The Lowdown on Rebates

PVRP

New PVRP is $8 per watt capped at $8,000, replacing the current $4/watt capped at $4,000
New rebate is available from 9th May
Community organisations and schools can get up to 50% of the cost of an installed PV system capped at 2kW and $12,000. Rebates for Schools and community buildings will now be administered by the AGO
The Home Builder and Developer component of PVRP is no longer available

For existing system upgrades:

$5.00 per watt of PV (solar cells) installed to upgrade a system (up to 1000 watts). The minimum additional amount of PV that must be installed is 450 watts. The maximum is 1000 watts.
PVRP rebates for system upgrades only apply to systems that have not previously received any type of Federal Government rebate.
If the existing system already has a capacity of 1000 watts or more, it is not eligible for a rebate.

RRPGP - Remote Renewable Power Generation Program

The new $123.5M RRPGP program announced some months back and due to commence from 1st July is still being finalised, but we do have some informal information from the AGO, which is subject to confirmation:

$123.5M comprises $3.5M in admin funds, plus $120M in rebates at $30M per year for 4 years which is universally spread across the country. That is, there will be no state allocations, so its first in first served.
WA & NT still have funds left under the existing program so cannot draw on new funds until that money is committed.
At this stage there is no intention to include water pumping in RRPGP
Essentially RRPGP will be for remote or off-grid applications, while PVRP is for grid-connect applications
Again, there will be uniform national guidelines & application forms, not state-modified processes & forms

Three program streams:

Rebates for systems less than $200k
Major projects
Industry support
Eligibility will include criteria that system is installed at principal place of residence
At this stage connection of grid must exceed $30K to qualify for RRPGP
New equipment only must be installed
Design & installed by suitably qualified people
A minimum of 30% of the system cost must be the RE equipment
Rebate likely to be 50% of system cost

Updated program guidelines for both programs should be available soon.

PVRP - Some interesting statistics

Checking out the latest PVRP statistics from AGO makes some interesting reading.
As at March 2007 and since PVRP was introduced in 2000:

4,468 SAPS/RAPS systems have been installed vs 3,910 grid connect systems, so 53% of systems installed under PVRP have been SAPS
However, grid connect watts installed has been 6.12MW vs 4.54MW of SAPS, so grid connect watts are 57% of total due to average grid systems being slightly over 1500 watts vs 1kW for SAPS
Grid watts installed has exceeded SAPS watts installed every month since October 2002, marking the time when public awareness of the potential of grid connect systems broke through
In March 2007 grid watts installed under PVRP was 5 times that of SAPS watts!
States leading the way on grid connect are ACT (93% of installed systems are grid connect), SA (89%), WA (66%) and VIC (46%).
With a feed-in tariff on the way and Adelaide as one of the Solar Cities, SA will firmly establish itself as the grid connect capital of Australia.