Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Australia has the most expensive energy bills

macrobusiness.com.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 187 posts

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#51

Post by sundvor »

viraptor wrote: post #40
sundvor wrote: post #21

I live in Victoria, Australia. Energy bills are through the roof - almost literally as "insulation" is a thing just about no-one here has any competence with. Whatsoever. I'm talking about builders and building code designers specifically. Ironically (see the top and bottom positions of the chart), I spent the first 40% of my life in Norway where things do get proper cold as opposed to in Australia where it's accepte…

> I'm talking about builders and building code designers specifically. Noone is a bad generalisation here. There are designers and builders who do know and do care - you just pay extra for the design and extra for materials. If you get a project house on a new estate (like lots of people do)... you're basically getting cheap and simple result that's cheap and simple. Source: talking to a designer about just that.

I actually wrote _just about noone_, to cover that, as it's just not common knowledge. Of course you can source specialists, but it's the exception and not the rule.

Most investment properties are done on the cheap, shifting the cost asymmetrically to the renters - cross ref the whole negative gearing debate and all.

Minimum standards need to be increased dramatically, yet very little is happening. When some of the earlier Energy Star "standards" were released a few years back, they were just a bad joke - eg door gaps still came part and parcel, however you'd get like a "solar water heating" checkbox.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#52

Post by Benjamin_Dobell »

chrisper wrote: post #49
nimchimpsky wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food is better, people are friendlier, sunnier, better quality of life, better stuff for kids. Less tax.

Is it really sunnier than Southern California?

Depends where you live in Australia.

Queensland? Sure.

Victoria? Only in Summer where temperatures occasionally exceed 100 Fahrenheit, winters are cold.

Tasmania? No, never.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#53

Post by bigger_cheese »

JonRB wrote: post #10
dwhitworth1 wrote: post #2

I moved to Newcastle, Australia from the US (Los Angeles) about two years ago. I was shocked when I received my energy bill. Australians in general are hesitant to use their AC or electric heaters, opting to just layer up when it's cold or try to use fans in the summer. Many (most?) households don't have clothes dryers, using clotheslines instead. I would like to see how much energy the average Australian household c…

> Australians in general are hesitant to use their AC or electric heaters Anecdotal, but I don't think I know a single person here who is hesitant to use heating/AC - could just be down to the people I know, but I get funny looks when I tell people just to wrap up. Something that did surprise me here is the near-complete lack of double glazing. Everywhere I've lived has been thin single-glazed windows which just let…

It depends a lot where you live.

I lived in Canberra, which sits in the middle of a valley so it got very cold in winter (for an Australian city) and uncomfortably hot in summer. Wikipedia tells me that lowest average low is −0.1 C in July and highest average high is 28 C in Jan. In winter heating was a necessity. And in summer owing to lack of any source of breeze AC was 'nice to have'.

I now live on the South Coast of NSW much more temperate climate 8 C to 26 C I use neither AC nor heating we have a nice coastal breeze most days during summer so is not actually that unpleasant. This is quite similar climate-wise to Sydney though you would not get cooling effect of coastal breeze if you lived there so A/c probably more desirable but I would say not essential.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#54

Post by NamTaf »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #42
NamTaf wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You greatly underestimate how utterly devoid of morals both of our major parties are, resulting in them being in the pocket of the coal miners and other big corps. They are almost militantly opposed to non-coal, non-LNG investment. This is a government which earlier this year brought a lump of coal in to parliament as a prop to say that they were 'not afraid of coal' and to attack the opposition for 'attacking the jo…

That is unfortunate. I spent a month living in Ryde and I fell absolutely in love with Australia. I agree, as Bill Bryson once said: "It may truly be the greatest place on earth." Hopefully things sort itself out soon.

I hope so too. It truly is a lovely place and I'm blessed to live here, however our politicians across the board and with very few exceptions leave a lot to be desired. Australian politics is truly awful.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#55

Post by NamTaf »

viraptor wrote: post #38
NamTaf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In QLD my rates are as follows, GST included: Supply charge: $1.10/day Usage rate: 28.6c/kWh Therefore, my standard quarterly bill will have $100 of supply charges in addition to any usage that occurs. I am super lucky that I got on to PV when there was a large (unsustainably so) government incentive, so my feed-in rate is 54.6c/kWh (not including GST) which more than offsets my normal use since I am never home durin…

The fact one person gets negative bills doesn't mean it's unsustainable. It's only unsustainable if it costs more in energy storage + standby infrastructure + your negative bill than it costs to run the usual energy production pipeline. That may be the case, but it's unrelated to whether you're paid back or not.

It's unsustainable in that many people jumped on this deal, far more than forecast, and so they pulled it years ago. The government had essentially subsidised solar through feed-in tariff bonuses, but hadn't expected the volume of people who ultimately took it up.

It's also my understanding is that's not how the infrastructure works. It's simply not set up such that my feeding in could be sent arbitrarily to a storage point. Indeed, a colleague of mine was having his inverter trip during summer because his + many of his neighbours were all feeding in however none were drawing out. The grid was therefore being overloaded locally and all of the inverters were hitting their automatic cut-off points because of it.

So yes, in theory it could be sustainable, but this particular situation absolutely wasn't and if you were to get solar now, you would not end up making money off feeding in like I do. It's now purely to offset self-usage.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#56

Post by roenxi »

askvictor wrote: post #33
dwhitworth1 wrote: post #2

I moved to Newcastle, Australia from the US (Los Angeles) about two years ago. I was shocked when I received my energy bill. Australians in general are hesitant to use their AC or electric heaters, opting to just layer up when it's cold or try to use fans in the summer. Many (most?) households don't have clothes dryers, using clotheslines instead. I would like to see how much energy the average Australian household c…

> Australians in general are hesitant to use their AC or electric heaters, opting to just layer up when it's cold or try to use fans in the summer. Many (most?) households don't have clothes dryers, using clotheslines instead. Are you suggesting these are bad things? I think they're positive however, it varies wildly across different locations and demographics. > I would like to see how much energy the average Austra…

> Are you suggesting these are bad things?

As a local; yes it is a bad thing. I want cheap energy. Cheap access to energy is literally one of two things separating us from animals. The other thing is higher intelligence.

There is room for an ideological debate on the meaning of good, but this is an outcome of regulation that the government didn't push for and that the votes would not choose if they had to tick a box.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#57

Post by cassowary »

sundvor wrote: post #51
viraptor wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm talking about builders and building code designers specifically. Noone is a bad generalisation here. There are designers and builders who do know and do care - you just pay extra for the design and extra for materials. If you get a project house on a new estate (like lots of people do)... you're basically getting cheap and simple result that's cheap and simple. Source: talking to a designer about just that.

I actually wrote _just about noone_, to cover that, as it's just not common knowledge. Of course you can source specialists, but it's the exception and not the rule. Most investment properties are done on the cheap, shifting the cost asymmetrically to the renters - cross ref the whole negative gearing debate and all. Minimum standards need to be increased dramatically, yet very little is happening. When some of the e…

Try sending an email to your local Labor MLA (state lower house) if you have one, or MLC (state upper house) if you don't. They're real people who care, you just need to make them care about this stuff. Which needs lots of people caring at them.

It will probably feel useless because it won't make a difference right away, but it's got a better chance of a good outcome eventually than a rant on HN.

I know I froze to death one year in a very cold flat which I couldn't heat with a 1 or 2 cm gap under the doors. Every time I'd cook I'd cut myself because my hands were too numb to control the knife. (The rest of the time it was okay because I'd just wrap up under my doona on the couch or wherever.) Now I live over a bakery in an old building so there's lots of old heat and heavier construction keeping it tolerably warm.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#58

Post by Simulacra »

JonRB wrote: post #10
dwhitworth1 wrote: post #2

I moved to Newcastle, Australia from the US (Los Angeles) about two years ago. I was shocked when I received my energy bill. Australians in general are hesitant to use their AC or electric heaters, opting to just layer up when it's cold or try to use fans in the summer. Many (most?) households don't have clothes dryers, using clotheslines instead. I would like to see how much energy the average Australian household c…

> Australians in general are hesitant to use their AC or electric heaters Anecdotal, but I don't think I know a single person here who is hesitant to use heating/AC - could just be down to the people I know, but I get funny looks when I tell people just to wrap up. Something that did surprise me here is the near-complete lack of double glazing. Everywhere I've lived has been thin single-glazed windows which just let…

That reminds me of being at Melbourne airport wishing to consume the last of a bottle of Absinthe and being sad that no one had ice...

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#59

Post by cylinder »

dwhitworth1 wrote: post #39
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obviously a subjective matter. However, seems as he specifically mentioned "while raising a family", here are a few possible reasons: - Safety In general Australia has a lower crime rate than USA. Of course, there are absolutely areas within USA that would have a lower crime rate than certain areas of Australia. http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Australia/U... - Health Care Australia has well esta…

"Higher income earners are expected to also have private health insurance and are penalised in their taxes if they don't have it" Also, foreigners that move here after the age of 35! We have private health cover as well and it's great.

If you're referring to loading on private cover for not carrying a policy, that does not apply if you were living overseas.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#60

Post by TheSmiddy »

kbutler wrote: post #30
aplummer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about this one, but I'm not sure why you would. A lot of that investment gets paid back by feeding energy back into the grid - you would be throwing money away.

Net metering is under heavy pressure from utilities because it costs them a lot. They'd also like connection fees to pay for the infrastructure they have to maintain, even if you aren't using (much of) their electricity.

We don't do raw net metering in Australia. You pay 30-40c/kWh on the way in and get 8c/kWh on the way out. Utility is still profiting nicely.
Post reply on HN