Tasmanian election: loans for solar, batteries under Labor plan

Making the announcement in Hobart on Tuesday, Labor leader Rebecca White said many Tasmanian families were "struggling" with rising power bills.

"This is one initiative that would make an enormous difference to the cost of those power bills for households, enabling more people to purchase solar panels and to purchase battery technology to make sure that they can get the benefits from that investment," she said.

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Under the 10-year program, loans of up to $15,000 would be made available, to be interest-free in the first three years and low interest in the remaining seven years. It's expected the loans would assist about 1300 households.

"There will be guidelines that are attached to this program but it's estimated that families with an income of up to $200,000 would be eligible to apply," Ms White said.

The Labor leader said solar owners had been "badly let down" by the state Liberal government and had seen the vaue of their investment "crumble" due to the fact that feed-in tariffs had been cut.

"The controversial new 'solar tax' proposed by the Australian Energy Market Commission will further hit the value of feed-in tariffs with people set to be charged for exporting solar power to the grid," Ms White said.

"Due to changes in the national electricity market it is now impossible to simply reinstate the previous tariff rates and the only solution is battery storage.

"Battery storage is the equivalent of receiving a feed-in tariff equal to the retail rate charged by [Aurora Energy]."

Labor says its aim is to ensure that Tasmanians enjoy a return on their investment in solar.

Mick Heatley, of Glenorchy, said installing solar and battery technology four years ago had saved him "thousands of dollars".

He said Labor's loan program policy was a "tremendous idea".

"I've got no worries about power blackouts and so forth," Mr Heatley said. "It's continuous power and no problems of the fridges going off and the spoilage of the foodstuffs and so forth.

"So the mind's quite at peace."

Mr Heatley said he had made the choice to have solar panels installed so he could save on electricity costs and help combat climate change.

On Monday, Labor also announced a $5 million solar schools fund, the aim of which would be to incentivise schools to install solar panels to bring down their energy costs.

A recent report from the Tasmanian Economic Regulator showed that Tasmanians paid among the lowest regulated power prices in the country.

The state Liberal government enforced a 1.38 per cent decrease in power prices from July 1, 2020 and introduced a $45 million electricity concession scheme during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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