Contact ends solar price perk to legacy customers

A drop in what Contact Energy pays for solar power from household panels is fair, an analyst says.

The power company has been contacting

1200 customers who were on legacy buyback rates for their solar power.

Many ‘‘grid-tied’’ solar systems feed unused power back into the grid. Power companies then pay for that electricity.

The Contact customers had been getting

17 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). That has now been revised down to 8c, the same rate offered to new customers.

‘‘There are a number of reasons for this new rate that takes into account the average price we pay for electricity in the wholesale market and is in line with the average industry export rate,’’ Contact said in its communication with legacy customers.

It suggested households could use hot water diversion systems and battery storage units to store the energy generated instead of selling it back.

Simon Coates, of Concept Consulting, said most households would only use about

40 per cent of the power that their solar systems generated.

Solar power was generated in greatest volumes in the middle of the day, when many people weren’t home, and in summer – but people tended to use more power in winter. He said the 8c rate seemed generous.

There was a wider issue in that customers who switched to solar power still required all the infrastructure for times when solar was not an option.

But they paid less of that distribution cost due to their lower power usage, leaving houses without solar power systems to pick up the bill, he said.

‘‘Those costs that they are not paying don’t go away – they [are] shared with others without solar power.’’

Meridian, Mercury and Genesis all pay

8c per kWh. Trustpower offers 7c.