GOING solar? You'd be mad not to by June 30 if your home is grid-connected. An $8000 rebate for households with income less than $100,000 ends then.
From July 1, the rebate is open to all-comers, regardless of income, and it changes to $7500 and all in renewable energy certificates, or RECs as they're known.
In rural areas, voluntary groups are spending hours organising bulk-buy deals on solar panels for houses.
The rebates are fab and the work these unpaid enthusiasts are doing is nothing short of astounding.
Groups from Mildura to Murchison, Ballarat to Portland and Castlemaine to Strathfieldsaye have called public meetings and negotiated with solar-system buyers, installers, electricians and contractors to come up with various packages to encourage householders to install power-generating, solar and photovoltaic panels on their roofs.
The Murchison Goes Solar mob has settled on a bulk-buy scheme that means eligible households outlay a mere $100 deposit. No big upfront payments are required, even though the standard one kilowatt system costs more than $11,000.
In just five months, they've called public meetings, sussed the best contractor deal, and by the end of this month they expect to have 400 households from within a 60km radius of the town signed on the dotted line.
The bulk-buy is a $4.26 million contract. Not bad for a bunch of volunteers.
At Strathfieldsaye, near Bendigo, the canny Strathfieldsaye Community Enterprise, as part of their bulk-buy, solar-system deal, has negotiated for the value of the RECs to be paid into their community fund, for local projects.
It's earned the community group $160,000.
But is it so canny to sell or surrender your RECs for a cheaper deal on your home solar-system?
If you hold on to your RECS, then more RECs would have to be created - encouraging more renewable energy generation to meet renewable energy targets.
Australia's target is to source 9500 gigawatt hours of power from renewable sources by 2010 and 45,000 gigawatt hours by 2020.
The most powerful (or renewable-energy boosting) thing a household installing a solar-power generating system can do is hold on to their RECs.
Victorians are also yet to see the new solar laws concerning premium Feed-In Tariffs, which were to have come into play early this year.
A gross FIT is when the householder is paid for every megawatt hour their home solar panels pour into the grid.
A net FIT, that is, paying the householder for the power generated minus the power they use, is what the Victorian Government chose, setting it at 60c/kilowatt hours.
Retirees Shirley and Jim McGregor, of Strathfieldsaye, connected their one-kilowatt system in November.
Since then, they've sent 213.3 kWh into the grid but they've used 176.8kWh so all up they're generated 36.5kWh more than they've used.
A gross FIT would have earned them $127.98 (213.3kWh x 60 cents). A net FIT, which is what the Victorian Government favours, would earn them just $21.90 (36.5kWh x 60c).
Admittedly the 60c/kWh fee is generous, but if we're serious about incentives, a gross FIT is the way to go and it must be national for consistency. Let's hope the laws when they appear reflect this.
