In the debate about creating the renewable electricity system, actions as well as words are often driven by what feels right, or even what feels good.

People like renewable energy, for the most part, and images of wind turbines and sun-kissed solar panels play well to the public.

So, the report by a West Australian Parliamentary committee into "micro-grids and associated technologies" — ostensibly renewable energy and how best to integrate it — taps into that wellspring of excitement.

The report outlines the need for better planning to ensure the proliferation of solar panels across people's homes in WA is properly harnessed to the net benefit of the system and, by extension, household electricity bills.

Where the report falls short is in dealing with the hardest part of electricity reform: pricing.

At some stage, this or another government will have to face up to the need to fix electricity prices.

For years now, politicians on all sides have known the tariff structure which underpins much of the electricity market is fundamentally broken and must be fixed if the right investments are to be made and the system is to be secured.

Rooftop solar is easily the biggest single source of generation in the system in WA. ( Reuters: Tim Wimborne, file photo )

The reason for this is largely to do with the rampant popularity of rooftop solar, which accounts for more than 1200MW of capacity and is easily the biggest single source of generation in the system.

Solar is now such a large part of the energy mix in WA that it is causing problems only a few people envisaged a decade ago.

Solar upsets the grid's stability

At the heart of the challenge is the way in which solar output swells in an uncontrolled way during the middle of the day, often displacing other generators such as gas- and coal-fired power plants.

On mild days when solar efficiency is particularly high and demand might be low, solar power can force a significant share of the power generation offline.

That might sound good, and in so many ways it is.

But where the situation becomes problematic is when there is a sharp change in generation, like when clouds blot out a mass of solar panels in Perth at once, or demand changes rapidly — an industrial customer going offline suddenly, for example.

In these circumstances, the so-called firming services provided by conventional power plants, and which keep the system on an even keel, can be stretched thin.

That's when the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), which runs the wholesale market in WA and is responsible for keeping the lights on, begins to worry.

While the uptake of solar might have initially been driven by generous state and federal incentives, it is now being helped by a mismatch in electricity prices.

Put simply, the way we use electricity in a solar world has changed but the tariff system has not.

The way we pay for electricity in WA — and therefore the way electricity providers recover their costs — is based on how much we draw from the grid.

The usage charge still represents the lion's share of what households are supposed to pay every year in their power bills.

But, of course, households with solar often use much less power from the grid.

They still cost just as much to service, but they're paying a fraction compared with households that don't or can't have solar on their roofs.

What's more, the major remaining incentive scheme — the renewable energy buyback scheme administered by state-owned providers Synergy and Horizon Power — is amplifying many of these effects.

Under the scheme, households are paid a flat rate of 7.1 cents for every unit of electricity they pump back into the grid.

This excess energy is worth very little in the middle of the day — some in the energy industry would say nothing — and arguably a small fortune later in the day when it is actually needed.

Yet the payment stays the same around the clock.

The report recommends further trials of different electricity tariffs, and points to Horizon's efforts to test charging customers mobile-phone-style bills as an example, but those are unlikely to reveal anything not already known.

Battery projects left in regulatory limbo

The report also talks about the need to overhaul and bring into the 21st century electricity rules and regulations that have been left behind by the rapid advance of technology.

Integrated solar and battery farms have been adopted in other states, such as the Gannawarra farm in Kerang, Victoria. ( Supplied: Edify Energy. )

For example, the committee finds the adoption of large-scale batteries, which would be invaluable to the security of the system as the proportion of intermittent green energy increases, is currently being slowed by archaic regulations.

To gain access to the wholesale electricity market, participants need to be registered as either generators or users of power, when a battery is both of those things.

The effect of this regulation means that grid-scale batteries fall into a bizarre regulatory limbo and, as a consequence, no private investor is willing to throw their money into the fray.

That's despite the fact that the technical — and common sense — case for batteries seems overwhelming.

Microgrids will allow neighbours to share power. ( ABC Weather: Kate Doyle )

Another useful contribution by the committee is the recommendation to streamline the process for developing stand-alone power systems for customers in remote and regional areas.

Under current arrangements, the rules governing the provision of electricity to households living in the south-west of the state are a relic of the past, when stringing up long and invariably unreliable lines and poles was the only way for people in the country to access electricity.

Those days are rapidly disappearing in the rear-view mirror, and it is now much cheaper and more reliable to install stand-alone systems — think solar panels with batteries and a generator as a back-up — than replace ageing poles and wires.

Ultimately, the potential benefits of the switch to renewable energy in WA, led by solar, is huge.

But this report shows how this potential could be squandered without proper management of a rapidly evolving system.