Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The federal government's short-sighted hostility to renewable energy in favour of fossil fuels has set investment in the industry back to the level that prevailed 12 years ago. In addition to the federal government's attempts to wind back the Renewable Energy Target, the existing fossil-fuel-powered electricity suppliers are themselves taking steps to minimise the production of electricity from renewable energy sources, in particular by householders and small businesses with rooftop solar photovoltaic, or PV, systems.

In Queensland, utilities have attempted to limit or even stop owners of PV systems from exporting electricity to the grid; while in Victoria the network owners have increased fixed connection charges levied on households in a move that directly discourages any increase in the production of renewable electricity. According to Gavin Dufty, a spokesperson for St Vincent de Paul, a Victorian study commissioned by the society found that:

Over the past five years, the fixed charges for electricity have more than doubled and the fixed charge for gas has gone up over 60 per cent.

The study found that in some cases, households are paying up to $1,000 a year for gas and electricity before having switched on a single light or appliance. These service charges are unrelated to usage, and together with unfair cuts to feed-in tariffs, they undermine the viability of householder PV systems.

Last December, the lobby group Energy Networks Association put forward a proposal to levy fixed charges that would disadvantage PV system owners. They said, 'It is clear that some use of dating network tariff assignment will be needed for some customers if Australia is to protect fair, efficient outcomes for all customers in the general community.' In other words, the real cost of the electricity supply should be submerged in fixed charges that would swamp any cost advantage enjoyed by PV owners.

By early 2013 it was estimated that PV systems were reducing wholesale electricity prices nationally by between $300 million and $670 million per annum. So much for driving up prices. The biggest problem for the owners of the generators and distribution networks is that any further attempts to restrict the growth in household PV systems will only encourage disconnections as storage, possibly linked to batteries and electric cars, becomes ever cheaper. This development has become known by the quaint term 'the grid death spiral'.

In New South Wales Premier Mike Baird wants to privatise the electricity distribution system, but one of the consequences of this would be that new owners would penalise home owners and businesses with PV systems in order to protect their future profits. This is what is happening in the United States and there is every chance that it will happen here, if the electricity distribution system is privatised in New South Wales.