Lake Macquarie Council says there needs to be more consistency in State Government policy to encourage more households to become energy efficient.
In its submission to the Government, the Council has suggested it make a number of improvements to the Renewable Energy Action plan.
Before the solar bonus scheme ended, the Government slashed tariffs to customers from 60 cents to 20 cents per-kilowatt hour.
Council’s Sustainability Manager, Alice Howe says there has been a huge drop in the number of households installing solar panels.
“We have provided a number of improvements to the plan such as providing some consistency in the planning framework, for example Lake Macquarie has had a huge uptake of photovoltaic systems,” she said.
“We actually have twice as much as the average.
“That’s really fallen away with the removal of the feed in tariff so for our local industry and residents we’d like to see some consistency in Government policy on renewables.”
Ms Howe says local solar installation businesses are struggling to survive due to uncertainty over rebates and a big drop off in demand.
“We did have quite a growth in our industry locally,” she said.
“Certainly the retailers have indicated that they have been struggling since the feed-in tariff has been removed and that there has been no alternative provided for them.
“So they’ve been left in an uncertain economic environment and that has hurt them.”
