Disgruntlement about the solar rebate has built up a head of steam - The Age has a typical story - "Anger as shadow falls on solar rebate".

Robert Merkel at Larvatus Prodeo has a contrary view, pointing out that piecemeal subsidies for solar panels is a very expensive way of achieving the desired outcome (of building out large scale clean energy infrastructure) - "Killing solar PV softly".

As discussed on a couple of previous LP threads, the rebate, while great for the beneficiaries, is in my opinion woeful public policy. To summarise, solar cells are currently way more expensive than just about any other renewable option, including wind, utility-scale solar thermal and CSP, small-scale hydropower, biomass, possibly geothermal and especially energy efficiency - you name it, it’s better value. But even if you specifically want to subsidise solar panels on roofs, it’s dumb policy, because it encourages them on the wrong roofs. For the same amount of money, you can put a lot more solar panels (and the extra support gear required) on the roofs of factories, schools, and offices, and generate a lot more power, than you can with domestic-size installations. Furthermore, if you look at what other forms of generation rooftop solar is likely to displace, it’s not coal or gas. It’s those other, arguably more promising, forms of renewable generation, because of the vagaries of the real, substantial incentive in place for renewable energy, the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target.

Whether you personally agree with that or not, it seems that there are plenty in the government who do, and decided they’d like to spike the program. But - as any thread on the topic at LP reveals - there are plenty of people who like solar energy, and like the idea of incentives to see it deployed on rooftops. So how to square the desire to stop this perceived waste of resources, with the desire not to have the supporters of solar panels - many of whom inhabit the political territory between Labor and the Greens - get too publicly upset?

Simple. You look around at who’s claiming the rebate, and you find out that most of them are reasonably well-off types. Who else can afford to blow upwards of three and a half thousand dollars on something that, even with the rebate, takes forever to pay for itself? And, then, you note that a bunch of welfare benefits have just had a means test slapped on them. Put two and two together…and put a means test on the rebate. And, surprise surprise, the market for solar systems disappears overnight, according to the linked Age story ...

But it’s very hard for the rooftop solar industry’s natural friends to make a case against means testing. Christine Milne tries valiantly on Greensblog, but the subtleties of the argument - that in this particular case the long-term environmental benefits of middle-class welfare outweigh the ick factor of giving the already wealthy government rebates - are difficult to make. And, I suspect, the government will get away with killing the grid-connected solar industry without provoking a backlash outside a relatively small group of people.