PIAC responded to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal’s (IPART) Draft Report for its Review of Solar Feed-in Tariff (FiT) Benchmarks for 2021-22.
PIAC generally supports IPART’s methodology contained in the Draft Report, including the new method to calculate the solar multiplier and using data from all three NSW Distribution Network Service Providers. However, we encourage IPART to also use data from a range of climatic zones in NSW. PIAC also supports utilising a longer historical data series as this is likely to smooth year-on-year variations of the calculated FiT and provide a more stable value proposition to inform Distributed Energy Resources investment choices.
The benefit of the benchmark FiT would be improved if current and future solar owners were aware both that IPART makes a determination and for the determination to be easily accessible.
PIAC agrees that solar “offers that include a high feed-in tariff are not necessarily the best overall deal for customers”. Despite this, PIAC considers it worthwhile for IPART to continue to develop solar FiT benchmarks. It is an important consumer tool to enable current and future solar owners to be aware what is a reasonable FiT to expect from a retailer.
