Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Simon Corbell announced that Canberra residents will be provided with a new opportunity to invest in solar power under a community solar feed-in tariff (FiT) from the ACT Government. Mr Corbell pointed out that the community solar initiative would provide opportunities to people who were unable to take part in previous feed-in tariff programs.
“The Government’s new Canberra Community Solar initiative will allow households to pool their resources to develop new large-scale solar installations, with a guaranteed income stream. Mr Corbell said “The FiT provided for under the initiative will be up to 20 cents per kilowatt hour for 20 years, slightly higher than the nation leading price achieved by successful proponents in the Government’s successful large-scale Solar Auction conducted in 2012-13. This rate will help community groups develop innovative community outcomes.”
Mr Corbell explained that the community solar feed-in tariff will be established as a capacity release under the Electricity Feed-in (Large-scale Renewable Energy Generation) Act 2011. The capacity release will be capped at one megawatt, which is equivalent to around 500 typical roof-top installations.
“Eighty-one per cent of Canberrans surveyed in 2013 wanted this government to show leadership when tackling climate change; this initiative will assist the community to take ownership of building a stronger, sustainable Canberra.” Mr Corbell commented.