Premier Kristina Keneally announced last week that the gross feed-in tariff for households feeding solar energy back into the State grid was being dropped from 60c per kilowatt hour to just 20c.

The changes came into effect just hours after the premier’s announcement, sparking a frenzy of activity for all the state’s installers who had until midnight last Wednesday to sign up new clients to the more generous scheme.

While there have been concerns that the changes could cripple the solar power industry, SolarSave’s marketing manager Chris Sullivan believes there is still a bright future for his company, one of the state’s largest solar panel installers.

SolarSave is based on the Central Coast and installs solar electricity and solar hot water systems state wide, including more than 40 solar PV systems in the Bathurst region over the past four months.

“Although this less than well thought out and rather badly handled decision is of concern, there are other market opportunities and we’re a large player,”

he said.

“But for the smaller operators, the slashing of the feed-in tariff will hit hard.”

Mr Sullivan said the solar industry had no prior warning about last week’s decision.

“First knowledge of the change actually came from customers calling our salesroom,” he said.

“We had hundreds of customers provide deposits, both over the telephone and in person, leading up to the midnight cut-off so we’ll be busy for several months to come.

“This knee jerk reaction has done nothing more than compound a problem, a problem that could have been at least relieved, if not possibly resolved months ago.”

Mr Sullivan said a number of industry bodies, including the Clean Energy Council, had suggested to the government that the 60c tariff should be reduced to around 45c to ensure the long-term viability of the NSW Solar Bonus Scheme.

“Frustratingly this decision won’t stop electricity prices soaring but it will affect the consumer’s perception of, and confidence in, solar energy as a viable alternative,” he said.

The State Government decided to rein in the popular NSW Solar Bonus Scheme after a report found it would otherwise have cost a crippling $4 billion, or more than twice the original estimates.

More than 50,000 NSW households had signed up to the 60c tariff scheme.