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Benefits and costs of including your technology in the Solar Bonus Scheme
In designing the Solar Bonus Scheme, the Government weighed up the benefits of increased rooftop solar PV installations and the costs of premium payments under the Scheme (which are expected to be passed on to all NSW electricity customers).
Information required
Information is being sought on the costs and benefits of including additional technologies and/or community owned solar farms in the Solar Bonus Scheme.
- Please provide information on any benefits to NSW from increased uptake of your technology and or development of community-owned solar farms
- Please provide information on anticipated levels of uptake of your technology and/or community owned solar farms and factors which might influence their uptake.
Suitability of technology for small customers
The Solar Bonus Scheme applies to rooftop small-scale solar PV electricity fed back to the grid. The relevant rules are that small electricity customers (consuming less than 160MWh per annum) with systems up to 10kW in size are eligible to receive payments under the Scheme.
Reasons for focus on small-scale generation are to provide support to community members wishing to generate renewable energy locally and to contain the costs of the scheme so that costs to electricity customers are kept low.
Review of eligibility criteria for the NSW Solar Bonus Scheme
Appropriateness of the Solar Bonus Scheme tariff rate of 60c/kWh
The Solar Bonus Scheme will pay people 60c/kWh for electricity fed back into the grid from rooftop solar energy panels. The NSW Feed-in Tariff Taskforce estimated that the payback period for a 1.5kW PV system would be reduced as a result of the Scheme to around12 years.
Options to provide an equivalent level of support for micro-renewables other than solar PV could be:
- paying a tariff which delivers a similar payback period for other technologies as for solar PV (eg. Around 12 years for a 1.5kW system); or
- paying the same tariff rate (cents per kWh) for any eligible technology.
