Renewable Energy — Is FiT (Feed-In Tariff) a good fit for Australians?

  • Category
    Education
  • Published
    24 August 2011
  • Read time
    2 minutes

The Australian government hopes to see 20% of Australia’s electricity supply coming from renewable sources by 2020. Will the Feed-In Tariff (FiT) program help achieve this target?

Charlie Prell - Sheep Grazier and Energy Farmer
Charlie Prell is a Farmer from Crookwell on the NSW Southern Tablelands. In his words he farms" sheep and energy". His farm has several wind turbines on it and with neighbouring properties generate enough energy to run the farm and feed back in to the energy grid. He was interviewed for the Climate Change exhibition in November 2019. Image: Abram Powell
© Australian Museum

The impact of climate change has lead many governments to come up with initiatives to move towards renewable energy. The Feed-In Tarrif (FiT) is a program to promote the use of renewable energy by mandating utility and power companies to purchase electricity generated by renewable sources. The government sets purchasing rates that are higher than market rates to off-set the cost of using renewable energy.

Although companies will be paying higher prices, the costs will be recouped by spreading it across all customer bills with the promise that it will not have an unjustifiable monetary burden on customers. Of course, the more customers a company has, the less money is added to each customer’s bill.

Will the FiT program make purchasing renewable energy more attractive and help achieve the government’s target? What do you think?

Check out this media release from The Hon Mark Dreyfus QC MP Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency on 05 May 2011:
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/en/minister/greg-combet/2011/media-releases/May/mr20110505.aspx