Over the past few years, the world has witnessed a steep rise in the cost of electricity bills. Not only that, but we have also witnessed a drastic change in the world climate. The wish of saving money on electricity bills and the awareness about climate change has encouraged people to switch to solar energy by installing solar power systems. When you install solar power systems, you use the solar energy generated by the panels to meet the energy requirements of your home. However, there are several days when solar panels generate an excessive amount of solar energy. This excess energy occurs when the energy consumption of your home is less, or the solar panels receive a generous amount of sunlight. The excess solar energy can either be stored in solar battery storage or get exported to the mains electricity grid. When you export solar energy to the mains grid, you will receive a certain amount of money for every exported kilowatt-hour as a credit on the electricity bill. This credit on the electricity bill is known as solar feed-in-tariff. In Australian households, the solar feed-in-tariff is quite popular as it allows the homeowners to save even more money on the electricity bill. In this guide, we will discuss the reasons why solar feed-in-tariff is important to the Australian people.
There are six reasons why is solar feed-in-tariff important to the Australian people. These reasons are:
- The concept of solar feed-in-tariff encourages a lot of homeowners to switch to solar energy or any other form of renewable energy. The traditional means of generating electricity is by burning coal, gas, and other non-renewable sources of energy. This generation of electricity makes up at least 35 to 40 per cent of the regular electricity bill.
You can easily save this electricity generation cost by switching to solar. On top of that, you can also save money by taking advantage of earning credit by exporting energy to the grid under solar feed-in-tariff.
2. As the number of households switching to solar increases in Australia, the dependency on importing fossil fuels from foreign countries decreases. Each year, a big part of the Australian economy is spent on importing coal and other non-renewable sources of energy in order to generate electricity. This decrease in dependency allows Australia to save a lot of money in the economic sector of the country. Not only that, but this reduction in dependency also allows Australia to decrease the emission of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases. Feed-in-tariff helps Australia to make this switch to solar happen.
3. Solar feed-in-tariff encourages people to be mindful about their use of energy. The majority of the homeowners try their best to use the exact amount of electricity they require and export the excess amount to the grid in order to receive a decent feed-in-tariff. On the other hand, there are a few users who use less energy in order to save more for later use during the night or natural disasters.
4. As we know, a solar panel does not produce any sort of pollution or emit any of the harmful greenhouse gases. Instead, it helps to eradicate carbon dioxide from the environment. Research shows that one solar power system can eliminate about 170 tons of carbon dioxide in 30 years. Solar feed-in-tariff promotes the installation of solar power systems in Australian households and this installation helps with problems such as global warming, climate change, emission of greenhouse gases, and so on.
5. The business of solar has helped to reduce job redundancy in Australia. As the country started to set up one of the largest solar markets in the world, more solar installers, retailers, and so on started their business in Australia. This led to various job opportunities for the unemployed Australian people. Feed-in-tariff from the local or national electricity retailers promote the installation of solar power systems in Australia and help to open up more job opportunities in the country.
6. Feed-in-tariff has two great advantages. One is that you get a secure and safe electrical connection to power your home without depending on any nationwide or centralised method of electricity. You do not have to worry about losing power in your home during any malfunction or blackout due to climatic conditions or disasters.
Another advantage is that the electricity generated by solar energy is free. You do not have to worry about the supply of electricity in the mains electricity grid or the cost of electricity generated by non-renewable sources of energy.
Even though the concept of feed-in-tariff seems quite easy, it is very difficult to implement the concept throughout the entire country. This is mainly because the payment given for each kilowatt-hour of exported energy is very low now compared to that provided a few years back. The payment per kilowatt-hour also varies from state to state in Australia.
If you ask the question about whether solar feed-in-tariff is worth the hype or not, then, in all honesty, it is not worth it. As the cost of solar feed-in-tariff has decreased severely in Australia, the payment you receive on the electric bill does not reduce the cost of electricity bill by a significant amount. Solar experts from all parts of Australia prefer storing the solar energy in solar battery storage rather than exporting it to the main electricity grid as solar feed-in-tariff.
Solar feed-in-tariff is a great concept, and it encourages hundreds of Australians to switch to solar power systems. The six reasons mentioned above are what inspire the people to make this switch in power. We know that switching to solar is a big step for the Australian people, but it is useful for both the environment and personal economy. Whether it is for solar feed-in-tariff or not, each and every Australian should switch to solar.