Renewable Energy

The majority voted against a motion introduced by Australian Democrats Senator Lyn Allison.

This means that the motion was rejected.

The motion was:

That the Senate-

(a) notes that:

(i) in 2000, Germany introduced a solar scheme requiring electricity companies to buy back electricity generated from household panels connected to the grid at premium price rather than at the normal wholesale electricity rate,

(ii) the German scheme has meant approximately 400 000 households have now installed solar panels,

(iii) the German scheme has lead to a boom in the photovoltaic (PV) industry with revenues expected to be $25 billion in 2006, increasing to $100 billion by 2010,

(iv) Germany’s success with the scheme has led to Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Canada introducing almost identical schemes,

(v) in 2004, Germany passed a new law that guaranteed people who built solar parks a minimum price for each kilowatt of electricity that was two to three times the market price, for example, a German pig farmer struggling with drought took advantage of the scheme and covered his 200 acre farm with 10 050 solar panels, which at full capacity could supply power to all 7 000 residents of the local village resulting in the farmer making more than $600 000 a year from the sale of this electricity, and

_(vi) California has developed the ‘ Million Solar Roofs’ plan that will provide 3 000 megawatts of additional solar generation by 2018 using a combination of regulatory and market mechanisms;_

(b) notes that an Australia-wide feed-in tariff could increase the number of PV units in Australia from 10 000 to 150 000 by 2010; and

(c) calls on the Federal Government to work with state governments to introduce a solar scheme similar to that in Germany.