More evidence utilities discriminating against solar households

A federal Senate Inquiry into the pricing practices of Australia’s major power networks is set to hear “overwhelming” evidence that the nation’s big electricity companies have been discriminating against households with rooftop solar.

Solar advocacy group Solar Citizens said on Tuesday it would be presenting evidence to the inquiry on behalf of 550 solar home owners who claimed, among other things, they had been hit by hidden fees and increased service charges since they began generating their own power.

The Inquiry was set in motion last October, after a former employee of the Queensland government-owned network Energex turned whistle blower, telling the Courier-Mail her bosses had examined how to artificially drive-up household power prices.

Chief among the goals of the Sydney hearing is to investigate links between higher electricity prices and over-investment in the national grid – a practice known as ‘goldplating’, that has been linked with rising retail power prices, in the face of decreasing consumption and falling wholesale prices.

Today, however, the Sydney hearing will hear from solar customers like our reader from Queensland, whose power bills tell a tale of pitiful solar tariffs and exorbitant fixed charges.

Claire O’Rourke – the Director of Solar Citizens, who will present the 550 solar submissions – said the overwhelming majority of them revealed unfair treatment by energy providers, raising the question of whether utilites were trying to systematically deter or disadvantage people who chose to generate their power.

“The key concerns we heard were people being hit with unfair or hidden fees, an increase in service charges after installing solar, exorbitant fees for installing poles and wires in rural areas and questionable practices from the big power companies,” O’Rourke said.

These included such complaints as:

“It was astonishing to find that my last electricity bill had gone up by more than 200 per cent, even though my actual usage had not changed at all.”

“I had a 70 per cent increase in the service fee from one quarter to the next. There was no explanation.”

“When we changed over to solar PV, the service charge went from about 80 cents a day to $1.30 and the kwh went from 19 cents to 33 cents, completely negating the savings we were making with our solar panels.”

“I live in a rural area, where the nearest power line is perhaps a kilometre away for some people. We have been told they will have to pay up to $10,000 to get the power on.”

“The fact is,” says O’Rourke, “the biggest component of power bills is network charges, the poles and wires – these charges amount to as much as 60 per cent of the average household electricity bill.

“Australians should be charged for the electricity they use, not the inflated, goldplated prices electricity companies charge.

“Solar can help to bring down power bills by more than 50 per cent, which is one reason why there are 1.3 million solar homes around Australia.

“Our hope is that this inquiry will make strong recommendations to prevent discriminatory and unfair actions against solar owners and help all Australians households with the rising cost of power prices,” she said.