Solar power incentives come and go - sometimes with little warning - and the latest initiative where the future seems uncertain for new systems installed from late this year is Victoria’s solar feed in tariff.
According to a report on Weekly Times Now, Victoria has already installed 70 megawatts of solar panel based electricity generation capacity under the state’s feed-in-tariff program since the initiative began 18 month ago and it’s expected the 100 megawatt cap will be reached within the next six months.
Victoria has two solar feed in tariffs, premium and standard. The premium program pays owners of home solar power systems of up to five kilowatts in size a guaranteed minimum credit of at least 60 cents per kilowatt hour for surplus electricity generated and fed back into the mains grid. The standard feed-in tariff only offers a “one-for-one” payment rate for any excess electricity fed back into the state’s electricity grid.
Information posted on the Victoria Department of Primary Industries web site states that once the 100 megawatt limit or cap is reached, “new customers will not be able to sign up for the Premium rate. However, they will still be eligible for the Standard Feed-in-Tariff.” However, the Weekly Times Now article appears to indicate the future of the scheme past the 100MW cap is not set in stone.
Victoria still relies heavily on coal fired power generation and is home to Hazelwood Power Station, considered one of the most polluting facilities of its type in the world. Hazelwood burns brown coal, the most emissions intensive form of the fossil fuel used in electricity generation.
According to a report released last year by Environment Victoria, at the end of 2009, coal still dominated electricity generation in the state at 92 per cent of total generation. Victoria’s reliance on coal increased in real terms between 2000 and 2009, with 51,697GWh of electricity generated from coal in 2009, up by 9 percent on 2000 levels. During the same time period, greenhouse emissions from electricity production increased by 10 per cent.
