Under the scheme, solar homes selling electricity back to the grid will see none of the 60cent per kilowatt hour owed to them, and instead the payment will be in the form of a credit on their electricity bill that will be cancelled out every 12 months.

The government's decision to cancel any remaining credit, at the end of each year, will leave solar homes in the perverse position of either forgoing their credits or deliberately increasing their energy use, says Damien Moyse, ATA's Energy Policy Manager.

"For a modestly energy efficient household with a 3kW solar system, this perverse scheme could result in $1000 or more loss."

"A use it or lose it scheme encourages homes to consume more energy, and is in complete contradiction to the need for Australia to decrease energy consumption and reduce emissions."

Mr Moyse says the government also plans to exclude solar systems larger than 3.2kW from receiving the tariff.

"Community buildings, churches, farms and schools that need to install larger systems to cover their energy needs will not receive a fair payment for the clean energy they contribute to Victoria's power supply." ATA is calling for the state government to bring Victoria's scheme in line with other states and include all PV systems up to 10kW.

Mr Moyse says the government has completely missed the point of a feed-in tariff.

"The key reason for having a feed-in tariff is to drive rapid, large scale up-take of solar systems and bring down the costs of installing solar, as electricity from dirty sources gets more expensive."

"Under the state government's proposal there will be little to no change in the current uptake of solar installations, and once again consumers and the solar industry will lose out."

Related Links
ATA - Alternative Technology Association
All About Solar Energy at SolarDaily.com

Tempe AZ (SPX) May 01, 2009
First Solar has announced that it will supply photovoltaic (PV) modules to Solar Shop Australia, Pty Ltd. (Solar Shop), for a 1 megawatt (MW) DC rooftop project.