Everyone Pays More for Solar Subsidies

Every Australian household will pay up to $190 more each year to fund even more solar subsidies, a new analysis has found. This is on top of the massive subsidies that have already pushed electricity prices so high.

Yikes! That’s $190 that you could have in your pocket!

The Australian Reports:

Energy consumers are set to pay nearly $2 billion for rooftop solar installation subsidies next year, hiking power costs by up to $190 for every household, an expert analysis has found.

The federal government’s small-scale renewable energy scheme (SRES) — which the competition regulator (ACCC) wants wound down and abolished — will result in the cost of subsidies ballooning by 50 per cent to about $1.8 billion including GST in 2019, according to Sydney-based renewables trader Demand Manager.

….analysis of the cost of small-scale technology certificates, which are handed to consumers installing solar panels and then bought back by electricity retailers, shows a soaring cost to all power users.

About 30 million new certificates will be created this year and more than 36 million certificates are forecast to be supplied in 2019, the trader says. The “cost per household in Australia is in the order of $190 per household”, Demand Manager owner Jeff Bye said in a report released yesterday. “The SRES is effectively an uncapped program — the more solar installations, the higher the SRES program cost.

Not surprisingly, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) was also highly-critical of the subsidy in its report on the national electricity market earlier this year.

It found that solar schemes were too generous and unfairly disadvantaged lower-income households.

Advance Australia stands for more affordable, reliable power. We are not anti solar – to the contrary, we are anti subsidy. It’s not right that in a country like Australia pensioners can’t afford to put a heater on in winter or use an air conditioner in summer because of deliberate increases in power prices.

Reference
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/2-billion-solar-subsidies-to-send-household-bills-through-the-roof/news-story/2ef58d679bc6be9539a83c1a2a597dbf