Innovation and Disruption at the Grid’s Edge

Chapter 10

Public Policy Issues Associated With Feed-In Tariffs and Net Metering: An Australian Perspective

Darryl Biggar^*

Joe Dimasi^***    Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Melbourne, VIC, Australia^**    Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission, Canberra City, ACT, Australia

Abstract

It has long been known that time-averaged and geographically averaged retail tariffs distort end-customer’s incentives to use and invest in appliances and energy efficiency. This problem is even more acute when end-customers can invest in and use on-site generation and storage. What tariff should be paid for the output of that generation or storage? Should the customer be able to use that output to offset his/her own consumption? Should the ...