Email to Energy and Water Minister Hon Mark Bailey

Update:

I received a very nice response from the department stating that they couldn’t see changes to the FiT scheme to allow for battery substitution in the foreseeable future.

I’ll be updating my existing inverter to the latest that will allow more panels while keeping my current feed in tariff – I’ll also be watching the storage market with ROI spreadsheet in hand to see when I can take my major loads offline and maximise export to the grid.

Original Post:

I sent the following off to the Hon Mark Bailey on the 20th Jan 2017, I’d heard rumours that in QLD we may potentially get the option to trade FIT for Storage so I thought I’d ask the relevant Ministerial department 😀

Email Contents:

I was wondering if any further thoughts or progress on changes to policy allowing a battery buyout approach for existing 44cents feed in tariff residents.

I saw reported locally that it was being considered.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/states-solar-households-in-line-for-power-storage-rebate/news-story/b5de87047bd7808b6ed8009fdd1921b6
and agree fully with Simon Hackett in this space https://simonhackett.com/2016/06/14/how-state-governments-can-save-money-and-drive-the-battery-revolution/

I’m currently looking at changing / updating my solar system and if the possibility existed for me to exchange my 44cent FIT for storage I’d jump at it.

If there are no changes in the near future my current plan is to effectively take my entire house off grid behind the existing system and export all generation at the current high feed in rate. From my measured history of 4000kWh per annum of generation I expect that would earn me $15,000 through to 2028 which easily would fund such a plan.

I would prefer to upgrade the existing solution (which I can’t do at present) with added storage and sell into the NEM via Reposit and Diamond Energy’s grid credits program – this would have the added bonus for the local distribution of letting me aid in reducing the peak load requirements.

I’m an early adopter in this space and have had solar on my roof since 2009, would like to be part of helping us all move to a lower carbon economy.

Look forward to a reply detailing how and when I might be able to “trade in” my FIT for storage.

Thoughts and comments:

I’ve had the usual polite reply and will update this post with the actual reply as and when it shows up.