“FREE SOLAR!” shout the advertisements, and here come the phone calls from your local (*ahem*) call center. We’ve seen it all before. Green Loans, Home Insulation, Commercial Hot Water – all FREE! But what price do we really pay?
Recent changes in the government’s RET scheme will give them the power to change the rates of the rebates and to change the required demand in the market for renewable energy certificates. This will undoubtedly be exercised at some point, but the problem is that when people start hearing “Free” they are only too eager to jump on the bandwagon. When this happens, woe-betide…
Free insulation – what real cost? The lives of installers who were incorrectly instructed, and mismanaged, hundreds of house fires, businesses ramped up then unceremoniously dumped and lumbered with hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock, ministerial scalps, and ultimately a public which is left with a very sour taste in the mouth, and a reticence to trust an industry which really, at its heart has the best chance for securing a reduction in carbon pollution into the future.
Free Green Loans – what a shambles. Check out the report released yesterday for some interesting reading indeed. Patricia Faulkiner has more than a few choice words to say about probity, and even the final released report has had the findings censored where “words have been removed pursuant to legal advice provided to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency”. I wonder what the words were. You can visit www.climatechange.gov.au and check for yourself of course. Very interesting read…
So now we have a solar supplier who is giving away free Solar PV systems in regional NSW. Great you cry, but we have seen that anything where it is perceived to be FREE has two huge problems. #1 – it attracts the shonky people, the make money fasters, and get rich quick people, and #2 – it devalues the product and the public perception of the industry as a whole. Have we learned nothing?
Whilst the eRET quietly passed through the senate with nary a whimper yesterday, the sweeping powers to regulate both the renewable energy target itself as well as the basis of the market which is supporting the change passed too. On one hand you have an office which has set a base price for SRECs across the board of $40 in order to prop up the industry only a matter of weeks ago, on the other you have the same office now given power to change the number of the RECs which will be able to be generated by new installations.
*sigh*
I know I am getting more and more cynical with age, but really, there has to be a point at which someone does something right and puts the ENVIRONMENT first.
The challenge therefore is to
(a) set in place a system which promotes renewable energy technology
(b) support the industry to grow and develop WITHOUT attracting the “nasties”
(c) make sure that the public perception of the renewables industry is not further sullied by the bad practices and bad governance that has plagued the current administration to date.
Perhaps, just perhaps there is one thing which is FREE, and that is common sense. The problem with that however is that it is just not all that common…
A.
Enviromate Australia 