Giles Parkinson at ReNew Economy has an interesting article on the attempts by some utilities (or at least by the regulator in Queensland, presumably at the prompting of the new conservative government) to retain profit margins in the face of large scale consumer uptake of solar power, proposing "gross feed in tariffs", where consumers are charged retail prices for all their consumption (including the power they generate themselves) while only paying the wholesale price back to the consumer for the power they generated themselves - How solar PV is turning utilities against consumers.

It the solar industry ever harboured any illusions about the challenges it is facing in imposing itself on a sector that has been virtually unchallenged for more than half a century, then they were certainly shattered by a series of attacks on their industry from utilities and pricing regulators over the last few weeks.

It is now clear – if it wasn’t before – that Australian energy utilities are moving decisively against the proliferation of solar PV in an attempt to protect their revenues and business models, as we predicted they would back in June. This is the claim of the solar industry, and they point to numerous examples of tariff changes, network impediments and the lobbying and influence over regulators.

Last week’s revelation that the Queensland pricing regulator was contemplating a tariff that could effectively kill the attraction of solar PV to households struggling under the weight of rising prices from the grid, was proof enough. The attempt by TRUenergy to bring a halt to the deployment of both wind and solar – citing the potential of both to cripple the conventional energy industry – is a further sign of the desperation of those utilities struggling to adapt.

There is no doubt that the debate over clean energy has moved beyond day to day concerns around climate change (even if it should not), and now that technologies such as solar can deliver electricity at equal or lower prices at the socket, the issue of technology cost is also nearly redundant. The battleground has moved to regulation, and policy decisions on the framing of tariffs and how to reflect the true value of producing and consuming energy. And it’s largely played out out of the public eye.

What is required is a new way of looking at the energy system. The hub-and-spoke model, like fixed-line telephony, is creaking under the strain of the so-called “self consumption” market and the ability of customers to produce their own energy.

And the regulation has gotten off to a bad start. The premium tariffs designed to give rooftop solar a kick-start and help reduce its “soft costs” – those for installing, pricing and maintaining the systems – were so badly managed in some key states (NSW, in particular), that utilities seeking to defend their territory and business models were able to gain the moral high ground and win favourable tariff structures under the lofty goal of protecting disadvantaged consumers.

Most tariffs in the country are now structured around a net tariff, which enables a household to use the electrons they produce to offset their consumption and rising retail prices from the main utilities. But any excess production is sold back at a peppercorn rate (under the guise of network and other costs) to the retailers, who then sell it to a nearby customer for between two and four times as much.

However, the utilities have been quietly pushing for an even more draconian measure to be introduced – a gross tariff, which will require households to sell all their output to the retailer and then buy it back at an inflated price.

In a nod to the emerging power of the “pro-sumer”, Australian energy network operators and retailers have rejected a suggestion to move to gross tariffs for rooftop solar, saying it risked turning customers against them. Some suggest tariffs that would encourage homeowners to invest in more battery storage.

Operators of electricity networks in Queensland and the energy retailers have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal by the state’s competition authority to introduce gross tariffs for rooftop solar, saying they would be complex, expensive and unfair to owners of rooftop panels.

The Queensland Competition Authority raised some eyebrows, and a few hackles, last month when it raised the prospect of a gross tariff in an issues paper it prepared for deliberations around a “fair and reasonable” tariff for solar.

The solar industry immediately condemned the proposal, saying the idea of forcing customers to sell all their solar power to retailers and then buy it back at a much higher price was inequitable and would effectively mean the death of the industry, as it would remove the attraction of rooftop systems as a hedge against rising electricity costs. And it seems that the utilities, who were suspected by some, of quietly advocating the move, have recognized the risk of putting consumers offside if such a tariff was introduced.

Most of the submissions put to the QCA by network operators and retailers pointed to the potential complexity and cost of a gross tariff – particularly in having to change metering arrangements.

Interestingly, it was TRUenergy, under fire over its proposal to sharply reduce the development of utility scale wind and solar developments by curtailing the ambition of the renewable energy target, which said most clearly that gross FITs were unfair because they were not equitable to consumers.

It noted that households that invested in rooftop photovoltaic systems do so in the expectation that they will be able to consume less grid energy, and thereby gain a sense of control over their costs.

“Under the proposed changes, households would be required to ‘sell’ energy to the grid at the cost of energy, and then ‘purchase’ energy for their own use, at up to three times the price,” it noted in its submission. It said it would be confusing and “may create the perception that electricity retailers are benefiting at the consumer’s expense.”

Giles Parkinson at The Climate Spectator has a look at the factors behind cutbacks to the NSW solar feed in tariff program - What really killed NSW solar?.

It seems that the massive take-up of rooftop solar under the excessively generous NSW feed-in tariff was not the middle class indulgence that it was thought to be.

The review into the Solar Bonus Scheme prepared for the Keneally government by the Department of Industry and Investment dismisses the perception that solar panels were a privilege reserved for affluent homeowners in Sydney’s northern and eastern suburbs and the inner west.

It turns out that the greatest demand in Sydney for solar PV under the scheme came from the western and south-western “Aussie battler” suburbs of Prospect, Seven Hills, Mt Druitt and Liverpool.

And the highest numbers per locality were recorded in country areas – Including Lismore, Coffs Harbour, Taree, Port Macquarie, Ballina and Gosford in the north, Bega in the south, Armidale and Wagga Wagga further inland, and in numerous localities in the central coast. The country areas had particularly large appetites, ordering systems of an average size of 2.8kW, compared to 1.9kW in the city.

And while some social service groups had complained about the inequality of the scheme, the report noted that the cost of solar panels had come down so quickly in the last 12 months – from $12,600 per kilowatt to $6,000/kW (they had been $17,000/kW in 2001) – that installations had been offered for zero up front cost by some retailers. Clearly, the battlers in the mortgage belt were quicker to seize a bargain that the toffs in the inner suburbs.

The report also reveals that the Keneally government appears to have ignored the report’s advice that a low cap on rooftop solar would cause the state’s solar industry to come to a shuddering halt.

The report recommended a cap to keep a lid on costs, but warned that placing too low a cap would create a boom-bust scenario, and a heavy loss of jobs.

The Keneally government chose a cap of 300MW – allowing just 100MW of new solar rooftop to be installed at the drastically reduced tariff – a target that its own bullish forecasts predict could be met within 12-15 months. ...

By the report’s own estimates, the 50MW that had been installed by June, 2010, had created 2,500 jobs, with 10 jobs created for every 1MW in manufacturing, 33 in installation, 3-4 in sales and marketing, and 1-2 in research. On those figures, the Keneally government’s decision to place a cap of 300MW would cost 15,000 in future installation jobs alone.

Given the upcoming election, the demographics of the scheme, the identified job sacrifices, and the fact that the NSW Labor government must now explain why new owners will now pay more for coal fired power than they will receive for emissions-free solar, this may have been a more heroic decision than was first realised.

The NSW government’s decision on Wednesday to drastically cut the Solar Bonus Scheme will be disastrous for NSW’s renewable energy industry. Thousands of jobs will be slashed and hundred of megawatts of installed solar capacity sacrificed.

Before making its surprising decision, NSW should have looked to the renewable energy policy progression of Ontario, Canada for inspiration.

Ontario is fast developing into a renewable energy powerhouse. One year after the region introduced North America’s most advanced renewable energy feed-in tariff (FiT), the region has 15,000 MW of renewable energy projects in the pipeline, and is on its way to meet its target of 50,000 jobs in three years.

Ontario’s advanced FiT program covers large and small wind & solar, mini-hydro, landfill gas, biomass and biogas, and is linked to its commitment to shutdown its dirty coal-fired power plants (7,500 MW capacity before the orderly shutdown commenced) by the end of 2014, and also includes bonus payments for community-owned renewable energy projects.

Thousands of residents and organisations have already taken advantage of the scheme and due to the requirement for all wind and solar projects over 10kW to contain a minimum amount of goods and services from Ontario, thousands of jobs have already been generated across the region, as solar manufacturers and wind farm developers set up operations in Ontario.

What are advanced renewable energy FiTs? According to a 2001 European Court ruling they are not subsidies because they are not funded from government revenue. Instead they are a powerful policy mechanism that places an obligation on electricity utilities to make payments per kilowatt-hour for all the electricity generated by a renewable resource based on the cost of generation plus a reasonable profit (much like coal and gas fired power plants).

Advanced renewable energy FiTs are the most successful and egalitarian mechanisms to encourage rapid development of renewable energy technologies because they provide investors with the transparency, longevity and certainty they need to invest.

Advanced FiTs have been implemented in a number of countries including China, Brazil, Slovenia, Germany, Spain, Malaysia, Vermont, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, South Africa, Croatia, Italy and many others.

Greentech Media reports that German renewable energy pioneer Hermann Scheer has passed away - Herman Scheer, Renewable Energy Hero, Dies. More at Democracy Now, Renewable Energy World and Clean Break.

I've mentioned Hermann a number of times over the years - some relevant posts are Feed In Tariffs: The German Experiment, An Interview with Hermann Scheer and Nuclear Power - Its A Waste. I haven't seen any mention of what he died of - maybe the nuclear power industry assassinated him (just kidding)...

Hermann Scheer, the German parliamentarian and author who played an instrumental role in getting the solar industry and renewable energy in general moving, has died at the age of 66.

Scheer, along with fellow Bundestag member Hans Josef Fell, crafted Germany's feed-in policy in the early 90s. As a result, approximately 60 percent of the world's wind farms and 70 percent of its solar panels are located in the country. Other countries saw how renewable energy allowed Germany to add to its grid and its employment rolls and slowly, but with increasing speed, began to follow suit.

"If we can defeat climate change, it will be because of Hermann Scheer," said Travis Bradford, the managing director of the Prometheus Institute and a professor of renewable energy at the University of Chicago.

“Hermann Scheer was the George Washington of the renewable energy movement,” said ACORE President, Michael Eckhart in a prepared statement.

Scheer founded Eurosolar, the Bonn-based NGO that led so much of the popular promotion of renewable energy in Europe, as well as the International Renewable Energy Agency. He was the author of numerous publications, including: "The Solar Strategy," "A Solar Manifesto," and "The Solar Economy."

A high-energy, sometimes confrontational speaker, he often filled rooms at alternative energy conferences.

Technology Review has a look at Germany's feed in tariff program - The German Experiment.

A decade ago, Germany launched a renewable-­energy plan on an unprecedented scale. Its parliament, the Bundestag, enacted a law obligating the nation's electric utilities to purchase green power at sky-high rates--as much as 60 cents per kilowatt-hour for solar--under fixed contracts lasting up to 20 years. (German market prices for electricity, largely produced by coal and nuclear plants, were about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.) The idea behind this "feed-in tariff" was that anyone would be able to build a renewable-power plant--or install rooftop solar panels--and be guaranteed predictable profits by feeding energy into the grid, where utilities would buy it at premium prices. The higher costs would be passed on as monthly surcharges to ratepayers, spread out among all homes and businesses in a country of about 80 million people. Fossil and nuclear fuels amount to "global pyromania," said Hermann Scheer, the German politician who championed the policy. "Renewable energy is the fire extinguisher." ...

But why even bother with feed-in tariffs? Many economists favor either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system in which electricity plants buy permits to burn fossil fuel. "It would be better to tax brown power than subsidize green power," says Borenstein. Coal is the biggest carbon emitter among all energy sources, and it currently accounts for about half the electricity produced in the United States as well as in Germany. Phasing out coal should be the main goal, and pursuing that goal by putting a price on carbon, he says, allows the market to decide which renewable sources are most cost-effective. That's more efficient than letting the government set prices.

However, neither cap-and-trade nor a direct tax may be politically feasible in the United States. So would a national feed-in tariff be an acceptable alternative? Or would it also be politically doomed, since it, too, would raise electricity prices? To make a case for it, politicians would need to convince the American public that renewable power is worth it, pointing to Germany as the example. Indeed, the German experiment does show that a large industrial society can reach ambitious goals for scaling up new sources of clean electricity, with users paying the way. Germany expects to produce most of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Meanwhile, the United States produces only about 7 percent of its electricity from such sources, most of that from long-standing hydroelectric plants.

The real significance of the German plan, though, may not be as a model for other countries but as a source of permanent change in the world's energy economy. In this sense, Germany can be compared to early adopters of new gadgets, who often pay outrageous prices even though they know that others will get improved technology for much less a few years later.

Consider the changes in the market for wind power. By 2006, Germany had by far the largest wind-power base in the world, with 20.6 gigawatts of capacity. The massive scale brought the cost down, and wind began approaching grid parity in many parts of the world. In 2009, the United States and China were able to surpass Germany in capacity, but at far more attractive prices.

Thanks in part to the Germans, the same thing now appears to be happening in solar, with prices of photovoltaic panels plunging 40 percent last year alone. Yes, the critics are right that Germany's spending was wildly inefficient. But what Germany did was prime the global markets, showing that renewable technologies can be a big business worthy of investment. As a result, the United States may not need to copy Germany's experiment to reap the rewards.

The Guardian has an article on Jeremey Leggett and the debate in the UK about the value of solar PV - Jeremy Leggett: caught between low carbon and high-voltage rows.

A tiny doorway next to a BetFair shop in south London is the unassuming headquarters of Solarcentury, a company that arguably stands to gain most on 1 April when the feed-in tariff – or "great green rip-off" as some call it – comes into force.

The company, or at least its founder, is at the heart of the next phase of Britain's low-carbon revolution by encouraging homeowners to fix panels on their roofs to generate renewable energy.

But while executive chairman Jeremy Leggett should have been devoting 24 hours a day preparing for the busiest period of his commercial life, he has been forced to spend some of his time fighting off an unexpected assault by environmentalists in the Guardian blogosphere. The irony is that Leggett is an ex-Greenpeace employee and, as a former Imperial College geologist, a powerful and knowledgeable ally to the environment campaigners on a range of issues, including "peak oil" – the point when global demand outstrips supply.

The debate over whether the feed-in tariff costs too much for the expected carbon reductions rumbles on but even this "social entrepreneur", who has always enjoyed a good tussle with more traditional foes, admits he has had enough of swapping increasingly fraught online words with George Monbiot, Chris Goodall and other notable greens.

"It certainly perplexed me," he said. "If I did not know the individuals involved, I'd have presumed that this is the nuclear industry pushing back at a time of imminent possible success for the renewables industries. They [atomic power firms] have declared a form of war, with EDF and E.ON having this line to government that says 'You can have nuclear or you can have renewables, but you can't have both', when previously they argued you could have both.

"But I know the actors [environmentalists] so I know it is not possible [for them to be nuclear lackeys], but George and Chris must know how damaging it is at this time. At the very minimum it is annoying that George has come out with this heady rhetoric, yet as far as I know did not actively engage in the government's long consultation on the issue." ...

Leggett has also crossed swords with Monbiot over the latter's claim that it is an "impossible dream" to build up a proper British renewables products industry given the competition from low-cost areas such as China: "I say that is needless defeatism because the global market is pitifully small. Seven gigawatts of solar was installed last year, the equivalent of seven nuclear power plants, and to think we cannot catch up and have a fully integrated national industry is needless defeatism."

And this is an area where Leggett's scary view about the world running out of oil much faster than anyone expects neatly gels with the need to promote a self-standing renewables sector.

"Security of energy supply is going to be a real issue so should we not be deliberately building a vertically integrated renewables industry on the British Isles? I think the world is going to change dramatically and globalisation, of necessity, is going to be massively set back by the unaffordability of oil, so trade routes are going to shrink and there is going to be an incredible explosion of independent thinking.

"Companies and governments are going to think much more than they do now about this. We need to be making much more stuff at home. We can't be dependent on markets far overseas."

Leggett has pushed the peak oil debate on to the political agenda by getting an increasingly broad church of industrialists – such as Sir Richard Branson, Brian Souter of Stagecoach, and Philip Dilley of Arup – to come on board. The bandwagon seems finally to have made its impact on the UK government, which is softening its former position that peak oil was being over-hyped.

The shift to clean energy can occasionally make for some bizarre political spectacles, with George Monbiot's latest column in The Guardian being a spectacular example (in this case a socialist making the economic rationalist argument against solar PV in the UK) - Are we really going to let ourselves be duped into this solar panel rip-off?.

Those who hate environmentalism have spent years looking for the definitive example of a great green rip-off. Finally it arrives, and nobody notices. The government is about to shift £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes. It expects a loss on this scheme of £8.2bn, or 95%. Yet the media is silent. The opposition urges only that the scam should be expanded.

On 1 April the government introduces its feed-in tariffs. These oblige electricity companies to pay people for the power they produce at home. The money will come from their customers in the form of higher bills. It would make sense, if we didn't know that the technologies the scheme will reward are comically inefficient.

The people who sell solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and micro wind turbines in the UK insist they represent a good investment. The arguments I have had with them have been long and bitter. But the debate has now been brought to an end with the publication of the government's table of tariffs: the rewards people will receive for installing different kinds of generators. The government wants everyone to get the same rate of return. So while the electricity you might generate from large wind turbines and hydro plants will earn you 4.5p per kilowatt hour, mini wind turbines get 34p, and solar panels 41p. In other words, the government acknowledges that micro wind and solar PV in the UK are between seven and nine times less cost-effective than the alternatives.

It expects this scheme to save 7m tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2020. Assuming – generously – that the rate of installation keeps accelerating, this suggests a saving of about 20m tonnes of CO2 by 2030. The estimated price by then is £8.6bn. This means it will cost about £430 to save one tonne of CO2.

Last year the consultancy company McKinsey published a table of cost comparisons. It found that you could save a tonne of CO2 for £3 by investing in geothermal energy, or for £8 by building a nuclear power plant. Insulating commercial buildings costs nothing; in fact it saves £60 for every tonne of CO2 you reduce; replacing incandescent lightbulbs with LEDs saves £80 per tonne. The government predicts that the tradeable value of the carbon saved by its £8.6bn scheme will be £420m. That's some return on investment.

The reason for these astonishing costs is that the government expects most people who use this scheme to install solar panels. Solar PV is a great technology – if you live in southern California. But the further from the equator you travel, the less sense it makes. It's not just that the amount of power PV panels produce at this latitude is risible, they also produce it at the wrong time. In hot countries, where air conditioning guzzles electricity, peak demand coincides with peak solar radiation. In the UK, peak demand takes place between 5pm and 7pm on winter evenings. Do I need to spell out the implications?

We have plenty of ambient energy, but it's not to be found on people's roofs. The only renewables policy that makes sense is to build big installations where the energy is – which means high ground, estuaries or the open sea – and deliver it by wire to where people live. But the government's scheme sloshes money into places where resources are poor and economies of scale impossible.

First, Monbiot gets the workability of solar wrong. He says: "The amount of power PV panels produce at this latitude is risible, [and] they also produce it at the wrong time." Those who buy panels, therefore, will own a mere "fashion accessory". The companies who manufacture solar PV in the UK have shown that putting solar panels on all available building surfaces would generate more electricity in a year, under typical cloudy British skies, than the entire electricity consumption of our energy-profligate nation. Some fashion accessory.

Of course, just a fraction of that area of buildings would suffice because we would want to mix and match renewable technologies – large and small, onshore and offshore – so matching loads and compensating for the fact that solar generates by day and not by night.

Second, Monbiot says the government's scheme targets money where economies of scale are "impossible" – an incorrect assumption because solar electricity costs will inevitably fall to the point, within just a few years, where they are cheaper than any form of fossil fuel and nuclear electricity. Systemic economies of scale in solar manufacturing and installation techniques are causing rapid reductions in solar PV costs globally, just as Ofgem and others worry so loudly about the inevitable rise of traditional electricity costs.

Third, Monbiot gets the precedent for the British government's solar "cash-back" scheme – the German feed-in tariff – upside down. He says the "German government decided to reduce sharply the tariff it pays for solar PV, on the grounds that it is a waste of money".

But all feed-in tariffs are supposed to decline, and indeed reduce to zero within some years – that is the whole point. They are not like the market-building schemes for the nuclear technologies that Monbiot advocates, where subsidies – open and hidden – are needed for decades. Most Germans are rightly proud of their feed-in tariff regime. They have, after all, created over 50,000 jobs in solar PV alone.

Fourth, Monbiot has it wrong about who pays the cash back. "The government is about to shift £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes," he says. But the number is not the cost to "the poor". It's not even the cost to all electricity consumers over the next two decades. The cumulative cost to all consumers – including all non-domestic industrial, public sector, and commercial users and covering all technologies in the scheme – is £6.7bn, and is spread over 20 years.

The average household levy in 2013, when tariff rates are all up for review, is likely to be less than £3. This is far less than the average saving from the government's various domestic energy efficiency measures over the same period. So there is no net subsidy. The levy is not "regressive" at all.

Energy Matters has a post on the NSW gross feed in tariff for solar power - Solar Bonus Scheme Boom In New South Wales.

While the New South Wales Solar Bonus Scheme doesn't kick off until January 1 next year; home solar power providers are already enjoying a sharp increase in orders for systems.

According to Max Sylvester of national solar solutions provider Energy Matters, the rush is already on. "There is usually some weeks of lead up time from the initial interest to installation and this may increase as more people become aware of the program and order systems."

"Given the Solar Bonus Scheme rate of 60 cents per kilowatt hour is guaranteed for seven years and applies to every kilowatt generated; people are understandably very eager to have a system installed sooner rather than later in order to maximize their returns. The activity in our instant online quoting system over the last couple of weeks from New South Wales has been phenomenal and we're ramping up our resources to ensure we can continue to meet the demand."

The NSW Solar Bonus Scheme is currently the most generous feed in tariff in Australia and combined with the Solar Credits rebate, home owners can recoup their investment in just a few years, depending on the installation location. Additionally, the Federal Government's Green Loans program can in some cases see home owners acquire a solar power system for free.

A typical residential solar power installation system has a capacity of around 1.5 kilowatts. According to information provided by the NSW Government., a solar power system of this size would generate approximately 2500 kWh annually, which translates to around $1500 return each year through the Solar Bonus Scheme.

Cleantech.com reports that the Irish government has introduced feed-in tariffs and streamlined regulations to encourage construction of small scale renewable energy projects - Ireland pushes for fast action on small-scale renewables.

Ireland expects to boost its rural economies with a new long-term feed-in tariff program encouraging consumers to install renewables energy generation projects on homes and farms.

The incentives are expected to help with the long-term cost of projects, but the government limited the scope of the incentives in order to push for fast action on the part of consumers.

Irish Energy Minister Eamon Ryan established the tariff of €0.19 ($0.26) per kilowatt hour, but the rate only applies for the first 4,000 projects registered during the next three years.The incentive applies to wind, solar, hydro and combined heat-and-power projects.

Ireland’s national energy agency, Sustainable Energy Ireland, is taking applications for grants to cover 40 percent of the cost of projects 50 kilowatts or less, but only 50 projects are expected to qualify.

Ireland has also taken long-term steps, such as removing the need for small-scale renewable energy projects to seek permission from planning authorities. ESB Networks, which operates the country's electricity distribution network, has established a policy to reduce the length and complexity of the process to connect to the grid. ...

Ireland imports more than 90 percent of its energy requirements, according to a white paper released by the government in 2007. By 2020, Ireland plans for renewables to contribute 33 percent of its power generation, while natural gas is expected to be just under 50 percent. Ireland imports 87 percent of its natural gas from the UK.

The Washington Monthly has an article on feed in tariffs and other measures supporting clean energy in Florida, asking "A little-known policy is turning sleepy central Florida into a green energy hub. Could it do the same for America at large?" - The Rooftop Revolution.

This winter, as Congress was scrambling to pass the stimulus package, the bottom fell out of the renewable energy sector—the very industry that lawmakers have held out as our best hope of salvaging the economy. Trade groups like the American Wind Energy Association, which as recently as December was forecasting "another record-shattering year of growth," began predicting that new installations would plunge by 30 to 50 percent. Solar panel manufacturers that had been blazing a trail of growth announced a wave of layoffs. Some have since cut their workforces in half, as stock prices tumble and plans for new green energy projects stall.

But there is one place where capital is still flowing: Gainesville, Florida. Even as solar panels are stacking up in warehouses around the country, this city of 120,000 is gearing up for a solar power boom, fueled by homegrown businesses and scrappy investors who have descended on the community and are hiring local contractors to install photovoltaic panels on rooftops around town.

One of those investors is Tim Morgan, a tall fiftysomething man with slicked-back hair and ostrich-skin boots who owns a chain of electrical contracting companies. His industry has been hit hard by the downturn, but he has a plan to salvage his business, which he explained over a drink at the Ballyhoo Grill, a gritty Gainesville bar with rusty license plates nailed to the wall and Jimmy Buffett blaring on the jukebox. Morgan intends to rent roof space from eighty Gainesville businesses and install twenty-five-kilowatt solar generating systems on each of them, for a total of two megawatts—a project that would nearly double Florida’s solar-generating capacity.

He estimates the venture will cost between $16 million and $20 million and bring in $1.4 million a year. Already, he has lined up financing, found local contractors to do the installation, and staked claims to the rooftops of at least fifty businesses. "And we’re just one tiny player," he told me. "Look around. You can see how fast this thing is going to move."

Indeed, around Gainesville similar projects abound. Paradigm Properties, a residential real estate company, plans to install photovoltaic arrays on fifty local apartment buildings and its downtown headquarters. Achira Wood, a custom carpentry outlet, is plastering the roof of its workshop—roughly 50,000 square feet of galvanized steel—with solar panels. Interstate Mini Storage is doing the same with its sprawling flat-roofed compound. Tom Lane, who owns ECS Solar Energy Systems, a local solar contractor, told me he’s planning to expand his staff from eleven to at least fifty. "The activity we’ve seen is just explosive," he said. "I’ve been in the business thirty years and I’ve never seen anything like it."

Why is the renewable energy market in Gainesville booming while it’s collapsing elsewhere in the country? The answer boils down to policy. In early February, the city became the first in the nation to adopt a "feed-in tariff"—a clunky and un-descriptive name for a bold incentive to foster renewable energy. Under this system, the local power company is required to buy renewable energy from independent producers, no matter how small, at rates slightly higher than the average cost of production. This means anyone with a cluster of solar cells on their roof can sell the power they produce at a profit. The costs of the program are passed on to ratepayers, who see a small rise in their electric bills (in Gainesville the annual increase is capped at 1 percent). While rate hikes are seldom popular, the community has rallied behind this policy, because unlike big power plant construction—the costs of which are also passed on to the public—everyone has the opportunity to profit, either by investing themselves or by tapping into the groundswell of economic activity the incentive creates.

Though Gainesville is the first to take the leap, other U.S. cities are also moving toward adopting feed-in tariffs. Hawaii plans to enact one this summer, and at least ten other states are considering following suit. Among them is hard-hit Michigan, where Governor Jennifer Granholm has promised that the policy will help salvage the state’s economy and create thousands of jobs by allowing "every homeowner, every business" to become "a renewable energy entrepreneur." There is also a bill for a federal feed-in tariff before Congress.

Could this approach help revive our renewable energy market, and give a needed jolt to the U.S. economy? There is reason to believe it could. In Germany, which pioneered the modern feed-in tariff, it has given rise to the world’s most vibrant green energy sector. More than forty countries, from Nicaragua to Israel, have followed Germany’s lead, often with dramatic results. Study after study has shown that not only do feed-in tariffs deliver more renewable energy than other market incentives, they do so at a lower cost. "People hesitate to call anything a panacea," says Toby Couture, an energy and financial markets analyst at the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "But if you’re interested in creating jobs, getting capital flowing, and expanding renewable energy, feed-in tariffs get the job done—often more cost effectively than other policies."

FeedInTariff.com.au has a petition asking the federal government to adopt national feed in tariffs for solar power - Let's get Australia moving on solar feed in tariffs!.

A feed-in tariff is a premium rate paid for electricity produced by a renewable source such as a grid connected rooftop solar system or wind turbine, usually over and above the market rate.

National gross feed in tariff programs have been established around the world, resulting in increased uptake of solar and wind power systems by home owners and businesses .

We've waited long enough for the Australian Government to act decisively - it's time to push the issue of national gross feed in tariffs; particularly after the recent Council Of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting where principles tabled were far removed from how a feed in tariff system should operate.

Fractured and inadequate state run feed in tariff systems simply aren't good enough. They do not reward system owners suitably and do not recognise the true value that grid connected solar power systems can contribute to stimulating our economy and lowering our greenhouse gas emissions. Lend your support to a gross feed in tariff program that will actually work and make Australia a leading nation in the uptake of clean, green solar power!

Sign the petition and help Rudd choose a solar future!