Thankfully the Federal Government recognises that the development of, and investment in, renewable energy technologies (e.g. wind, solar PV Grids, geothermal and solar water heaters) will be an essential part of the climate change solution, and so are are now making it more financially rewarding to do so, with new policy coming into force in Jan 2011 as part of the RET Scheme……

The RET scheme is part of the Federal Government’s plan to transform Australia’s electricity sector to a low pollution model by incentivising investment in both small and large-scale renewable energy technologies. The RET scheme aims to deliver 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

These targets have now been split into 2 sections, separating out the large scale commercial usage of big corporations from small scale technologies, such as those used for medium sized solar investments of around 40KW which are of great interest to some of our customers due to their excellent ROI, low risk and relatively low cost……..

Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme

Under the new SRES, RECs (Renewable Energy Credits) created by small-scale technologies (solar hot water and solar panels) will have a fixed price of $40. This means that households and small businesses will earn $40 for each REC created, (the bigger the Solar PV Grid system the more REC’s you earn, multiplied x 40) which will make the buy in price even lower then it is now……..  REC’s prices change continually but have been on the lower side of late, the current price at writing is $32, so an extra $8 equals a considerable extra rebate off your cost price!

There will not be any limit on the number of small-scale technology RECs that may be created to ensure the continued adoption of these technologies.

SRES Clearing House

SRECs will be handled in the same way as RECs are currently handled where the creation, transfer and surrender of RECs are recorded on the registry. To facilitate the transfer of SRECs, a clearing house will be established and operated by the REC market regulator, ORER. Participation in the clearing house will be voluntary. The clearing house will set the SREC market price at no more than $44 (GST inclusive) and manage the sale of all RECs transferred to it onto purchasers.

If this all sounds a bit confusing and you would like further advice please call our Solar Investment Specialist Michael Berris on  0419 796 845, and he will be happy to help you understand all the details!