A new ‘sun tax’ on rooftop solar energy production and a reduction in feed-in tariffs to just two cents per kWh (if at all) apply from 1 July in South Australia, with NSW and Victoria to follow.
South Australia is supposed to be the ‘poster/boy/girl/person’ for the solar crusade. Yet, it has failed in almost every way to maximise rooftop solar energy production without serious use, or is that a waste of taxpayer money?
From its seriously over-generous 44 cents per kWh guaranteed feed-in tariff for rooftop solar installs prior to 1 October 2011, costing taxpayers $80 million a year to subsidise 82,000 households, to all manner of failed community battery and battery rebate schemes.
The Government was hell-bent on securing the solar credits to meet the Paris accord. It is not the model others should follow.
Sun tax
A new export charge, introduced by SA Power Networks (SAPN), will require energy retailers — and potentially their customers — to pay to export their energy to the grid under certain circumstances.
SAPN stated that the sun tax (referred to euphemistically as an export tariff) is necessary to fund an $80 million upgrade over five years of the state’s electricity grid, which, at times, has struggled to cope with the amount of solar energy being exported into the system.
It’s a convoluted tax approved by the Australian Energy Regulator. SAPN will charge residential and small business customers between .75 cents and 1 cent kWh for energy exported to the grid between 10 AM and 4 PM over the first 9 kWh.
Retailer Origin Energy said, “At this stage, we have not introduced export tariff charges for South Australian customers. We will continue to assess this policy change to better understand customer behaviour and impacts over the coming months.”
NSW and Victoria are also introducing this, with other states likely to follow.
Feed-in tariffs reduced
Most energy retailers have yet to declare their hand, but one thing is for sure: feed-in tariffs for new installations will be between zero and two cents. Subtract the sun tax, which applies during peak energy production times, and according to SAPN, the average cost is likely to be $1.50 per month for smaller installations and up to $6 for larger installations.
Victoria has already mandated that feed-in tariffs be reduced to 0.04 cents per kWh – why bother? The government says the grid simply cannot handle the export during the day. Enter the Cheaper Home Batteries Program – is it worth it? with the aim of stopping exports and ultimately forcing you to join a VPP scheme to steal your battery power at night when you need it.
If you are interested there is a good article on feed-in-tariffs here.
Add this to the insidious Demand Tariffs charges
We wrote about the insidious Demand tariff: Using too much off-peak power could see the end of cheaper rates, which is just another way to gouge consumers. Well, Demand tariffs are now targeting rooftop solar that may be largely self-sufficient when the sun shines but needs grid power when it does not. Suddenly, you experience a massive increase from almost a zero baseline load, and now your plan will be switched to a Demand Tariff, which could result in you paying several times as much for energy.
CyberShack – Sun tax and rooftop solar feed-in tariffs are simply about robbing hood!
I don’t pretend to understand the machinations of government. What is clear to me is that government subsidies to help install solar and batteries are an impost on all taxpayers that only help the few. Then the grid can’t cope, so they tax rooftop solar and offer a cheaper battery, which they use to help provide peak load, when the root of the problem is that renewables simply cannot meet energy supply demands.
Then they offer incentives to switch from gas to all-electric, further exacerbating the supply issues.
It’s like Whack-a-Mole, and the band-aid solutions are failing due to the lack of a proper whole-of-government fix.
It is similar to EV subsidies, which are yet another way for the government to obtain more energy credits to meet its Paris Accord commitments. Yet EVs are far more expensive to insure, heavier, so they wreck roads faster, and they need to spend over $2,000 to replace tyres every 20,000 km. Let’s not even mention the second-hand value debacle when companies like Tesla knock $20,000 off the retail price. Or that EV owners will be penalised by Demand Tariffs when charging at home.
Any enterprise that needs government subsidies to survive is not viable. Whatever happened to free-market economies and small government?
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