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Australia has the most expensive energy bills

macrobusiness.com.au

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Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#81

Post by hvidgaard »

taneq wrote: post #74
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…

How old is this building you're describing? There's been some pretty huge changes in the past 20-30 years, older houses are shocking for insulation but modern ones are often pretty good.

The building codes evolved at lot up until roughtly 10 years ago. Houses from before the 90ies is not that well insulated with lots of cold bridges. They have mostly been eliminated from new buildings, but it does make building quite a bit more complex.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#82

Post by sitharus »

elyobo wrote: post #78
sitharus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, here in NZ I pay 30c/day in fixed charges and around 25c/kWh. Last week's bill was NZ$25 for 90kWh. Nowhere near as cheap as the US but I'll take it.

What sort of place are you living in? I haven't lived in NZ for 11 years now, but I recall heating costs of $100s/month in Winter (poorly insulated Christchurch housing as a poor student). Perhaps the high costs were due to high consumption rather than high unit costs... I didn't really pay attention to it at the time.

I'm in Auckland in a modern well insulated apartment. If I was in a normal nz house I'd expect to triple that, since we have a long distance relationship with insulation.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#83

Post by elyobo »

elyobo wrote: post #76
elyobo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, in VIC I pay $0.96/day supply and usage rates of about 16c/kWh. Maybe prices vary a lot by location, because the prices I pay bear no resemblance to those on the chart...

Possibly relevant: I do look at my usage and compare providers and I am with what appears to be the cheapest possible provider for me (according to https://compare.switchon.vic.gov.au , with smart meter data providing a very accurate basis for the comparison).

And having mentioned that, I thought that it had been a while since I checked... Seems I can get $0.72/day supply and 14.9c/kWh now, I guess it's time to change.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#84

Post by ENGNR »

taneq wrote: post #77
askvictor wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the massive massive rebates that were available a few years back to drive uptake? Not direct govt investment, but with a similar effect - people got some money back from the govt when they installed solar, then the govt mandated a high feed-in tariff for some years (has since dropped/been abolished)

That's still available for new installations, I believe. The feed-in tariffs have all but gone, but solar is still well worth getting purely for the reduction in power bills (especially if you can schedule the bulk of your energy usage to be during peak solar generating hours). The flip side is that the power grid is now going into a death spiral where falling kWh sales are pushing up prices per kWh, making solar eve…

The electricity grid needs to transition into an energy market kind of deal where their role is to balance supply and demand across the entire grid rather than a net flow in any direction.

Of course it'll never happen, the privatised incumbants will fight innovation tooth and nail to the grave like you say

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#85

Post by dav43 »

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…

Ditto this in Sydney. Literally holes in the walls to outside. I have to tape them up during the colder months. Such poor building quality.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#86

Post by manoj_venkat92 »

And instead of turning to solar power, they are letting Adani power build a coal plant? What is wrong with the government of Australia. And solar power's prices are on decline and are now getting lower than coal and it's clean energy, check any major business news sites like Bloomberg, NYTimes etc., If I am not wrong, Australia is a sunny place, so going solar was an obvious option and Elon Musk was even talking for giving them solar panels & batteries. WHatever happened to that?!!

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#87

Post by dovdovdov »

manoj_venkat92 wrote: post #86

And instead of turning to solar power, they are letting Adani power build a coal plant? What is wrong with the government of Australia. And solar power's prices are on decline and are now getting lower than coal and it's clean energy, check any major business news sites like Bloomberg, NYTimes etc., If I am not wrong, Australia is a sunny place, so going solar was an obvious option and Elon Musk was even talking for…

I mean Elon's tweet VS. politicians' pockets' full of lobbyists' money.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#88

Post by rmm »

Some more context.

South Australia went "all green" shutting down all their coal plants and betting big on wind and solar. However due to the peak issues etc. they now buy a lot of their power from the eastern states.

Victoria uses brown coal (about 20% less energy when burned)

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#89

Post by gravelld »

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…

What you describe is the rule in most Western countries. The only countries I know that have their shit together on this are Germany, Sweden and Ireland.

The truth is that fixing these problems is going to be expensive. Governments are just kicking the can down the road because they don't want to be the ones that raise taxes to pay for it (fixing existing houses I mean). But it will have to be done.

Maybe the biggest tragedy is that we are still building NEW houses that will have to be fixed in the future (except in the above countries and some others I no doubt missed). Not mandating higher standards is, however, just loading future generations with more debt, because they will be the ones that have to fix the quality of the housing stock.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#90

Post by Nursie »

gravelld wrote: post #89
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…

What you describe is the rule in most Western countries. The only countries I know that have their shit together on this are Germany, Sweden and Ireland. The truth is that fixing these problems is going to be expensive. Governments are just kicking the can down the road because they don't want to be the ones that raise taxes to pay for it (fixing existing houses I mean). But it will have to be done. Maybe the biggest…

Having lived in the UK and Australia - the UK may not have its shit together compared to Germany, Sweden or Ireland, but it's streets ahead of Aus.
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