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Following months of tense negotiation between the minority Labour Government and the Green and independent MPs, Australia’s prime minister Julia Gillard yesterday revealed the ‘Strong Growth, Low Pollution’ report, which models how the country’s economy can continue to grow at the same time as reducing carbon pollution with a carbon price. The new tax, which will come into effect from July next year, will hit Australia’s top 500 emitters with an AUD$23 per tonne carbon tax.
The final adaptation of Italy’s deficit-reduction plan has imposed further reductions on renewable energy incentives. If confirmed, the new legislation could see incentives to renewable energy companies paid for by consumers on their electricity bills slashed by as much as 30%.
Australia’s Capital Territory will go through yet more feed-in tariff policy changes as the ACT Greens and Canberra Liberals push through a Bill to allow new connections of small-scale home solar power systems to receive the same rate as the medium generator category. This move comes just one month after Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development Simon Corbell closed the scheme to new microgeneration connections.
The Oregon State Senate has voted to cut the tax incentives for both business and residential solar installations. Near-unanimous votes by both the Senate and House of Representatives saw the House Bill 3672 passed, leaving the future of large-scale solar in the state hanging in the balance.
Spanish regulators have suspended subsidies for 360 solar plants after they failed to prove their eligibility for the feed-in tariff. The sanctioning brings the number of projects punished by the regulators to 1,919 and concludes the investigation into fraudulent subsidy claims within the country’s solar industry.
Yet more uncertainty overshadowed Australia’s solar industry at the end of last week as the South Australian Government discussed the future of the state’s feed-in tariff. Having originally planned to increase the incentive rate from 44c to 54c, plus a mandatory additional contribution from electricity retailers, the Government is now tipped to keep the tariff at 44c until the end of September for solar households entering the scheme.
Suntech Power’s Just-Roof building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) solution has been approved by French certification body CEIAB (Comité d’Evaluation de l’Intégration au Bâti). CEIAB is France’s official evaluation committee for all BIPV products, and its endorsement sees Just Roof gain eligibility for the country’s highest available feed-in-tariff.
Without Government assistance, New South Wales’ solar industry could cease to exist in as little as eight weeks, according to the Australian Solar Energy Society. Despite the State Government backing down over its proposed changes to the Solar Bonus Scheme earlier this month, the PV industry is still in dire need of support from Sydney, with its most likely saviour coming in the form of a generously-revised feed-in tariff.
A key point from Applied Materials third annual solar energy survey, undertaking to coincide with the summer solstice (June 21st) in the northern hemisphere is that electricity produced by solar PV panels will cost the same as traditional sources of residential power in 19 countries, including Italy and Spain and Brazil, and California by the end of 2011. Module prices have dropped 70% since 2008, according to the major equipment supplier and are expected to reach US$1 per watt in the next couple of years, echoing recent reports from market research firms such as IHS iSuppli.
Financial giant Ernst & Young has published a paper on the UK solar industry that claims the Government could have avoided the draconian subsidy reductions it imposed on large-scale projects.
