Feed-in tariff schemes in Australia
A recent news item on the Alternative Technology Association website (www.ata.org.au) highlights some improvements that should be made to the feed-in tariff in power across Australia. A feed-in tariff is the mandated price a home owner is paid for any electricity fed back into the electricity grid from their solar panel installation or other sustainable energy production.
Judging form the article on the ATA website it seems like the government is again siding with the big corporations and only paying lip service to home owners with sustainable electricity production systems.
At this point, both my wife and I, are seriously wondering if we should even bother connecting our new house to the grid or just be completely self sufficient. We reckon the money saved by not connecting to the grid can be better spent on increasing the number of batteries or solar panels for the solar system we want to install anyway.
Any feedback is welcome in the comments section of this post.
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Mark and Rosalba are building a strawbale house!
May 13th, 2008 at 10:55
I’ve yet to do any proper research but have wondered the same thing. I’ve also wondered whether feeding back into the system makes a “self sufficient” system less “self sufficient” (ie. if the system needed power could they take from you even if you didn’t wish them to? Like in a crisis situation for example). Like I said, I don’t know how it all works yet.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:06
I don’t think they can take it from you if you didn’t wish them to, but what I think a lot of people with feed-in hookup are doing wrong is that they don’t have any batteries for energy storage on site.
Most people with feed-in systems seem to just hook it up so that any electricity they need they’ll take from their solar panels and any excess electricity they feed-in to the grid straight away.
The big down side I see with that is that during any power outage at night or during a storm where your solar panels don’t produce any electricity you are without it as well. This in my mind defeats the purpose a bit.
So we are definitely planning in a room in the house to have a battery bank and an inverter to run our appliances. Currently we are estimating to spend about $30,000 on our energy system.
May 14th, 2008 at 15:51
$30,000. Wow!!!! Battery back-up is something we definitely want to look into. We get quite a lot of power outages here which can be quite frustrating.
Thanks for your thoughts. It’s appreciated.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:27
Well after our meeting with the Architect he reckons a standalone solar installation for a normal house would probably be closer to $50,000 but I am sure that if you are connecting to the grid you may still be able to pull it off for closer to $30,000.
Never forget that the federal government is giving you a rebate of up to $8,000, I believe for a new installation which does bring the cost down a little bit.