Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday 4/12/2008 Page: 5
THE Federal Government, along with state Labor colleagues, appears to have ditched the idea of a significant national tariff for rooftop solar panels and other household sources of renewable energy. Most people who generate their own electricity would be likely to see little or no benefit from an agreement announced following a Council of Australian Governments meeting on the weekend.
A communique from the meeting, released on Tuesday, said people who fed power back into the grid could receive some payment for it but that it should be seen as a "transitional measure" that does "not impose a disproportionate burden on other energy consumers". The tariff would not be paid for by a levy on electricity generators, as in most other countries with a tariff, but should come from public funds, meaning earnings would be likely to be tied to short term economic changes.
But the "national principles" did not express a preference for either a net tariff or a more generous gross tariff, in which people would get paid for all the energy they produce, a spokeswoman for the Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, said. It was not intended to override separate schemes being employed by the states, the spokeswoman said. The renewable energy industry regards the council's guidelines as watered-down and ineffective. "It's clear that this type of tariff will not assist in the deployment of technology that is otherwise ready to go," John Grimes, chief executive of the Australian and New Zealand Solar Energy Society, said.
China's second-largest manufacturer of photovoltaic solar panels, Trina Solar, said it was poised to invest more in Australia but the signals from the council meeting had given it pause for thought. The Greens senator Christine Milne said the national feed-in tariff principles were so weak they could actually shrink the fledgling renewable energy industry.
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