Synergy’s proposal to effectively double the cost of connecting WA solar households to the grid with a sun tax has been slammed as unjust.
The Western Australia-owned electricity company Synergy will be putting approximately 191,000 solar homes at the front of the tax.
Synergy chairman Lyndon Rowe floated the proposal just last week. As a result of the tax, home owners in WA who have made an investment in solar systems could be seeing a hefty $846 dollar increase on their annual electricity bill.
Mr Rowe says he believes in rooftop solar, however he argues that solar home’s annual charge isn’t reflected in the actual cost of connecting to the network.
He claims that solar homeowners have an ‘unfair’ advantage.
“I’m a believer and it’s a segment that will continue to grow. They are not paying the actual fixed cost of being connected to the network. That means other consumers have to pay or the taxpayers have to pay. That’s not fair. That’s not efficient,” he said.
Reece Turner is a Solar Citizens Consumer Campaigner, and he states that the proposal discriminates against solar households, as well as putting WA’s investment in renewable energy at risk of being stunted.
Mr Turner stated that the idea of the sun tax is “ludicrous” and that “Premier Barnett should step in and rule out immediately,”.
“More than one in five homes are powered by the sun. These people have made the sensible decision to invest in clean, abundant energy and should not be penalised,” he said.
Honestly it looks a lot like Synergy is making excuses for their rapidly increasing budget losses.
WA electricity grid in trouble
It’s no surprise that electricity problems are arising- the WA grid is out of control.
More than $620 million was needed in order to make up the different between generation and delivery of infrastructure costs, and the costs to consumers last year.
It’s very clear that this subsidy is unsustainable, which was brought in mainly due to a strange fossil fuel generator subsidy.
This was called the ‘capacity payments’, and it has resulted in a number of diesel and gas plants being developed at the expense of the public and never actually used.
On another hand, solar is being installed on WA households at a rate of over 1,000 homes every month- in September, almost 5MW was added.
According to the state energy minister Mike Nahan, most homes and businesses in WA are predicted to purchase solar systems, especially since the government is decreasing the grid-based power subsidy.
Dr Nahan stated that the WA government is planning to get rid of a regulation prohibiting batteries from feeding energy back to the power grid (called feed-in tariff). This move is predicted to push down the peaks and troughs of solar energy.
The sun tax is also being proposed for other states- New South Wales electricity networks left behind another controversial proposal of additional network charges for homes exporting solar back to the grid.
The NSW proposal illustrated that solar homes in the state are paid next to nothing for their additional output sent back to the grid, which enraged the solar industry.
South Australia also battled against solar charges, and the South Australia Power Networks have been accused of ‘unfairly targeting solar homeowners’.
Mr Turner did note that both of these proposals were withdrawn after a public outcry- so lets hope that WA follows in suit.
Synergy’s proposal has also been slammed by the WA Greens.
“Ultimately, we should be making it easier and more worthwhile to switch to cleaner technologies and this policy, on top of everything else this government hasn’t done to help the transition, will only put more people off,” said Greens MP Robin Chapple.
Photo courtesy of Duncan Rawlinson
