Energy Matters wins solar panel bid for NSW projects

Australia’s national solar solutions provider, Energy Matters, has revealed its successful bid to deliver solar panels to New South Wales’ (NSW) local government projects for a three-year period.

More than 24 leading Australian companies participated to secure the rights in eight different equipment categories. According to Jeremy Rich, co-founder and Managing Director of Energy Matters, the competition was extremely tough.

Last month, the NSW government had announced a new rebate scheme for houses and companies using solar panels. Under the refund programme, owners of solar systems will get 60c payment for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated.

The new government programme will moreover allow project financiers to easily get the proceeds from their investments. According to statistics, a normal sized 1.5kW panel can produce about 2,500kWh per year and can earn at least $1,500 under the rebate scheme.

In other related news, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) earlier reported that NSW’s electricity costs could rise at least 62 per cent starting mid next year until 2013.

Over 90 per cent of the future price increase is due to the local government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). By 2013, CPRS is likely to raise energy prices to an average 21 per cent for Country Energy consumers, 23 per cent for EnergyAustralia buyers and 25 per cent for Integral Energy users. But even without CPRS, the tribunal estimates that an ordinary household will still need to pay an extra $242 in Integral Energy, $438 a year in EnergyAustralia and $594 in Country Energy.