Greg Hunt, Australia's environment minister, has avoided
questions about whether he had continued to give assurances to the solar
industry that the "one-million-solar roofs" initiative would go ahead
despite knowing that the policy had been scrapped by his party's leadership.
Australia’s renewable energy policy landscape has looked pretty grim since
its conservative coalition government came to power, in September 2013. One of
the bright spots for solar PV was that the environment minister repeatedly
committed to a AUD$600 million (US$564 million/€417 million) “solar roofs”
policy in the lead up to the election.
When the new government, in May of this year, handed down
the first budget there was no funding for the solar initiative, leading to some
in the solar industry to speculate whether it was ever intended to go ahead.
Over the weekend, Australia’s Fairfax Media reported
that the environment minister Greg Hunt had continued to publically commit to
the solar policy, despite knowing that his party’s leadership had not signed
off on it. Today, arriving at the Australian Parliament house, he dodged
questions on the topic.
''We had to make difficult decisions in the budget to undo
Labor's [the former government’s] catastrophic mess,'' Hunt said. ''Part of
this is making sure Australians have a lower cost of living and that is why we
will be abolishing the carbon tax lock, stock and barrel.''
Before the election Hunt had committed to the “solar roofs”
policy, which would have provided AUD$500 (US$470/€347) rebates for installing
one million residential solar arrays. Additionally community groups and
schools would be assisted to install solar on their buildings.
When the May budget was handed down, however, the AUD$600
million had been reduced to AUD$2 million (US$1.88 million/€1.39 million).
Questions about the solar roofs
In recent Senate Estimate hearings, Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam
questioned the environment ministry with regards to the missing solar roofs
policy. Government Senator Birmingham, representing environment minister Hunt,
said that in light of the cost reductions achieved by the solar industry,
continued funding “was not a possibility.”
“There have also of course been some very significant
decreases in the costs of solar technologies in recent years that have made
their uptake much more accessible to all parts of the community,” said
Birmingham.” “With all of those factors in mind, the government deemed that
proceeding with additional funding commitments at present was not a
possibility.”
Grid parity installations
Despite the increasingly difficult policy environment facing
solar installers, figures released last week show that installations appear to
be picking up in key markets.
Green Energy Markets released
the data, which shows that in the most populous states of Queensland, Victoria
and New South Wales (NSW), February through May 2014 saw and increase in
overall installations. There is no subsidized feed-in tariff in any of these
states.
Queensland particularly showed a strong level of
installations, with well over 20 MW/month of new PV capacity added in all four
months, with Victoria following with around 15 MW/month and NSW in third place
with around 10 MW/month. The commercial rooftop market in NSW looks
particularly promising as it does in the less populous South Australia.
Industry observers predict between 600 MW and 800 MW of new
PV capacity should be added in Australia in 2014. Whether the solar industry
can continue to maintain the cautious growth trend observed by Green Energy
Markets in the face of mounting policy opposition will be intriguing to
observe. What is clear is that the “one million solar roofs” certainly won’t be
helping.
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