Huon weighs in on the renewable energy policy changes

The latest article on Renew Economy recently covered the NSW Greens, Liberals and Labour announcing their renewable energy policies, yet this seems more knee-jerk than planned. We are grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the conversation and look forward to working with policymakers and industry leaders to create a solar market that benefits everyone.

Here is an excerpt, as covered by the Renew Economy:

As noted above, the Greens rushed out their solar policy for NSW, after the two major parties both dropped solar policies of their own over the weekend.

And while green and industry groups have welcomed the policy focus, some in the solar industry are critical of the race to subsidise residential solar, when the market is booming on its own, and when they should be focusing on incentives for battery storage, and on facilitating network and regulatory upgrades to accommodate the rapidly changing face of the grid.

“It’s vote-buying in its most blatant form,” said Huon Hoogesteger, a long-time PV industry player and founder of Smart Commercial Solar

“Currently, the industry is already maxed out. You cannot find enough installers, (and) the cost of labour has sky-rocketed (to meet demand),” Hoogesteger told RE on Tuesday.

“New (policy) ideas such as cash grabs create massive booms only absorbable by those who are prepared to negotiate on quality,” he said, raising concerns similar to those expressed by industry in Victoria, off the back of that state Labor government’s solar homes rebate.

“It’s a very blunt object when what we need is a screw-driver, tweaking here and there and making small strategic changes to allow the market to grow,” he added.

“From my perspective, we need to be reasonable, and politically considerate of both the taxpayer and the (market) stimulation, because it’s already happening, and we don’t need to be knee-jerk about it.

“We need something that we can carry forward for 20 years, instead of this rapid change and big booms and busts. We’ve suffered already from that.”