Page 2210 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 22 June 2011
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Subsections 5E(1)(d) and (e) change the meaning of “compliant” for the category of micro generators. It replaces subsections 5E(1)(d) and (e) with a single clause that makes micro and medium renewable generators compliant if the total capacity of all micro and medium-scale generators connected to the network is below 30 megawatts or below another capacity that the minister sets, which is a power that exists in the current legislation. Thirty megawatts is the combined capacity of the previous micro and medium caps, and the clause retains that ability of the minister to determine another capacity.
Clause 5—section 8(1)(a)—changes the percentage of the premium rate that a micro renewable energy generator must be paid from 100 per cent of the premium rate to 75 per cent of the premium rate. This is an important feature of the bill today. This bill does not seek to change the impact of the current feed-in tariff regime on electricity consumers in Canberra. I think it is very important to be clear about that. This does not result in any additional cost.
We understand that, given the view of the Assembly back in February, we could not come back in here and propose a measure that left the scheme uncapped, as we would prefer. We also understand the views held by some in this place about the value and cost of the scheme. While we do not necessarily agree with those views, that is not what this bill is about. We can have that debate another day, and I have no doubt that we will. But this bill is about proposing a way forward that sits within the existing parameters.
Again, the date of 1 September makes it clear that micro generators connected prior to this date are eligible for 100 per cent of the premium rate, and that micro generators connected after 1 September are eligible for 75 per cent of the premium rate. We realise that it needed to be explicit in the legislation to avoid changing the payments to people who have already signed 20-year contracts. Currently, the act ensures that if the premium rate changes, generators are eligible for the premium rate as it was set in the year they became connected for the entire 20-year period, but they are not immune from changes to the percentage. In the past this has been dealt with in the determinations made by the minister, which have been specific about the year that a new percentage has applied to, and so we needed to deal with this in the bill as well.
Clause 6 repeals a determination made by the minister that commenced on 1 July 2010 which set the percentage for generators between 10 and 30 kilowatts capacity at 100 per cent.
In summary, I do not think this is an ideal situation, and perhaps one can assert it is not an ideal solution. Frankly, the Greens continue to hold that the micro scheme could be uncapped and the premium turned down over a period of a few years. That, of course, is how feed-in tariff schemes are supposed to work. But because the minister insisted on leaving the tariff at 45.7c for the next financial year, using the mechanism of rolling in the micro to the medium scale was the easiest and cleanest way of getting some immediate relief to the ACT solar sector, which has hit a brick wall.
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