Thank You Mr. Speaker and I join you in welcoming the young women leaders that
are here today and I also commend the educational wing of Parliament as
it's a very important part of what we do here and I congratulate them.
I rise to move this bill
on behalf of the Greens: the Electricity Supply Amendment
(Fair Price for Solar and Other Renewable Sources of Electricity) Bill 2018
I appreciate the opportunity to introduce this bill and it is most commonly known
as the Fair Price for Solar Bill. This bill seeks to recognize the multitude of
benefits that thousands of New South Wales solar residents and businesses and
over 1 million across Australia bring to the energy sector to communities and to
the planet by harnessing the clean energy of the Sun and moving us away
from the pollution of the fossil fuel industry and reducing carbon emissions
on a warming planet. This bill seeks to fairly reward the thousands of
solar households and businesses across New South Wales that are doing the heavy
lifting for us within a global clean energy revolution. Even renters can enjoy
being part of the solar garden movement and take part in the clean energy revolution.
On this our warming planet the health risks to humans and other
species as a direct result of excess carbon dioxide in our planet's
atmosphere is no longer in dispute. Sadly as Bill McKibben recently pointed out to
many of us here in Parliament; whilst environmentalists and other concerned
global citizens focused on winning the battle around climate science which was
never in real dispute we have risked losing the real war that is about
breaking the political power of the fossil fuel industry, about reducing our
carbon emissions globally and about altering the trajectory of harm for
humans and other species that we are most surely on. The Greens are not only
committed to reducing carbon emissions but we have the courage to stare down
fossil fuel industry and their parliamentary buddies every day of the
week as they seek to pursue profit from coal even though the rest of the
developed world is decades into the clean energy future.
We are establishing practical measures to assist New South Wales households to
reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This bill will introduce a fair solar
minimum rate payable to support New South Wales householders who choose to
invest in solar voltaic photovoltaic systems and who support the creation of
a prosperous low carbon society. This bill amends the Electricity Supply Act
1995 to provide for a minimum price for electricity produced by complying
small-scale renewable energy generators such as rooftop solar panels.
A complying generator means a generator that is a solar
photo voltaic generator or a wind turbine or a renewable energy generator
of a class prescribed by the regulations that has a generating capacity of no
more than till at 10 kilowatts and which is installed and connected in a manner
that complies with any safety technical or metering requirements that are
prescribed by the regulations or market operation rules. Feed-in tariffs applied
to power generated by customers and supply to the electricity network the
bill provides for the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) to
determine the minimum rate payable by a retailer to New South Wales households
with small-scale renewable energy generators who supply electricity to the
distribution system. Under this legislation IPART, in establishing the
minimum rate paid for solar, will be required to take into account a much
wider range of factors than is currently the case, resulting in a fairer price for
solar. Under this legislation IPART will determine each financial year the
minimum rate payable by a retailer to a customer for electricity produced by the
customer's complying generator and supply to the distribution system.
IPART's determination of the minimum rate will take into account the
following: the price of electricity in the wholesale market, any distribution
and transmission losses avoided in New South Wales by the supply of electricity
by complying generators, any avoided fees and ancillary charges, the avoided
distribution system investment costs, the avoided social cost of carbon, the
avoided human health costs attributable to a reduction in air pollution from
coal and gas-fired electricity plants and any other matter that is relevant in
IPART's opinion. Paying a fair price for solar not only supports
the solar industry but it makes solar more affordable for residents and
businesses as they play their part in reducing carbon emissions on a warming
planet. It also encourages energy efficiency by rewarding those who are
able to supply excess power to the energy grid and renters do not have to
miss put - organizations like Enova in my electorate who are an
incredible renewable energy community based retailer, have introduced the "Solar
Garden" concept to the North Coast where renters can have a solar panel or two on
a rooftop garden somewhere nearby and benefit by reducing their energy bills
and helping save the planet. This amendment bill will promote the
installation and use by residents of New South Wales of small solar energy
generation facilities and will encourage investment in renewable energy
electricity generation. It also ensures New South Wales households are offered a
fair and reasonable amount for the electricity they supply to the grid from
their solar energy systems credited against charges payable by the
households. The scheme will apply to new and existing small scale solar energy
systems that are installed in households which are compliant and connected to the
electricity grid. Customers will be protected through this bill by
the stipulation that a retailer must not pay a customer an amount less than
the minimum rates set by IPART in respect of the electricity produced by the
customer's complying generator and supplied to the distribution system.
The maximum penalty for a retailer paying below the minimum
rate is a thousand penalty units.
Under this legislation retailers
must keep and maintain records with respect to each customer and the amount
of electricity produced by the customer's compliant generator and the amount paid
by the retailer for that electricity. Retailers must also keep these records
for five years with the maximum penalty of forty penalty units if they fail to
do so. Solar panel owners in New South Wales currently receive around 6 cents
per kilowatt hour for the electricity they generate that goes back into the
grid some retailers to their credit do offer up to 11 cents per
kilowatt hour however even that rate is low compared
to the average 29 cents per kilowatt hour that energy retailers then sell
this same electricity to a solar household's neighbors - sometimes this
involves travelling only a few meters on nearby poles and wires and is not the
real cost and it's nowhere near the real cost.This is because energy retailers
and state regulators have until now had a very narrow view of what solar and
other renewable energy is actually worth and their rates have been determined
mainly based on the average wholesale price of electricity. Research carried
out by Solar Citizens, the Total Environment Center, Tasmanian Renewable
Energy Alliance and the Alternative technology Association suggests that
solar power fed back into the electricity grid is actually worth
between 11 and 18 cents per kilowatt hour once all of the environmental
health and network benefits are taken into account.
According to Solar Citizens' estimates each kilowatt hour of solar power that
displaces coal-fired electricity avoids carbon pollution worth a minimum of
2.4 to 3.1 cents per kilowatt hour using current carbon
pricing estimates. Carbon pricing that met the global objective of keeping
global warming well below two degrees Celsius would translate to a much higher value.
However considering that our federal
parliament has been held hostage for nearly a decade over the issue of carbon
pollution because of the trillions of dollars still in the ground in the form
of fossil fuels it is unlikely that we will see anytime soon in Australian
politics the recognition of a price on carbon through this mechanism.
But we will keep trying I promise you. The other heavy lifting that solar and
renewables do is in topping up the grid when wholesale energy prices are higher
than average such as during the hottest, sunniest times of the day when demand
for air-conditioning is at its highest. In addition to the avoided cost of
purchasing wholesale electricity, solar energy can play a role in pushing down
the wholesale price of electricity for all consumers. All consumers could
benefit from moving to a modern electricity system which is cleaner and
more robust. Prices will be reduced across the board because there will be
less need for expensive networks and renewable energy has minimal to no fuel
costs. Sharing distribution cost savings with other consumers is a way of doing this.
Retailers currently passed the charges for the use of the transmission
network on to consumers irrespective of whether the energy is sourced by the
transmission networks or sourced locally from solar photovoltaic systems.
Customers can end up paying for a service that is simply not provided and
that they did not take part in. The use of the transmission network for the
proportion of their energy that comes from distributed generation transmission
charges should only apply to the electricity actually carried on the
transmission network. This is an obvious saving - these savings should be shared
with solar owners. Decentralized power generation can place less strain on the
distribution network and thereby reduce costs in at least two ways.
First - exporting energy from solar panels is typically used close to the point of
export and therefore make significantly less use of the poles and wires network.
Secondly a significant proportion of the cost
of the distribution network are transformers that convert higher voltages down to 230 volts.
Well, guess what, solar inverters have this capability built in and they
already export power at 230 volts. The value of solar panels in reducing costs
for network operators is highly dependent on time and location as well
as the capacity and asset lifecycle of local distribution infrastructure.
We are seeing more and more that the grid is in real trouble and
it's about infrastructure, it's not about renewables. Using local solar avoids
using the high voltage and sub transmission parts of the distribution
network which account for over 50% of costs. It's time that the New South Wales
government helped to reward rooftop solar producers for their investment.
The more investment in solar and other small-scale renewable energy systems there is,
the more jobs we will see in the renewable sector and particularly in
regional areas. Research by Ernst & Young for the Climate Council has shown that
generating 50% of our electricity from renewables by 2030 would lead to over 28
thousand new jobs and more than 50% more employment compared to if we
continue business as usual. This is not even taking into account the
environmental and global impacts beyond the direct jobs in solar installation. We
need to continue building Australia's capacity in emerging technologies such
as battery storage, smart grids and demand management.
When I was in Europe last year at the World Renewable Energy Conference it
was quite startling to look into the eyes of people who are twenty five years
ahead of us in the renewable boom. With this bill New South Wales can start to
make up the ground it has lost to other states and territories in Australia and
to the rest of the developed world when it comes to renewable energy initiatives.
It is part of a strategic approach by the Greens to provide affordable,
sustainable energy for New South Wales. This bill is needed to set fair minimum
feed-in rates for rooftop solar. The price paid to rooftop solar
owners should be linked to the wholesale market and to the added benefits solar
and renewable energy bring. The environmental and health benefits of
rooftop solar and other renewable sources should be recognized by the
minimum pricing or through other mechanisms such as a carbon price on
polluting generation. Solar is actually produced at peak times during hot days
so it is inherently more valuable. Rules for network charges should be updated to
reflect the fact that rooftop solar makes much less use of network
infrastructure and solar should not be charged transmission costs. The
retail market needs to be opened up so that rooftop solar owners can sell or
share their electricity on the grid with appropriate reflective cost of the grid
applying. Fair minimum solar feed-in tariffs empower New South Wales
households to take action on climate change and on energy affordability.
It democratizes energy and it is the way of the future
I commend the bill to the house.
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