The Solar Bonus Scheme announced by the Queensland Government in March looks to introduce Australia’s second feed-in tariff, following closely in the footsteps of South Australia. And whilst it is welcome to see more governments moving down the path towards what has proven internationally to be a remarkably successful mechanism for increasing the uptake of renewable energy, there is some confusion over the design of the Queensland scheme.

Upon announcing the scheme in Parliament, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said year “the Solar Bonus Scheme will pay households and businesses 44c for every kilowatt hour generated from solar power systems at work and at home and then fed into the grid”. However, since then the Department of Mines and Energy is indicating that the feed-in tariff would be paid on the excess electricity fed into the grid after in-home consumption. This is a very different scheme.

To make sure the Solar Bonus Scheme is fair and effective write a letter to your local member of Queensland parliament, Premier Anna Bligh, and the Minister for Mines and Energy, Geoff Wilson MP, to seek clarification on this issue, and to call for the Queensland Government to ensure that any feed-in tariff scheme is paid on the total generation of the eligible renewable energy system.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Feed-in Tariffs, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.