Reversing the Benefit !

 It looks like the solar energy revolution which has seen  solar panels appear on the roofs of countless Australian homes is turning full circle and is about to bite owners in the hip pocket.   The  Australian Energy Market Commission  (AEMC ) is considering a proposal to reverse the benefit home owners receive for sending excess energy they produce back into the grid into billing them for receiving it.

The whole point of paying to have solar on your roof was to generate at least some of the power your home consumes and gain a small credit for the excess returned to the grid.  The popularity of solar turned it into a major power supplier in its own right and now the industry is wailing that it is producing too much power.

The argument the industry is trying to sell to justify this reversal is that it urgently needs more funds to pay for upgrades in infrastructure.  It cites the expected  $ 3 billion transmission link that will connect the new Snowy Mountains hydro plan to the cities.

Consumers with long memories may remember the  incredible upgrade of wires and poles just before what was a publicly owned electricity network was sold into private hands.  The upgrade of worn out coal fired power stations has been an ongoing argument ever since.  In fact it has been solar's contribution that has kept the lights on in New South Wales.

The AEMC is claiming that the average solar owner earns an average $ 640 a year credit from returning excess power to the grid.  The true amount is much less and has been constantly dropping  as the amount generated by the sun steadily increases.

Promised cost effective pricing reforms have not been put into practice in this past decade.  The industry makes money shipping electricity around the wires and poles and now they want to make money by receiving it as well.  They are threatening to pay even less for the power that flows back into the system.

The electricity industry is playing a dangerous game.  The efficiency of today's batteries is ever rising, and the price is steadily lowering.  Connecting a group of nearby houses to a common central battery is becoming a viable proposition and even individual homes becoming unconnected to the grid is fast becoming a reality.

The electrical industry holds the whip hand as long as homes remain connected to the grid.  Once a trend starts to disconnect from the grid the power companies retain the need to maintain the poles and wires to get power to the scattering of homer still reliant on the grid, but with an ever decreasing customer base to cover those costs.
The argument the power companies are making to justify this raid on power returned to the grid from solar will not stand up to a critical evaluation.      Pricing reforms have stalled over the past decade and this would have been a better outcome for all, but this proposal seems to ensure that the power generating industry will have a rocky future !