The Australian Federal Government has announced that the Solar Credits mechanism will end six months ahead of schedule on 1 January 2013. What this means for customers is, those who signed their contract before 16 November 2016 have until the end of June 2013 to install their system and receive the 2x multiplier. Customers who have not signed a contract have until December 31 2012 to fully install their system in order to get the 2x multiplier. The RET scheme will remain in place offering some discount to residential customers investing in solar PV systems in the future.
The reason for the early phase out has been cited as lowering the ‘impact of the high uptake of solar PV on electricity costs for homes and businesses.’ The Solar Credits mechanism provided additional support for installations of small-scale solar PV by multiplying the number of certificates these systems could usually create under the Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme. Those customers looking for 1.5 or 2kW systems will be most affected by the change. Customers looking for systems of all sizes also need to be aware that wholesalers have been caught out by the announcement and there may be limited stock available in higher quality products.
Residents in Queensland who applied for the 44¢ feed-in tariff but have not signed a contract with an installer will have to install before the end of the year to take advantage of the 2x multiplier.
© 2012 Solar Choice Pty Ltd
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Funny that the Clean Energy Council’s consumer guide, updated on the 22nd of November, 2012 still states that the current multiplier in ongoing until the 1st of July, 2013.
Not funny, though, because now there’s gonna be another mad rush to get panels installed before the 1st of January.
Hi Bertrand,
It’s quite possible that they’ve managed to a miss a page when they’ve been updating their information, we’re going to be undertaking a through update of our website over the Christmas period to try and ensure we have correct, up-to-date information on all our solar topics. In the CEC’s defence some of the State Governments webpages are two announcements out of date and were quite clearly written in 2011!
Just to clarify, the Solar Credit scheme ends of 1 January 2013, if you didn’t sign with an installer before 16 November you have until that date have your system fully installed (but not necessarily grid connected). If you signed with an installer before that date then you have until 1 July 2013 to get the system installed.
We’ll probably see a bit of a rush because of this and because there are still around 100,000 customers in Queensland who claimed for the 44¢ feed-in tariff who have still to install a system, they have until the 1 July 2013 to do so.