Home Solar Incentives In Australia
The United States does not have a home solar incentive near as good as Australia. For the last 8 years, Republicans have blocked solar incentives at the request of big oil. It is sad that the United States is who invented solar panels and yet we have lost our first advantage and continue to fall further behind the world.
Big news for the home solar industry in Australia.
The Senate in Australia passed the Renewable Energy Target (RET) bill which gives $7,000 to anyone who installs at least a 9 panel (1.5kW) solar energy system.
This was originally one bill that had a RET portion and a ETS portion. When it became clear that the fighting over the ETS portion was going to delay its passage, the Coalition and business and green lobby groups pressured the Senate to split the RET and the ETS portions of this bill into two separate bills. The Senate agreed and the RET portion passed.
The home solar discount is available for all grid connected buildings, whether principal place of residence, rental, holiday home, commercial premises or rural construction. The scheme has no means test; the rebate threshold of a household taxable income of $100,000 has been abolished.
The home solar credits scheme operates by assigning a value 5 times the market value of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).
RECs started in Australia in December 2001, and are designed to place a monetary value on the displacement of greenhouse gases. One REC is equivalent to approximately one mega Watt hour of electricity produced, or about one ton of abated greenhouse emissions. They provide financial incentive to place less reliance on the burning of fossil fuel.
Depending on your latitude and how many sunshine hours you receive, there are usually 31 RECs attached to a 1.5kW solar energy installation. The value of a REC is subject to market variation, and they are currently trading at approx $35. This equates to $1,085 value in RECs for a 1kW installation. Under Solar Credits, this figure is multiplied by five, to give a total discount of $5,425.
Home solar credits will apply to the first 1.5 kW of capacity installed. For systems above 1.5kW, customers will be eligible for the standard 1:1 rate of RECs. Home solar credits/RECs are issued by the Office of Renewable Energy Regulator (ORER) for the lifetime generation of the system, and customers can elect to either assign them to the installer to keep the upfront cost of the solar energy installation down, or hold on to them just as you would a share portfolio.
Now why can not something like this be done in the United States of America were solar panels were first invented. I guess in America it is all about money and the big oil and energy companies do not want you producing your own energy, even if it is better for the environment. They would rather destroy all life on the planet rather than lose you as a paying energy customer.
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