Page 2000 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 25 June 2008
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In this regard I am disappointed that the Queanbeyan-based company Dyesol recently failed to find suitable accommodation in the ACT. Its Dyesolar technology, while not as efficient in terms of energy capture, is cheaper to produce, able to be deployed on most building materials and able to operate at lower light levels than conventional PV technology. Perhaps the government can explain why we lost that particular industry to New South Wales.
Climate change impacts will have a bigger burden on low-income households than on wealthier ones. There has been community concern that this proposal will result in low-income and rental households subsidising high-income households and I am proposing an amendment to address this problem. There are already concessions for people who due to their age, their health, their housing or other factors have no choice but to use more than average levels of electricity to keep warm or cool. Such households should be prioritised in a retrofitting scheme, remembering that energy efficiency and the reduction in energy use are the low-hanging fruit in terms of reducing greenhouse emissions and they are a necessary accompaniment to feed-in laws to make them fair.
In this case, the increased levy from the feed-in tariff and the $8,000 federal subsidy for PV installation are only part of the costs to government. People who take up this offer are benefiting the many in the long run. It is largely not the wealthy households who have so far taken up the federal subsidy; rather, it is people who are passionate about ameliorating climate change impacts and who can afford to do so.
The tariff structure offered in this bill does not provide an option of sales into the spot market. In future years we would like the pricing to reflect that solar production is maximised during peak summer demand. If electricity is priced so that peak time usage is charged at a higher rate, it would make sense to also pay a higher tariff for energy production and feed-in at a premium spot rate. People have overexaggerated the cost differential being paid for solar energy by ignoring the fact that it largely replaces peak load power, which is bought at a premium by companies such as ActewAGL.
Spot rates were discussed at one of the public forums held by Mr Gentleman and we understand that some other jurisdictions with feed-in tariffs have varying rates to take into account the spot market, including Slovenia, Spain and the Czech Republic. To encourage efficiencies this premium tariff design should be considered, instead of the fixed-tariff design proposed here.
The combination of a direct subsidy and an increased feed-in tariff is a good incentive to attract private capital investment. Further subsidies could be made in the electrical component installation. Even with the federal subsidy it will still be expensive for householders to install solar PV when an average array costs around $13,000. We need to urge the federal government to increase this subsidy in the short term and to revoke the means testing so that the states introducing feed-in tariff legislation are supported.
We also need to increase the incentives for solar hot water installation. Michael Raper of the National Welfare Rights Network has argued that 50 to 80 per cent of the costs
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