Victorian feed-in tariff legislation passed through parliament
The Victorian solar feed-in tariff legislation was successfully passed through the Legislative Council last Thursday night (25th June) and will come into effect in the next couple of months. The ATA would like to thank members for their great contributions to this process over the past 18 months. Below is an update on the progress of the legislation and its final amendments.
After last minute negotiations by all parties, the following amendments were added to the Victorian Government’s original bill:
- the size of the systems eligible under the scheme was increased from 3.2 kW to 5.0 kW; and
- community buildings and small businesses who use less than 100 MWh per year were made eligible to participate.
In addition, two retailers have now confirmed publicly that they will pay customers for the energy they export, rather than extinguishing their credit at the end of twelve months.
These amendments go some way toward what the ATA and a number of other organisations including Environment Victoria and the Moreland Energy Foundation were calling for. As many members will recall, we formally called for a 10 kW system cap; businesses and community organisations to be eligible and for payment at the end of a twelve month billing period.
Unfortunately however, our call for a gross feed-in tariff scheme was not supported by either of the major parties. The legislation remains a 60c net scheme that will see solar owners paid only for the excess electricity they export to the grid.
Combined with the move towards the Solar Credits Scheme at a Federal level, these two policies will see payback for small scale solar systems remain at around 15 – 20 years. As such, we do not envisage large scale uptake across Victoria at this stage and would expect to see some level of drop off from the rates of uptake we saw in the last months of the federal government’s $8,000 rebate. ATA will however continue to advocate strongly to governments in support of small scale renewable energy and will be keeping a close eye on the level of success or otherwise of these schemes over the next twelve months and beyond.
On a more positive note, ATA would sincerely like to thank all members who have contributed information, data and experiences in relation to this process. Member contributions have been of enormous value in engaging with government and industry on this policy issue and have greatly added to the debate. One of the real strengths of the ATA continues to be the ability for staff to communicate efficiently and effectively with members on issues and highlight these contributions in the public debate and this has been very well demonstrated in regards to the feed-in tariff.
Thank you once again for your support throughout this campaign to date and should you have any queries regarding the legislation, please do not hesitate to contact Damien Moyse, ATA Policy Manager at damien@ata.org.au
