The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal is currently looking into the feed-in tariffs and will deliver a draft report in May, but with wholesale prices expected to fall from 11 cents per kilowatt in 2017-18 to eight or nine cents for 2018-19, households and businesses with solar power could see a drop in their rebate.

There were 2390 households and businesses in Orange that had installed solar panels in the 15 years to the end of 2016, according to data provided by the NSW Greens.

The party’s energy spokesman Jeremy Buckingham said the government had failed to instruct IPART to “assess the true value of solar power”

“NSW should be ensuring that electricity retailers pay a fair price for the solar electricity that is fed into the grid from roof top systems, which takes into account the avoided health and carbon costs solar brings by reducing the amount of fossil fuels that are burnt,” Mr Buckingham said.

“Unless the NSW government steps in then this decision will be a huge hit to the electricity bills of over 23,131 solar households and businesses that have installed solar panels across the Central West and will act as a disincentive to further uptake of solar panels.”

However Member for Bathurst Paul Toole said the Greens needed to brush up on their understanding of how IPART works.

“I need to remind the Greens of something – the I in IPART stands for independent. The Greens should know the government can’t tell IPART what to do,” Mr Toole said.

“But more importantly, this is astonishing coming from the Greens. They are the ones who are campaigning to close down perfectly good power stations that deliver cheap, reliable power to NSW families.

“The Greens have been campaigning for more expensive power for years.”

Greens Renewable Energy spokeswoman Tamara Smith was expected to introduce a Bill into Parliament that would establish a mandatory minimum price including “valuing the avoided health and carbon costs solar brings by reducing the amount of fossil fuels that are burnt, and by recognising the reduced spend of infrastructure”.

Asked to respond to the criticism from the Greens, Energy Minister Don Harwin said the community should have their say in IPART’s review.

“IPART has also suggested that wholesale prices are going down due to the huge investment boom in new energy projects – such as solar farms in the Central West - and this is good news for the people of NSW,” the spokesperson said.

Central West MPs Troy Grant and Rick Colless were also approached for comment but passed inquiries to Mr Harwin.