Installing solar panels is about to become even more attractive in the Australian state of Victoria – and existing solar owners also have cause for celebration.
Victoria’s Essential Services Commission (ESC) has set a minimum feed-in tariff rate of 11.3 cents per kilowatt hour for surplus electricity exported to the mains grid – more than double the current rate of 5 cents.
The announcement comes as a pleasant surprise given the increase is far larger than the 20% more forecast in October last year.
3.8 cents of the increase is a result of wholesale market price increases and 2.5 cents is attributable to the avoided social cost of carbon. .6 cents is attributed to the value of avoided distribution and transmission losses and .1c to avoided market fees and ancillary service charges.
The new rate comes into effect from July 1 this year.
“With this new feed-in tariff, the Andrews Labor Government is ensuring that households with solar panels are more fairly compensated for the power they send back into the grid,” said Victoria’s Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change Lily D’Ambrosio.
“This is a great win for the 130,000 solar households all over Victoria, we promised a fairer system and that’s exactly what we have delivered.”
Solar Citizens welcomed the announcement, saying Victoria has set an example for other states.
“Solar Citizens congratulates the Victorian Government and the ESC for this decision, a decision that’s in the best interests of all consumers,” said Shani Tager; who also stated the advocacy group has its sights set on encouraging other Australian states follow Victoria’s lead.
“We hope to see other regulatory bodies in Australia correcting the market failure that is seeing, in some states, solar producers being paid next to nothing for the power they produce.”
Low solar feed-in tariffs in Australia have been part of the reason there’s been so much recent interest in solar batteries. Solar power system owners have been looking to extract the most from their arrays; preserving their high-value electricity for self- consumption.
With the new feed in tariff in place, installing solar panels in Victoria will become an even better investment – with or without energy storage.
