacity had been approved for the scheme before yesterday, but he believed it had just about reached the cap.

Despite being forced to cancel new applications just 11 months after the scheme began, Mr Collier continued to insist it had been "phenomenally successful". Shadow energy minister Kate Doust said the decision made no sense and the Government had no credibility on the environment. "It's going to put further pressure on families who wanted to cut back on their power bills", she said.

Sustainable Energy Association chief Ray Wills said the scheme was axed without warning and would likely have significant short-term negative effects on the solar installation industry, He said the Government failed to consult the industry and this made it difficult to plan. Professor Wills said the renewable energy industry was plagued by government decisions that caused boom and bust cycles that did not let it grow sustainably.