The solar tax by some of the network providers has been announced… They are detailed here…
I’m in the Essential energy area and will become subject to their export tax of 0.94c/kWh between the hours of 10am and 3pm. The export limit per month is 1.5kWh and after that they tax will apply.
I’ve looked at my solar export figures for winter (June) and for summer (December) and worked out that on average during the winter months the export tax will apply to about 89% of what I export during that period. During summer the export tax will apply to about 60% of what I export.
Sadly the Feed In Tariff is also being lowered and I’m guessing it will drop to less than 4c/kWh as time goes by.
My Goodwe inverter allows me to throttle the export from 0% to 100% (current setting), but when they start applying the solar tax I’m thinking about my options. Sadly Goodwe have not updated the firmware so I can schedule the throttling between during the solar tax window. From this it looks like I’m looking at turning my export totally off, which i guess wasn’t the intention of the people who approved this sun tax. What are others thinking?
if your fit is 4c and your taxed 0.94c then your still better off exporting than not… as yo would still get 3.06c/kwh?
even better would be to use it rather than export limit it…
OVO have a free power between 11 and 2 plan and I make the most of it. I use everything I can during that time.
the plus side is if you go over your solar it doesn’t cost anything between those times where as before that you had to really try and balance your consumption vs solar as you lose 8c fit to use your solar but your charged 33c if you went over… a cloudy or windy day and if you have things scheduled your paying high fees when your trying to use your solar.
no you get charged the .94c/kwh instead of being payed 4c/kwh.
While it does suck big time for those of us with solar, it was only a matter of time before something like this was done. Like is common for government programs the solar roll out was a disaster economically and technically. The infrastructure was never designed for the kind of use residential solar has demanded.
“no you get charged the .94c/kwh instead of being payed 4c/kwh”
Also fairly sure it’s both as it’s documented as a two way tariff; you get the feed in tariff and the “sun tax” - the tax doesn’t cancel out the FIT until it’s greater than 4cents in the above example.
The solar quotes link above also doesnt say that it’s one or the other .
It’s a price signal for consumers to
A)Shift their self consumption to the period “taxed”
b)shift their exports to the bonus period
It also has to be simultaneously applied to the FIT as the tables on the solar quotes article do not show morning export; and therefore would be getting the untaxed FIT