Solar power to push up electricity costs

SYDNEY (AAP) - 28 SEPT - South Australians will be hit with an eight per cent hike in electricity prices to cover the cost of thousands of homeowners installing solar panels.
A state government scheme paying people with solar power for the electricity they feed back into the grid will be scaled back as of the end of this week.
The rate will be slashed from the current 44 cents a kilowatt hour to about 22 cents.
But those who get in before Friday's deadline will continue to be paid at the higher rate until 2028.
That has prompted a rush of homeowners installing solar panels, increasing the total cost of the feed-in scheme for the government.
Energy Minister Michael O'Brien told parliament on Wednesday that while he did not have the exact figure available, the increase in electricity prices would be around eight per cent.
Mr O'Brien said the government had initially been concerned that this would result in low-income homeowners, who could not afford solar power, subsidising those who could.
But an assessment had revealed that it was people in Adelaide's mortgage-belt suburbs, north and south of the city, who were most active in embracing the alternative energy.
"That eight per cent is actually falling not on the mortgage belt or low-income earners. It's actually being picked up by wealthier residents in South Australia," the minister said.
But opposition energy spokesman Mitch Williams said the eight per cent price hike was a further blow to cost-of-living pressures.
"Labor's financial mismanagement has forced South Australians to pay more for their basic needs," he said.
Mr Williams said since Labor came to power in 2002, electricity prices had jumped by 75 per cent.