Victoria Solar Homes - Extra rebates released. Is it enough?

Today, the Victorian Government expanded the Solar Homes Program to allow more rebates to be given to homes. 

Finally!

Starting next month, instead of the normal 3,333 rebates, the program will allow for 6,500 on September 2nd, and a further 3,250 14 days later. In October, 6,500 will be released, and will slowly plateau to 5,000 per month. 

The rebate amount remains unchanged at $2,225 for each home. 

The new plan they have put forth will tackle many of the challenges previously faced by solar installers:

• Increased capacity to allow for more homes. 
• Address the backlog of almost 10,000 applicants.
• Allow for rebate applications to take place at any time during the month rather than on the first business day of each month. 

The situation was becoming dire for domestic solar installers for the past 2 months. It is extremely encouraging to see that the Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio and the Andrews Government acted reasonably quickly.. 

Hopefully, solar installers will be able to get back on their feet and continue business as normal. But it certainly does look like their protest outside Parliament House has worked. 

There is still a hard cap of 5,000 on supply. 

However, this still doesn’t address the main economic impact on domestic solar industry in general. 

Whilst an increase to 5,000 rebates is a welcome sight, what will happen when the number of applications rises above that? Is the government expecting less than 5,000 installations per month for the foreseable future?

The solar industry is growing. We should accelerate it, not limit it. 

5,000 is still a hard cap on supply. 

When the limit is reached for the month, It is very likely that consumers will once again, wait for the following month to get their rebates if they miss out. 

The transition to renewable energy needs to happen as quickly as possible. I fear that 5,000 may not be enough in the long term. 

If it is not enough, what has happened in the past two months will happen again. 

An alternative to ponder. 

I understand that there is a limit to the tax-payers funds available for this program. 

Could it have been possible to decrease each rebate to $2,000 or even $1,800 to further increase the number of available homes? 

Let’s wait and see what the results are come 2nd of September.