Proposed Federal Gross Feed-in Tariff Scheme
The Federal Parliament has not yet enacted a national gross feed-in tariff scheme for renewable energy. However, a capital grant/rebate was offered of up to $8,000 per household for domestic installations and 50% for school installations up until June 2009.
In July 2008, a bill was introduced by Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne, (Tasmania), called the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment (Feed-In Tariff) Bill 2008. The bill is the subject of an inquiry by the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts.
More than 23,000 people have signed an online petition for a national gross feed-in tariff.
In a speech, the Federal Minister for Energy, Martin Ferguson, said that feed-in tariffs are technologically prescriptive and ideologically based, rather than being a market based mechanism. In response to the German feed-in tariff for solar, he suggested that Germany's solar subsidy meant German consumers paid more than €1 billion in additional power bills in 2007 to generate around 0.5% of Germany’s gross electricity consumption, suggesting that the policy does not deliver value for money. He also suggested that an Australian solar feed-in tariff may lead to greater PV panel imports rather than a significant expansion of Australian production. However commentators have suggested that Martin Ferguson's comments are ideologically driven and do not take into account the Merit Order Effect which in some instance negates or almost negates the cost of funding FiTs and in other instances shows funding FiTs delivers a net dividend to consumers.
Read more about this topic: Feed-in Tariffs In Australia
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