Page 6057 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 2010
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My department has developed a guide to assist community groups to organise themselves to take up these opportunities. I will be releasing that guide early next year to allow interested groups to form and consider their options prior to the commencement of the new scheme.
It is appropriate today to take the opportunity to once again correct some misinformation that circulates about the feed-in tariff on two fronts—first, that only those on high incomes can get access to the feed-in tariff scheme, and, second, that these schemes play a significant part in increasing electricity prices.
An analysis of ACT installations of solar PV systems to date shows that the largest number of installations have actually been in the quartile of lowest income households. The fact is that those 23 lowest income suburbs have a greater number of PV installations than the highest quartile suburbs, even though the high income suburbs have double the average income of the lowest. This shows that a wide range of Canberrans see the benefits of moving to a renewable energy generation future and have demonstrated this by investing their hard-earned money in solar PV systems.
The other furphy that has been repeated in this place is that FITs are a major contributor to rising electricity prices. That, too, is simply not the case. In the ACT the feed-in tariff is a way to achieve a step change increase in renewable energy generating capacity for the ACT over the coming 10 years. The cost so far to the ACT electricity consumer is around 20c a week.
So how will the fully expanded scheme affect ACT electricity consumers? The cost of the initial program has been capped, so when the ACT reaches 30 megawatts of roof-top solar renewable generating capacity in 18 months to two years time, no more feed-in tariff will be available. As those systems start producing all year round, ACT consumers will pay $1 a week extra. That is a fixed amount and it will not grow as their power bill increases.
In any event, the government has capped the maximum possible impact on ACT consumers at $4 a week at the end of 10 years, a fixed and maximum amount that will not increase. It is important to remember that other components of power bills will increase during this time. If the electricity bills increase at the rates they have in the last couple of years in New South Wales, but not in the ACT, that $4 will represent less than three per cent of the total power bill in 10 years time and will be responsible for providing 240 megawatts of renewable generating capacity in the ACT, approximately 25 per cent of its average daily electricity demand.
It is vital that as a community we recognise that the major drivers of increases in electricity costs are not feed-in tariffs or other measures to encourage the deployment of renewable energy generation but the costs of upgrading existing transmission infrastructure as it reaches the end of its economic life or requires augmentation because of increasing demand. It is worth restating that the cost of augmenting the electricity distribution network to meet increased demand due to energy-hungry big-screen televisions or air conditioners is a cost being borne by all consumers, not just those who can afford to buy and run those appliances.
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