Financial incentives are encouraging householders and businesses to adopt the renewable energy technology that will see Germany take the lead spot for having more than half of the world’s new 1500 megawatts of solar electric power installed.

Christoph Fark of the German Solar Industry Association said the main reason for this was the European Union’s feed-in tariff of €0.52 ($A0.88) per kilowatt hour.

“This means that someone who installs a photovoltaic system on their roof gets paid about 80 Australian cents for each unit of electricity fed into the grid,” he said.

“This incentive to householders and businesses has encouraged the development of a new, high-technology, high-growth manufacturing industry with substantial exports and an annual turnover of over $4 billion.”

Australia’s 5c per unit incentive pales in comparison and is nowhere near enough to encourage householders and businesses to invest in the renewable energy; instead, other countries are benefiting from the nation’s expertise and research.

Australia and New Zealand Solar Energy Society chair Mahalath Halperin said the society’s annual conference in Canberra this week was demonstrating some world-leading research and development in solar energy, but sadly it would be the industries and consumers of other countries that would benefit most from it.

“For example, Dr Zhengrong Shi, formerly a research student at the University of NSW and still an Australian citizen, was offered seed capital by Wuxi province in China to set up a photovoltaic manufacturing company there, which now turns over $5 billion annually,” she said.

Halperin said federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell opened the conference with much fanfare about the Government’s support for renewable energy through the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target and the Solar Cities program.

“But the sad fact is that the target was not extended by government and has almost run its course, and the Solar Cities program, while welcome, will tell us only what we already know: that clean energy is available now and can make a significant contribution to mitigating the ‘inconvenient truth’ of climate change caused by fossil fuel use, provided that it is made attractive to the public,” she said.

“It is unfortunate that the Government has chosen to subsidise LPG, which is more or less just another form of the depleting fossil resource of oil, when it could have used the same funds to further encourage the use of clean solar energy.”

The Australia and New Zealand Solar Energy Society conference continues until Friday.