The Premier of the Governing WA Liberal party yesterday announced that the West Australian State Government has reversed its decision to cut the feed in tariff by 10 cents a year after receiving significant public outcry.

While the unfavourable decision was expected to save $51 million – public backlash and pressure from within the state Liberal party saw the decision abandoned only four days after being announced in last week’s budget.

According to Premier Barnett as quoted in the Canberra Times, while the decision to reverse the plan was made with householders’ hip pockets in mind, they quite simply got this decision wrong and had to fix it.

The planned feed in tariff changes were set to make standard grid tie inverters far less attractive to end users (click here to view previous article). The bigger issue however, was that those who had already invested in such a system were also going to be impacted by this retrospective legislation.

Although the voice of solar supporters has been heard on this occasion, future customers should consider the impact of similar legislation which may be implemented in the near future. For users to truly take back control of their power, a battery backed solar energy system  is the only way forward.