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

111–120 of 187 posts

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#111

Post by ldp01 »

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…

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 ability to ‘fast ramp’. Most of Australia’s coal-fired generators do not"

In America the EIA's latest energy outlook projects a (gentle) decline in coal usage out to 2040. This is a pretty conservative government agency.

I really don't understand the obsession with coal.

[1] - http://www.environment.gov.au/energy/publications/electricit...

[2] - https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#112

Post by andy_ppp »

andrewwharton wrote: post #109

It really is a death spiral in the making. As grid electricity prices rise: 1. Insulation and rooftop solar/domestic battery storage become more competitive / cost effective 2. Which drives adoption (including retrofitting to existing structures), reducing the demand for grid electricity 3. Which, due to the fixed network and distribution costs, becomes more expensive per kwh. Australia is primed for boom in domestic…

I find it strange that a huge number of governments aren't falling over themselves to get Tesla to build one of the roughly 100 needed giga factories in their country.

Pay for it to be built, give crazy good loan deals etc. whatever it costs really to have energy independance has got to be worth it.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#113

Post by zizee »

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.

Australia is the world leader in roof top solar PV installations per household.

http://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-is-australia-the-...

And now that the technology is cost competitive, there are many plans afoot: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-29/australia-on-cusp-of-l...

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#114

Post by zizee »

NamTaf wrote: post #32
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.

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…

I'm not one to defend our pollies, but these same "utterly devoid of morals" parties are the same that put in place home solar energy subsidies that have resulted in Australia being the world leader in rooftop solar uptake.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#115

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#116

Post by masklinn »

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…

> What you describe is the rule in most Western countries.

Say what now? Is the UK the only western country you've visited? because what they describe for Australia is not the rule of mainland western europe, serious insulation and at least double paned windows was the standard in the 90s.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#117

Post by sien »

This article is very poor.

The actual report this comes from is here:

http://cmeaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/160708...

Note how they pick the one stat where AU prices are high. They say 'excluding taxes'.

Looking at the full report a lot of Australian prices INCLUDING TAX are actually fairly cheap.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#118

Post by egh5oon »

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…

What? Ireland has terrible isolation and building quality in general compared most of EU.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#119

Post by egh5oon »

gravelld wrote: post #101
ptaipale wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requiring better insulation for new buildings is not really that much a thing where you need to raise taxes, because the cost of proper insulation is passed on to builders - and the end users pay that, but in turn they have lower heating/cooling costs. (FWIW, Sweden's neighbours like Norway, Finland and Denmark also have houses where it's warm inside in the winter without horrific leaks. And yes, Iceland, even if it…

> Requiring better insulation for new buildings is not really that much a thing where you need to raise taxes, because the cost of proper insulation is passed on to builders - and the end users pay that, but in turn they have lower heating/cooling costs. I was referring to retrofit, sorry for not being clear. Also, the costs are not passed on to customers. Very few houses in the history of the world have been priced…

Mould? I've seen mushrooms growing. It baffles me how this stuff can be legal.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#120

Post by pjc50 »

ldp01 wrote: post #111
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…

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.
Post reply on HN