Feed-in tariff announced for Canberra

The ACT Minister for Energy, Simon Corbell, recently released details of Stage 1 of the ACT’s Electricity Feed-in Tariff Scheme for households and commercial buildings, confirming the scheme will start 1 March 2009.

“Last year, the ACT Labor government introduced the Electricity Feed-in (Renewable Energy Premium) Act,” Corbell said. “Today I am announcing a series of amendments to the Act to clarify its operation and allow it to commence for households and commercial buildings on 1 March this year.”

Unlike other schemes in Australia, the scheme will pay people for each unit of renewable electricity produced, rather than the excess remaining after the producer’s own consumption has been deducted.

“The government is confident that this will lead to a major uptake in the installation of renewable energy generation on households and commercial buildings,” Corbell said. “Renewable generators will be paid 50.05 cents per kilowatt hour exclusive of GST. This is 3.88 times the calculated normal cost of electricity.”

The government is confident the amendments will be passed by the Legislative Assembly on 12 February to allow the scheme to commence on 1 March.

The scheme will be introduced in two stages. Stage 1 will allow householders and commercial building owners with renewable energy generation of up to 30 kW capacity to be eligible for the tariff. The average size installation for a household is around 1.5 kW. At 30 kW, large commercial buildings such as shopping centres, office complexes and warehouses will also be eligible. Stage 2 will introduce tariffs for larger-scale generation.

“I anticipate that details of Stage 2 will be announced in June this year, allowing Stage 2 to start from the original 1 July commencement date outlined in the Act,” Corbell said. “With the introduction of the scheme, Canberrans can become more involved in the process of reducing our greenhouse emissions and enable the ACT to become the solar energy capital of Australia.

“The ACT’s climate change strategy, Weathering the Change, sets out our vision for responding to climate change and this proposed feed-in tariff is a key part of that response.

“At the moment, the proposed scheme is focused on solar and wind technologies that develop renewable energy, but we have been careful to make sure it can be expanded to include new technologies as they emerge.”