Electricity companies are stifling attempts by people to go green with their power use, South Australian Greens leader Mark Parnell says.
Mr Parnell said he would meet industry representatives next week to discuss some of the tactics being employed.
"There are some practices which I'd say are dubious, and we need to encourage more people, not less, to take up renewable energy," he told 891 ABC Adelaide.
Mr Parnell said a potential legal fight was looming on some issues.
"[There is a] can of worms with this question of whether someone can put batteries onto their [solar panels] system and whether the electricity companies can then cut them off the feed-in tariff," he said.
The feed-in rate is paid to property owners whose panels generate excess power which is fed into the state grid.
"The wording of the legislation says that if you increase the capacity of your system to generate electricity then you can lose your benefits," Mr Parnell said.
"But a battery doesn't increase capacity to generate electricity, it just stores electricity you've already generated so there's a legal dispute, on think, on its way to challenge what the electricity companies are saying to people ... 'If you put batteries in we're going to cut you off'."
The Greens leader said cheaper, more-advanced battery technology could leave electricity providers with what were termed "stranded assets".
"[Batteries] are the game changer - once the battery technology gets to a certain level you've got lots of poles and wires that increasingly people won't want," he said, predicting greater numbers of South Australian households might be able to disconnect from the grid and be self-sufficient, whatever the weather.
A caller to 891 ABC Adelaide, Don, said he had solar panels and had now added a wind turbine to his Burnside property.
He said he paid a $960 development application fee to the local council when he planned to install the turbine, but the council later refunded the money once it determined it had no regulations which covered such an application.
The man then built his turbine, said it was working well and it made "noise you can hardly hear".
Don said he had installed batteries to store power he generated and had been getting his rebates from his power provider.
Topics: government-and-politics, political-parties, greens, alternative-energy, states-and-territories, solar-energy, wind-energy, environment, electricity-energy-and-utilities, adelaide-5000, saView the original article here
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