Lismore campaign seeks fair price for solar energy

A campaign to give Australia’s 1.5 million owners of rooftop solar a fair price for ‘farming the sun’ will  be launched in Lismore tomorrow (Tuesday) night.

Solar Citizens, an independent, community-based organisation, is calling on Lismore area’s 20,000 rooftop-solar ‘voters’ and supporters to help ‘protect the rights of millions of Australians with solar to cut bills, create clean power and take energy generation back into our own hands’.

Organisers of the ‘Fair Price for Solar’ campaign launch at Lismore City Hall at 6.30pm say they are ‘seeking to undo the rampant profiteering of big power companies off the back of sun farmers, Australia’s 1.5 million solar owners’.

‘Solar owners are actually farming the sun, and like farmers across the country, they are primary producers who just want a fair go, and a fair price for their product’, Solar Citizens’ national director Claire O’Rourke said.

‘The state seat of Lismore has 36 per cent of residents living under a solar roof, and ranks number two in NSW for solar penetration with 20,074 solar voters in the electorate,’ Ms O’Rourke said.

‘Just like the farming community, solar owners are up against hugely powerful companies and corporations who are trying to make obscene profits from the produce they supply. Solar owners only want a fair go for the contribution they make to powering Australia and taking pressure off the grid.’

The campaign will focus on NSW where there is no minimum price for solar electricity fed back to the grid.

On average the state’s solar owners receive around 5-6 cents per unit for rooftop solar electricity sold back to the grid, which is less than a quarter of the cost of electricity the retailer charges for electricity accessed from the grid.

‘This new campaign is determined to see them get a fair price for solar that recognises the true value sun power delivers to the community,’ Ms O’Rourke said.