Fair treatment for owners of solar photovoltaic (PV)

Tasmanian Citizens draw to the attention of the House that: • Successive reduction in the solar feed-in-tariff (FiT) have resulted in a substantial reduction in the size of the solar industry in Tasmania. • Annual changes to the FiT create uncertainty and do not allow people to make calculations to support a long term investment in solar. • Due to metering software configuration at times some solar owners are feeding electricity into the grid but are paying an energy charge as if they were receiving electricity from the grid. • In August 2013 the State Government instructed Aurora to investigate as a priority a metering solution that would allow solar owners to use their solar generation to offset both light and power and heating tariff consumption. There is no firm timeline for implementation of this solution and it is not expected until 2016. Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to urge the State Government to: • Update the Terms of Reference used by the Economic Regulator to set the FiT to reflect the wider economic, employment and environmental benefits to Tasmania of the installation of solar PV on homes an businesses. • Set a minimum FiT rate that applies for at least 3 years to provide certainty for people wanting to invest in solar. • Instruct TasNetworks that implementation of the metering solution that offsets both tariffs is a high priority. • Instruct TasNetworks that solar owners should not have to pay for a replacement meter if this is necessary to implement the correct software.