Installing solar PV panels - the figures don’t add up, BUT…

The government’s $8,000 rebate is clearly inadequate as a standalone incentive to encourage mass domestic installation of solar PV panels. If people like me, more committed than most to sustainable living practices, are not prepared to wait 21 years to break even, will yer average Joe be willing to fork out? I don’t think so.

So, whaddayado? Well, for a start, wonder why sun-deprived countries like Germany should have a far greater domestic uptake of solar PV panels than Australia. It doesn’t take much research before you wonder no more. Their government has made a serious commitment to solar energy; ours hasn’t.

The outstanding success of Germany’s solar PV panel uptake comes down to a simple policy: the feed-in tariff. The German government pays four times the market rate to anyone who generates electricity from solar PV panels, wind or hydro - and this payment is guaranteed for 20 years.

Power is far more costly in Germany than Australia (about 35p per unit according to a report last year from The Guardian, or 78c Australian … 5.5 times the 14c per unit we’re being charged in Western Australia). If the Australian government were to match the German feed-in tariff on a dollar-for-dollar basis, they would be paying solar PV panel households a feed-in tariff of about $3.12 per unit.

The feed-in tariff currently being sought from the Federal Australian government by solar PV advocates is 80c per unit. This is about 5.7 times the current cost per unit (as opposed to the German four times), but factoring in the relative cheapness of power in Australia, an 80c per unit feed-in tariff here works out at only about 25 per cent of the per unit contribution paid by the German government. Reasonable, surely?

An 80c feed-in tariff would slash the breakeven period for the system we were quoted on from 21 years to 3.7 years (less, of course, for cheaper systems). And after that breakeven point, at current rates we’d be paid about $1,285 a year for the electricity generated by the six solar PV panels. Add more panels down the track and it is quite conceivable that you could cover your household energy costs and make some carbon-free profit from the sun hitting your roof! Thus, with an 80c feed-in tariff, investing in domestic solar suddenly makes a whole lotta sense.

The government is canning the means-tested $8,000 rebate mid-year and replacing it with a more complicated system. Even if the current rebate was halved to $4,000, add an 80c feed-in tariff to the equation and breakeven is only 6.8 years away. Still viable by most reckonings, I would think.

Seems to me a no-brainer, then, that our government should adopt a similar domestic renewable energy strategy to that which has been so successful in Germany. With a feed-in tariff of 80c, solar PV panels would become a compelling investment, both financially for the individual and environmentally for the community as a whole.

Further, at a time when recessionary forces are threatening jobs and both major parties are talking up investment in infrastructure as a prudent measure in the current economic crisis, substantial employment would be created by increased demand for solar PV panels. This is not mere postulation. In Germany, the push for renewables has spawned a quarter of a million jobs and strengthened the economy. With our climatic advantages, why are we dawdling so?

Some states already have feed-in tariffs (albeit inadequate), but the approach here is a dog’s breakfast. Each State government has a different policy, ranging from 60c in Victoria to zilch in WA and NSW.

We need a simple nationalised feed-in tariffs program, based on the successful German model. Why reinvent the wheel? Both major parties went to the last Federal election promising feed-in tariffs - where’s the action to back up the rhetoric? Give them a poke!

Urge the Federal government to introduce an 80c feed-in tariff with a 15-year guarantee by adding your name to the petition at www.feedintariff.com.au.

Or write to your local Federal Member of Parliament requesting they honour their pre-election commitment and move to introduce gross feed-in tariffs as soon as possible to increase solar power use in Australia. You may wish to direct your email to the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett. His email address is Peter.Garrett.MP@aph.gov.au

Finally, help to build momentum by sending on links to this article and/or the feed-in tariff petition. No matter how acute the selective deafness of politicians, the roar of the people will get through if it’s loud enough.