Plea for minimum solar rebate THE country's peak clean energy body has urged the Essential Services Commission of South Australia not to scrap a minimum rebate paid to residential solar power producers. The Clean Energy Council (CEC) has asked ESCOSA to maintain its regulation of the solar feed-in tariff premium (FiT Premium), an amount electricity retailers pay to their South Australian customers who feed electricity back into the grid. It follows the announcement in June that ESCOSA is reviewing whether to continue setting a minimum premium - currently set at 9.8c/kWh until December 31 - following submissions from electricity retailers such as Energy Australia calling for it to be scrapped. The retailers argued the premium should be deregulated given the State Government has recently moved to deregulate retail energy prices. However, the CEC said deregulation of the FiT Premium would be unfair to households with solar panels and ultimately more expensive for other electricity consumers. It said that in NSW - the only state to have abolished a minimum premium - solar consumers have been short-changed by electricity retailers. "CEC calls on the South Australian Government to continue to offer the same level of consumer protection for solar customers that is available in South Australia and other states by mandating a minimum legal feed-in tariff payment," it said in a submission. An Energy Australia spokeswoman said the company would again lobby for the FiT Premium to be scrapped. "We support voluntary feed-in tariffs that pay solar customers for their excess electricity, but we don't support a minimum, regulated feed-in tariff," she said. ESCOSA will make its determination in late November or early December.