AUSTRALIAN STATE GOES WITH F-I-T

Solar power to the people
Andy Parks, 25 June 2009 (The Northern Rivers Echo)

"The [New South Wales] NSW Government has announced details of a solar feed in tariff scheme that will begin on January 1 next year. Under the scheme people who produce solar electricity and feed it back into the grid will be paid around four times the average price of electricity.

"The scheme will be available to systems up to 10 kilowatts in size, which Climate Change Minister Carmel Tebbutt said would cover households, small businesses, some community organisations and some schools…"

click to enlarge

[Carmel Tebbutt, Climate Change Minister, New South Wales:] “While the scheme will initially apply to roof-top solar panels, we will consider the inclusion of micro wind turbines and community solar farms…”

[Gordon Fraser-Quick, Co-ordinator, Solar Roll out program:] “Financial benefit must not be the principal driver in our investment decisions about the sources and forms of energy and appliances we choose to use, (but) the feed in tariff system will encourage even more climate friendly renewable energy infrastructure and the added economic return on investment will be a spur…”

Reason #2 for New Energy incentives in Australia: They can do much better. (click thru for the full report on Australia)

"[Fraser-Quick ] said on the downside it was unfortunate that the scheme is limited to sites where the total energy use is below 160 megawatt hours per annum…

"The Opposition’s spokesperson for Climate Change, Catherine Cusack, said the scheme was “too little, too late” and would not deliver the kick start the renewable energy industry needed in NSW…[and] said the coalition would introduce a gross tariff that pays for all the electricity produced (not just left-over power that goes back into the grid), would not cap the scheme at 10KW so large businesses could also participate and would open the scheme to all renewable energy including small scale wind, hydro and gas, not just solar."