I must say, this isn't sustainable for the electricity market
I'm sure you and others don't make a dent in the retailers bottom line, so even if they weren't paying you for the power you're generating the existing rates would still be rising, but there's probably some correlation (whether real or pretend) between the cheque they send you and the cost of power increasing for everyone else.
Sustainability has absolutely nothing to do with incentives to get start ups out of the ground!
The FiT that I get is no longer available and for me too it has a used by date. Take the FiT out of the equation and it's now still viable. The incentives were put in place by Gov'ts who never dreamed they'd be so successful, but the reality is, they worked and worked better than most would have predicted. Quite apart from the political rhetoric we so often hear about renewable energy incentives being the scourge of the energy society, that isn't actually true. The incentives simply shift the cost of polluting power to subsidise clean power to enable a different future. "Everyone else" as you say, would be paying more for power regardless, I'm afraid. At the moment, it's just easy for politicians (and disgruntled electricity consumers) to blame the renewable incentives for it.
I went to the Brisbane release of the
BZE Stationary Energy Plan in circa 2010 in Brisbane. The plan was touted (respectably with a number of heavy-weight supporters including Malcolm Turnbull, the IEA, a former Chief Scientist of Australia, a former Managing Director of the Electricity Supply Association of Australia, numerous associated university professors, numerous sundry politicians and even the former executive director of the Australian Coal Association) as being a genuine roadmap to a 100% renewable energy future at an affordable $8/week/household. The then Qld Premier, Anna Bligh had the blatant audacity to stand up and reject the plan outright, on the sole basis that "
Qlders won't accept an additional burden of $8/week/household". She then went on to oversee electricity price hikes in Qld of at least that amount, if not more.
The simple reality is that the politicians (ie, the Howard Gov't and at least in Qld, the Labour State Gov't) who implemented these incentives, never in their wildest dreams expected they'd be successful at all, let alone to the level to which they have been. That is not a failure, but a massive success but the big problem lies, not with the success of the schemes, but with the fact all Gov'ts are shackled by the nipples to the income produced by coal and will not (despite the rhetoric) let that slip without a bloody big fight ... and the easiest way to do that is to blame the success of the renewables incentives.
Just think Sam, had Anna Blight not been so blinkered by coal sales, we here in Qld would have shortly (within a few years) been 100% renewable supplied. The difference between Qld and the woes SA faced would have been worlds apart. SA were forced to make quick decisions as the technology was not around early enough for them to transition and the imminent death of their coal fired plants simply meant they transitioned and faced the transitional hurdles without backup. Qld coal fired plants are still some years away from retirement and we could, and should, have made the transition with all the baseload backup we may have needed! Interesting to see that the Tesla battery project to support base load related issues in SA has already been proven successful and Victoria has ordered a similar battery.
I also noted at the start of this thread, some negative comment about the renewable incentives. That criticism is unfounded to be honest. The schemes have worked far better than ever thought and they are on target (in fact the targets are being brought forward) to finalise the incentives whilst we continue to see a positive future for those renewables. The alternatives that the likes of Tony Abbott are touting are not just a continued reliance on fossil fuel generation, but a ramping up of such. Abbott is not a fool. He is recklessly gambling with the health of Australians in an attempt to get a foot back in the door of the PMs office. We also hear how coal fired plants are not subsidised at all. That's nothing more than playing with words to tell lies. The fuel for coal fired generation is totally tax free and although technically not a subsidy, is certainly happening and there is no end in sight for that either. The upshot is that according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Australia still supports fossil fuel generation plants to the tune of about $1700 per person per year. Compare that with the stationary energy plan of $8/week/household!!! Given we average somewhere around 2.6 people per household then that means we currently subsidise coal to the tune of $1700 per person per year compared to what could be $160 per person per year as forecast by the stationary energy plan, but it's all semantics whilst politicians continue to deny subsidy of fossil fuel power generation.
Sam, you're entirely correct. What I get paid for selling my surplus electricity is not sustainable in the long term. No one suggests it is, however not many seem too worried about the hidden subsidies of coal. I'd suggest that the incentives given to kick start renewables will in the course of time, be very worthwhile, even without the argument surrounding global warming, as it's certainly proven that so many of our health issues are attributable to coal and oil pollution. I'm not even sure why Gov't are so cough about thermal coal. About 50% of coal production is for steel production and that will continue regardless. Thermal coal will transition over a period of time and not be such a big problem as they tend to think it is.
