Gross feed-in-tariff electricity meters are now available in NSW, Australia. I have provided my financial solar payback example for reference.

Our new gross feed-in-tariff electricity meter was installed on 20 April 2010 (pictured above). The installation process took only 55 minutes. An accredited electrical services company removed the old bidirectional time-of-use meter, and replaced it with two new digital time-of-use meters. Meter-1 measures our normal electricity consumption and meter-2 measures the amount of solar energy generated from our grid-connected photovoltaic solar array located on the rooftop of our home (6kW).

The cost to change over to a new gross feed-in-tariff time-of-use meter was $528.00.

The new meters enable our energy supplier (Energy Australia) to be able to reconcile our electricity account (ie. consumption/ generation) and allocate the appropriate credit based upon a buy-back rate of $0.66/KWh (Energy Australia). This buy-back rate equates to an estimated annual credit of between $5000 - $7000/ year until 2016 (gazetted by NSW government). Our typical electricity consumption of $400/ quarter is expected to be deducted from our credit in order to calculate our net rebate per quarterly bill cycle.

The financial case for a $48,000 6KW solar electricity system in NSW, Australia

Payback is 5 years with 20 year warranty on materials.
* installation rebate - $7,000 (not means tested).
* sale of renewable energy certificates (REC's sold @ $42/ ton CO2) - $3,000.
* home electricity bill savings per year - $1,600.
* gross-feed-in tariff CREDIT per year until 2016 - $5000 - $7000.

100% electricity bill savings every year after 5 years.
Additional credit after 5 years, $5000 - 7000/ year until 2016.

It is not understood if we should retain our gross feed-in-tariff meters after 2016 and revert back to the net feed-in-tariff meters at our cost in the event that the NSW or Federal governments adopt a new system which could see homeowners with gross meters feeding the grid for free after 2016. Other Australian States have adopted net feed-in-tariffs which feed the home first supporting energy efficiency on the demand side.

Research from DEWHA (2005/2006) in ACT indicated that home values significantly increased where energy efficiency and renewables were involved. And most important to me, free clean and continuous energy from the sun follows the most basic evolutionary principle governed by nature.

David Burns is a Sustainability Advisor and Analyst, www.sustain450.com.au

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