Feed-in Tariffs in SA
South Australia is a leader in solar – there are hundreds of thousands of solar homes across the state that are pumping out clean power and slashing electricity bills for both solar owners and the whole community. But some retailers are giving solar owners a raw deal by paying them next to nothing for their clean energy that’s fed back to the grid. To make matters worse, those same retailers on-sell that same electricity for between three to five times the price. It’s daylight robbery!
That’s why Solar Citizens is campaigning for a Fair Price for Solar – to make sure that retailers recognise all the benefits that solar provides, including the environmental, health and network benefits.
At the beginning of this year, the Essential Services Commission of South Australia deregulated the minimum feed-in tariff retailers had to pay to solar owners, while threatening to re-regulate a minimum if the retailers did not increase their feed-in tariffs inline with rising wholesale power prices.
Since then, some retailers have done the right thing and increased their feed-in tariffs when power prices rose in July 2017, but some retailers have refused to recognise the role of solar households in the 21st century electricity grid.
The commission recently released a table of the feed-in tariff offers provided by retailers. It’s as clear as day that not all retailers are offering a fair price of at least 11 to 19 cents. Solar owners aren’t getting a fair deal and it’s time to re-regulate.
As always, when looking for the best offer from your retailer it is important to check the feed-in price against other charges to make sure you’re not getting paid more for your solar while being ripped off somewhere else. At least with this table, you have a place to start.
If you’ve found this blog useful, changed your supplier or contacted your retailer to get a better deal for your solar and saved money, please let us know by emailing [email protected].
