Total Environment Centre (TEC’s) energy market advocate, Mark Byrne, warns that a serious lack of competition in the export of rooftop solar systems could lead to an energy market death spiral.
New data from TEC reveals that there is little effective competition in the market for the energy exported from rooftop solar systems. As a result, his strategy could backfire on retailers and hasten the energy market death spiral.
TEC’s report shows for the first time all the current government feed-in tariffs and solar export prices offered by electricity retailers in all states and territories for residential customers.
The results are not pretty. There is no competition at all for residential customers over two-thirds of Australia -- in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Tasmania and most of Queensland. Even where competition does exist, most retailers only offer what state governments mandate them to offer.
Where there is no minimum price for exported energy, only a handful of retailers offer more than a token amount.
There are two small retailers that deserve praise - Click Energy, which offers 10 cents to solar customers, and Horizon Power, which offers 50 cents in some isolated towns in WA reflecting the higher cost of supply in those areas.
But on a national scale, it’s just not good enough. We need a fair and stable price for those who invest in solar power and enthusiastic participation by the big players. We also need to ensure the real economic value of solar power is reflected in the price being paid to PV system owners.
Solar exported from households avoids the high cost of building more poles and wires and the line losses of having to transport electricity over long distances.
Solar helps to reduce demand in peak periods, driving down the wholesale cost of electricity. To protect existing solar customers and help grow the solar sector in Australia, TEC recommends a fair and stable price for valuable solar energy output and regulatory reform to prevent tariff structures (such as higher fixed daily charges and higher time of use tariffs) that discriminate against solar owners. Report details at www.tec.org.au. ?