SUPPORT SOLAR

More than a decade ago the NSW govt offered a rebate of two thirds paid by them for the
entire stand-alone solar power system. To be eligible for this you had to prove that
connecting to the grid was to cost more than $25,000 as I recall.
The present German scheme is for grid connected systems and doesn't pay for the
equipment, but pays more for the solar power that you sell to the grid than what you pay to
buy grid power. If the solar power buy price is high enough and if the scheme is promised to
continue for long enough it will attract investors all over the country.The cost of implementing
such a scheme can be offset with carbon credits if Australia could only see fit to sign the
Kyoto Protocol and officially start involving itself in carbon trading.
Since the introduction of the GST there has been a tax on solar panels, batteries, inverters,
regulators and anything else to do with producing your own power was all tax exempt. The
GST as it stands supposedly based on the idea of a simpler tax system has removed this
method of favouring less environmentally damaging technologies by making them tax
exempt.