Solar feed-in makes profit in ACT

Apri 9 2008, Proposed laws paying Canberra households top dollar to produce renewable
energy should be copied by the federal and state governments, a leading
green group says.

Households will be paid a tariff nearly four times the retail price of
electricity for any energy they produce from rooftop solar panels or
other renewable sources.

Under the planned electricity feed-in laws, contained in a private
member's bill introduced to the ACT Legislative Assembly today,
households would be paid a tariff 3.88 times the retail cost of
electricity for the clean energy they feed into the grid.

"The Stanhope government is delivering on its promise to take the
necessary measures to reduce our ecological footprint ... and combat
climate change," Labor MLA Mick Gentleman told the assembly.

Mr Gentleman said he hoped the bill would become law later this year and
that five per cent of Canberra households would be feeding renewable
energy into the local network within eight years.

Under the proposed laws, the grid operator must connect home producers
and must purchase their electricity.

The cost of the scheme will be passed onto all consumers in proportion
to the amount of electricity used in order to reduce the burden on
low-income families and pensioners.

"For example, if those in the ACTEW building across the way are using a
hundred times the power in comparison to a family in a three-bedroom
home in the suburbs, they will contribute a hundred times more to the
scheme," Mr Gentleman said.

ACT Conservation Council climate campaigner Genevieve Wauchope said the
scheme was the best on offer in Australia because the tariff applied to
the gross amount of electricity produced by households - not just the
net amount fed into the grid.

Ms Wauchope says the Commonwealth, South Australia and Victoria are all
looking to introduce net feed-in schemes but the scheme Mr Gentleman
proposes proposed is "much better."

"It's got a higher tariff rate and it puts it on the gross output which
means if you have quite a small (solar set-up) you can still afford to
put that on your roof and pay for it in an amount of time that is
reasonable."

Under the proposed laws, generators of renewable energy will be paid the
tariff for 20 years from the date they connected to the grid.

Original Source: West Australian / AAP: ACT households to get paid for producing energy