A report to be published today by Andrew Macintosh, for the Australia Institute, provides a damning indictment of the federal government’s support scheme for residential solar PV and highlights the chaos and the huge costs created by multiple, badly co-ordinated and poorly conceived support schemes.

The scheme -- known under the Howard government as the Photovoltaic Rebate Program but rebranded by Labor as the Solar Homes and Communities Program -- was introduced in 2000 and finally closed, with less than 24 hours notice, in early 2009 when the costs got out of control.