Solar Tax Proposal Has the Grifting Middle-Class in a Tizz

Contrary to the popular saying, there are three certainties in life: death, taxes – and no free lunch.

But the left are so wedded to the idea that anything and everything from the gub’mint is free that they’ve even come up with a fancy euphemism for it: Modern Monetary Theory (i.e. “the gummint can get out of debt just by printing more money!”). But nothing is free – especially not when it comes from the cornucopia of the state.

Everything that the state gives to anyone is paid for by someone else – the taxpayer. Notwithstanding, we’ve become so addicted to state welfare that we now find ourselves in the situation where less than half of us pay more in taxes than we suck back out in welfare. Including middle-class welfare.

One of the worst middle-class welfare scams of the past decade has been “renewable energy”, notably solar panels. Besotted with green climate alarmist bullshit, a succession of governments have pumped billions into subsidising household solar panels. The biggest cohort of leeches sucking up this taxpayer-funded largesse are late-middle-aged and middle-income.

Well, now they’re about to get a taste of their own medicine.

Millions of Australian households may soon be charged an additional “solar tax” for exporting solar power to the grid under controversial new rules proposed by the Australian Energy Market Commission, the main rule maker for the energy market.

Up till now, solar panel owners have slugged it to everyone else, twice over: first, by scarfing up grants and subsidies, then by being paid to “feed back” into the grid. A grid made increasingly unstable and expensive by renewables.

Under the modelling produced in its voluminous 250-page document, the AEMC suggests a tariff of 2c/kWh for exports in the middle of the day. This would cost up to $100 a year, but it is not recommending a flat or compulsory tariff and wants consumers and networks to negotiate flexible outcomes.

The AEMC says this will encourage networks to send “price signals” to help reduce congestion on the grid. In short, they want to encourage more households to install more battery storage and export less at peak times[…]

The AEMC, and the monopoly network companies, have been pushing for some form of solar tax for years, arguing that the grid was not made for two-way traffic and significant investment was needed to accommodate this[…]

It comes at the same time as new protocols and inverter standards means rooftop solar systems are now “switched” off – under instruction from the Australian Energy Market Operator – at various times to keep the grid stable. The first such event occurred last week, as we reported here.

This is mostly the AEMC scrambling to fix its own stuff-ups: the regulator has been solidly behind the “renewable” push, even as it admits that this has sent power prices skyrocketing and destabilised the grids, especially during peak summer and winter demand periods.

Naturally, the bourgeois bludgers are squealing like stuck pigs.

Some solar advocacy groups are vehemently opposed to any export tax, arguing that the networks are amply rewarded through existing network tariffs – and the historic “gold plating” of the grid – that they should be making the investments needed to accommodate the new focus on distributed energy.

“It is like arguing that bicycles should be charged for using the roads,” says Bruce Mountain, from the Victoria Energy Policy Centre.

Well, yes: why shouldn’t cyclists be charged for using roads, like every other road user? That single statement is a stunning insight into the entitlement mentality at work, here.

The AEMC says the modelling it undertook says the introduction of export charges would result in lower bills for the 80 per cent of consumers that do not have rooftop solar “because they would no longer pay for solar export services they weren’t using.”

RenewEconomy

The green left like to bang on about “fairness”. So, what’s “fair” about the non-solar-owning majority paying soaring power bills in order to subsidise an already well-off minority?

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