More Australians are installing photovoltaic cells on their roofs to capture the power of the sun and cut at the same time their power bills. In Perth, state-owned electricity retailer Synergy estimated 10 per cent of its 112,000 customers are now using solar systems.

Another 2,500 households are installing solar panels every month because of the continuous drop of solar panel prices.

To protect the interest of over 2.5 million solar owners against changes in laws or policies by the federal or state governments and power companies, solar users banded and former the Solar Citizens group.

The group was launched on Monday to be Australia's first solar energy consumer rights group. Geoff Evans, manager of Solar Citizen said Aussies have invested $8 billion worth of solar panels in their homes, but their investment are under threat because of policies being mulled by the power firms and state governments to discriminate against solar power users.

He cited the situation in Queensland where the competition authority is pushing for higher daily service rates for solar owners, in Tasmania where the grid was privatised and solar system owners are in limbo and in New South Wales where power firms purchase solar power but resell at thrice the buying price.

In the past few years, states have also cut solar incentive schemes called feed-in tariffs in which panel owners are paid for solar power they export to the grid.

"People are feeling vulnerable, having invested thousands of dollars in solar panels ... We think there is a push-back going on," The Age quoted Mr Evans.

The decline in solar panel prices is because of the oversupply of the photovoltaic cells as prices for polysilicon, the raw material for the panel, reached record-low levels in November 2012.

To prevent the dumping of cheap Made-in-China solar panels, Australia is following the U.S., India and the EU in pushing for the imposition of anti-dumping charges on imported Chinese solar panels.

The European Commission plans to impose anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese solar panels between 37.2 per cent and 67.9 per cent.

Tindo, the only solar panel manufacturer in Australia, is backing the move to slap the tariff on solar panels made in China. However, consumers in Australia are wary about the tariff because it would increase the prices of imported solar panels and slow down the move to reduce reliance on traditional energy sources.