RET legislation update...

[Ramjet]

Got this in an email from the ATA today...for anyone who's interested.

On Thursday 24th June, the Australian Parliament passed significant changes to the Renewable Energy Target (RET) legislation, many of which are extremely positive for Alternative Technology Assoctiation (ATA) members and households who want to invest in small scale generation and energy efficiency technologies.

ATA members may recall that in August 2009, the Federal Government secured one of its 2007 election promises-to expand the RET to ensure that 20% of Australia’s electrical energy came from renewables in the year 2020.

Whilst the expansion of the RET was a positive move, a number of key design features that ATA, along with a number of other community and industry organisations, had been advocating for were overlooked by the government.

The most significant of these was the fact that strong incentives for small scale systems such as solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and solar hot water units, were leading to an oversupply of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) in the market, crashing their price, and significantly hampering the ability of large scale projects to develop.

>From ATA’s perspective, the existence of fixed annual targets within the RET, and the existence of the ‘Solar Credits’ multiplier for small solar, small wind and micro-hydro systems, meant that not only were investors in small scale technologies being prevented from achieving anything additional beyond the government’s mandated targets, but that they were actually reducing the amount of new renewable energy installed by four times the size of their system – clearly not their intention!

After significant lobbying and media pressure over the past six months, the Federal Government finally agreed to amending the design of their expanded RET scheme.

The solution offered by the government through the new ‘enhanced’ RET will see the small and large scale renewable energy markets split into two totally separate trading markets – so that activity and investment in one will not compromise the other.

>From 1 January 2011, there will be a Small Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) and a Large Renewable Energy Target (LRET).

The LRET will continue to operate in much the same way as the existing RET – but with eligibility restricted to large scale renewables such as wind farms, bio-gas plants, wave, geo-thermal and large scale solar projects. The LRET will have annual targets that make up approximately 90% of the existing RET.

The SRES will make up the remaining shortfall, and will likely in the short term go higher than the existing RET targets, meaning that the new scheme will likely deliver slightly more renewable energy across Australia.

Most importantly to ATA members and investors in small scale technologies, the SRES will be uncapped – that is, there will be no fixed annual targets for small scale technologies. All RECs from small systems such as solar PV, small wind, solar hot water, heat pumps and micro-hydro systems will be purchased each year by electricity retailers.

The lack of a cap or annual targets for the SRES means that two fundamental problems of investing in small scale technologies have now been solved:

* Firstly, investors in small scale technologies can be additional to the targets mandated by the government; and
* Secondly, investors in small scale technologies will not be reducing the amount of new renewable energy installed.

The SRES will also include a fixed price for RECs of $40, providing greater financial certainty to investors in small scale technologies.

Finally, the ‘enhanced’ RET will also see the Solar Credits multiplier extend to investors in remote off-grid systems – up to 20 kW in size. This is a positive step after the scrapping of the remote off-grid subsidy (the Remote Renewable Power Generation Program) in September 2009.

ATA’s Energy Policy Team would like to thank all members for your continued support, which provides the ability for ATA to engage in these policy debates on behalf of our members, and influence outcomes.

We would also like to thank members specifically who provided data and information or who took the time to write to their respective politicians throughout this process.

There may be more info at -

If I read it correctly, they have scrapped the cap (which I thought was a dumb idea...) on energy supplied to the grid, so you can pump in as much as you want now? Small scale energy company?

[Ramjet]

Further to ATA’s e-bulletins in June regarding the changes to the Renewable Energy Target (RET) legislation, the Australian Government has now finalised the regulations governing the support of off-grid renewable systems.

As anticipated, the new system relies on the ‘Solar Credits’ scheme multiplier to provide the financial incentive for people in remote areas to invest in off-grid systems. For grid-connected systems, the Solar Credits scheme allows households and businesses to create and sell five times the amount of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) for systems up to 1.5kW in capacity.

For proponents of off-grid systems, the Solar Credits REC multiplier will now be eligible if you are installing an off-grid system up to 20kW in capacity. The multiplier itself reduces over time (by a factor of one) between mid 2012 and mid 2015.

For more detail on the eligibility requirements of off-grid systems under the Solar Credits scheme, please go to:

Financially, the new scheme is not as attractive as the previous Remote Renewable Power Generation Program (RRPGP) which many members will be familiar with. The old RRPGP provided direct federal budget grants to off-grid proponents, commencing back in 2001 and ending in late 2009.

However with significant cost reductions in solar and battery technology in particular over the past 18 months, the potential for developing off-grid power generation systems continues to improve.