VCEC

The State Government has announced that a Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission (VCEC) inquiry will be established to determine the most appropriate arrangements to encourage Victorian households, community organisations and small businesses to generate renewable energy.

The inquiry will assess existing feed-in tariff arrangements, and will assist in determining what fair and cost-effective mechanisms can encourage the community to generate renewable energy in the future.

The outcomes will not be applied retrospectively to any customers on existing feed-in tariffs, and potential customers wishing to sign up to the current Transitional Feed-in Tariff scheme will not be affected.

The terms of reference for the inquiry require VCEC to:

• consider how efficient and effective feed-in tariffs are as a greenhouse gas reduction program;
• provide a recommendation as to whether feed-in tariffs should be continued, changed or phased out; and
• identify barriers to a network of distributed renewable and low emission generation in Victoria, including co-generation and tri-generation.