Peter Collier
Minister for Energy; Training and Workforce Development; Indigenous Affairs
Mon 01 August, 2011
A State Government scheme designed to help residents recover the purchase cost of their renewable energy system has been suspended after reaching its quota.
Energy Minister Peter Collier said the scheme’s popularity had led to the installation quota being reached quickly and it will now be suspended.
“The feed-in tariff scheme has been a great success – under the scheme, more than 65,000 homes will be generating their own renewable electricity which will add an extra 150 megawatts of renewable energy capacity to the grid,” Mr Collier said.
“The scheme was so popular that to meet demand the Government increased the original $23million budget allocation to $127million.
“This quota has now been reached and it will be suspended from today – applications already received or postmarked before today will be accepted, but there will be no more applications processed until further notice.”
Feed-in tariff payments will continue for those residents already on the scheme for the remainder of their 10-year subsidy payment period. Synergy and Horizon Power will also continue buying excess electricity fed into the grid from all residential renewable systems under the State Government’s Renewable Energy Buyback Scheme.
Mr Collier said that, despite the suspension, people would still be able to pay off their systems well within the 10 years, as was the schemes original intention.
“Wholesale prices of renewable energy systems have halved in the past 12 months which has resulted in greater affordability and means customers will be able to recover the purchase cost of their systems much quicker,” the Minister said.
“In addition, the capacity of the average renewable system being installed has almost doubled in the past year.”
For more information on the suspension of the scheme, please visit the Office of Energy website http://www.energy.wa.gov.au/
Minister’s office – 9213 7150