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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

#171

Post by Overtonwindow »

grecy wrote: post #67
Overtonwindow wrote: post #24

Sort of on-topic but I recall once an Australian company called Enviromission that was wanting to build solar updraft towers in the outback. With so much incredibly solar-rich, un-used land, I thought Australia would've gone all in for solar by now.

> Sort of on-topic but I recall once an Australian company called Enviromission that was wanting to build solar updraft towers in the outback Funny you call it "the outback". Their final proposed site was 20km from my then family home :) I was disappointed it never went anywhere, and yes, Australians should be adopting solar much, much faster than they are.

Forgive me, I am an American :)

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#172

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #120
ldp01 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem quite bizarre. The Finkel Report[1] sums up pretty well why coal isn't competitive. It can't keep up with the rapid changes in demand caused by existing intermittent generation. > "Rapid changes in power output from VRE generation need to be balanced with generation technology that has the ability to increase (ramp up) or decrease (ramp down) power output at the same time. Gas-fired generators have the a…

Money, presumably. Plus a bit of the old toxic masculinity.

[deleted]

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#173

Post by elyobo »

elyobo wrote: post #83
elyobo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And having contacted them now about that offer, they've come back with $.56/day supply and 13.3c/kWh. I'm not complaining.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#174

Post by elyobo »

craigds wrote: post #105
elyobo wrote: post #68

Funny, as a Kiwi living in Victoria it seems to me that, while prices have climbed a bit over the last few years, electricity costs here were incredibly low... I wish NZ was represented on that chart. That said, my per kWh charge is about half the "market" price shown for Victoria there (although I do pay $0.94/day on top of that, which I guess brings it up a little), and that's after a 10% price hike about a year ag…

NZ is on the chart

Thanks, not sure how I missed it.

Prices seem to be highly variable even within the state, which I didn't realise. My rates in VIC are about half those quoted for VIC, well under the price of NZ. It would be interesting to see these prices broken down in more detail geographically.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#175

Post by flashman »

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…

How is the Newcastle tech industry? Sydney is nigh-on unaffordable (on 1.2 incomes with two children) and we're thinking about a move, but only if there's work I can do.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#176

Post by andy_ppp »

vkou wrote: post #160
andy_ppp wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By having a means of producing batteries you'll be able to rely on renewables won't you? I thought that was the whole idea?

Unless you have very limited supply of lithium, you will not be energy-independent. The real reason for it though is that, unlike what HN thinks, Tesla is also not the only company in the world capable of building a battery. That, and batteries are a terrible solution to long and medium-term energy storage.

Yes, we could choose to solve a lot of these problems by pushing water higher.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#177

Post by falsedan »

cromulent wrote: post #170
falsedan wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my point: the temperature in the top end is not cold, and clothes take ages to dry.

No, orthogonal to your point :) The temperature was only around 23c. In the same temperature in Melbourne, they dry in an hour or two.

No, same as my point: clothes will dry at any temperature, if the humidity is low enough.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#178

Post by daemin »

falsedan wrote: post #177
cromulent wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, orthogonal to your point :) The temperature was only around 23c. In the same temperature in Melbourne, they dry in an hour or two.

No, same as my point: clothes will dry at any temperature, if the humidity is low enough.

Yes, but there are differences between taking hours to dry on a clothesline, taking an hour to dry in a dryer, and taking less than an hour drying in a clothesline (in the shade even).

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#179

Post by indemnity »

sitharus wrote: post #46
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…

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.

Around NZ$130/month for us, in Auckland. Four bedroom house, but it was built to 2015 code so it’s well insulated and double glazed, ambient inside is about 16C in the middle of winter, so it’s cheap to heat.

Couldn’t imagine living in one of the leaky sheds built before modern regs...

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#180

Post by manoj_venkat92 »

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…

Just a thought. If Adani power isn't building a Coal Mine and building a coal plant and importing coal, I got a theory to present. So, Adani is a Gujarathi Businessman from India, and he owns a lot of power plants in India & abroad. Also, recently, to my f*in' surprise, India has been pretty aggressive on shutting down coal plants and even cancelled a few plants which are supposed to open in the later years. Now, let me remind you that we in India have a bunch of coal mines and what do we do with all that coal now that coal plants are getting shut down? Ship to Australia. Again, this is just a theory. Think about it.
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