The Department of Energy Project Team have released Issues and Supplementary Papers which have some fundamental errors.
The errors relate to:
1. Potential cost of FIT (Feed-In Tariff)
2. Customer impact examples in the issues paper and not address properly in the supplementary paper.
3. Change to the closing date of submissions.
Quote from issues paper:
“If the current 1:1 FIT remained in place, Aurora estimates that the cost of the scheme could potentially rise to almost $10 million in 2013-14, based on a continuation of recent installation trends.”
The problem with this statement is that it is not factual. Aurora in its solar installation data has projected that the cost to Aurora for the FIT would reach $7.4 Million. When the issues paper quoted this year’s figures it rightly discounted the normal cost for energy to Aurora when it quoted $3.4 Million for the cost of FIT for 2012/13. That means that this $7.4 Million figure actually should read $4.9 Million for 2013/14.
We believe this shows a lack of understanding on the part of the government of how to read and comprehend these figures from Aurora.
Tariff 41 in the examples:
This is another error of fact in the information provided by the government in the issues paper. The examples are showing that offset consumption on tariff 41 is $70.38 @ 16.757c. There are no installed solar systems which are connected to tariff 41. In order for the above example to be true the solar installation needs to be connected to tariff 41 and tariff 31. This does not occur. These examples are now out in the public domain and are misleading everyone who reads the documents. Once again, it shows a complete lack of understanding of how a solar installation works and an unwillingness by the government to consult with the industry properly.
The supplementary paper still includes 6 examples of power used off a rooftop solar system through Tariff 41/42.
We believe that these examples of fundamental errors in the issues paper show that those who will be making decisions on this very important issue of feed in tariffs must ensure a level of understanding of how distributed generation operates with the grid before any level of feed-in is determined.
Download:
thirgoodFeed-in-tariff-issues-paper.pdf
thirgoodissues_paper_suplement_468.pdf
thirgoodSubmission_Feed-in_Tariffs_Save_Our_Solar_Tas-org-sml.pdf
• Alex Whiteside, in Comments: I continue to read with concern the , deliberately, very vague policy statements of the various parties on Solar PV and Hot Water:
