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Forum Index : Solar : Solar-powered homes to pay more to use gr
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| dwyer Guru  Joined: 19/09/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 574 |
Hi to all Bad news to all Solar Homes What a joke as  l knew about this as that why l have refuse buy solar panel and fitted at my home as so far they found as loophole
recoup get their money back. All about money greed power business Solar-powered homes to pay more to use grid The 1 million Australian households equipped with rootfop solar panels could face higher charges to use poles and wires that distribute electricity as a partial clawback of the generous subsidies the government provided in the past, news reports said. The Australian Energy Market Commission is set to issue a report that says the photo-voltaic (PV) cells “have costs associated with them that are often not reflected in the electricity prices paid by households that have installed the systems and are being subsidised by other consumers,” The Australian reported on its web site. “Network costs of consumers with solar PV are cross-subsidised by other consumers, due to current inefficiencies in network tariffs,” the newspaper quotes the report as saying. Network charges make up between about 35 to 50 per cent of a consumer’s electricity bill, the report said, adding that the Energy Supply Association of Australia believes solar households get a “hidden subsidy” from low-income households who cannot afford solar because the cost of the network is built into electricity billing arrangements. Although solar households pay less as they generate power when there is bright sunshine, they are big users of the grid as they feed back unused electricity into the grid from the panels, and also take from it when it’s cloudy or not enough energy stored in the panels. Dwyer the Bushman |
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yahoo2 Guru Joined: 05/04/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1166 |
Of course the industry associations are going to say that. Their business model is based on centralised power generation and making massive profits on the high load periods in the year to offset the marginal losses the rest of the time. Household solar is selling power back to the grid at a flat rate at the peak times of the day when the power companies used to get $100's-$1000's per Kw. Power companies with coal fired stations are bleeding money fast and they don't have a lot of options left, this and lobbying govts for some sweetheart deals are about it. Network and connection charges are guaranteed income without having to generate a single amp in return. My charges have gone from $324/yr to $1718/yr and I ask every clown that rings me offering cheaper power about the fees and charges and their charges are higher still. I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not... |
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| paceman Guru Joined: 07/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1329 |
Dead right yahoo2. Here's a link that explains it all pretty well. Generators get nasty. They're very quick to go for the sympathy vote and claim poor pensioners will suffer because of PV installations, but they're a lot less quick to tell us the biggest subsidies on the networks in recent years have gone to new aircon users because the network and generator operators have been doing very nicely out of that. This is not just an Australian issue, it's right across the developed world. Unfortunately in Australia (and for the world) we now have a government whose current policy will try to maintain the old centralised business model. I think that policy can't have a long way to run though, it's not sustainable. Ultimately they'll lose because our country won't be able to compete with other countries unless we go solar too. In the meantime they'll push to be allowed to charge more and more for "service" - replacing the (not so old) mantra of "user pays". When enough people, towns, businesses etc go solar they'll probably try for a service charge whether you're connected or not - classic corporate welfare. When that goes and all possible profits have been corporatised they'll be lobbying to sell the grid and generation back to the government (i.e. the people) who bought it all in the first place - and sell it at a "reasonable" profit too of course. Greg |
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| M Del Senior Member  Joined: 09/04/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 155 |
my 2 cents on this Seeing as most of the retailers and generators are now privately owned companies it would open a big can of worms to charge for power service availability if not connected. I can almost see the case for water supply and sewerage availability as the water boards/departments are still government bodies. But to allow a private company to charge you for the availability of power in your area is the same as the garage in your suburb being able to levy every one who lives in their service area (the suburb) a fee even if you don't buy fuel there  .
I am trying to get my veggie garden back into production after a couple years of being away and illness. If the same thing was to occur with food then woollies/coles/butcher/grocer could collect a fee if I stopped shopping there. I feel electricity will not be the end of it, hope I am wrong. note to self, get more panels and mount them under shade cloth so the spy in the sky can not detect them  thatl fool emMark |
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| paceman Guru Joined: 07/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1329 |
Logically you'd think that was true Mark, but in fact the state governments still own a large part of the grid assets and state coffers get a big return from the assets they still own. A lot of that return in recent years has been federal money paid to the states as "owners" of the grid as a guaranteed return whenever they spent money on it - i.e. the gold plating of the grid. The last thing state treasurers want is for that money to stop rolling in and then themselves have to "subsidise" solar installations with reasonable feed-in tariffs paid from their budgets. This is one of the main reasons why the new Abbott government intends to re-look next year at the bi-partisan 5% RET (renewable energy target) that was set back in the Howard years when the Kyoto agreement was signed. It's not currently scheduled to be re-looked at for four years and the reason for that is to give renewable energy projects some certainty. Energy companies (Origin being the biggest and loudest) are pushing hard for the RET to be lowered to slow down the drop in profits they're experiencing as renewables get implemented. I'm with you re the veggie garden though - we've had a good one for a few years and it's a lot of fun and satisfaction. We shop mostly at Aldi these days for groceries and veggies/fruit/meat that we don't grow ourselves - they're on average at least a third cheaper. Coles and Woolies priced themselves out years ago. Greg |
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| M Del Senior Member Joined: 09/04/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 155 |
I know what you are saying Greg, but it riles me when they sell stuff off claiming private industry does it better and cheaper then prop up the sold off entities with pricing guarantees etc .
The details of the sales are secretive and we never find out what they are until money shows up in budget papers. The first thing the privatised/corporatised entity does is slash maintenance staff and bring in contractors who know very little about the systems and the same team never does the one area meaning they wont learn it. rant over But at least we can still have veggie patches unlike some places where a neighbour can complain about your veggies lowering the status/value of the area and the city comes along and rips it out. Mark Mark |
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| grub Senior Member Joined: 27/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 169 |
I can tell from from personal experience that if you now install solar panels and connect to the grid, then the power supplier will pay you nothing for any power you produce and put back into the grid. |
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| dwyer Guru Joined: 19/09/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 574 |
One day I will buying and install solar panels myself including inverter, batteries, 415 volt 3ph charger from batteries operate forklift from Graysonline cheap All ready got my own 3 phase generator (1500 rpm),windmill generator and connect to my house and kiss my arse good saying bye bye to greedy privatised/corporatized entity and l still cannot understand why our coal, gas explore to China getting cheap power still making hugh profit while Aussie paid high price on electrically bill causing many business close down home consumer struggling to pay their electrically and gas bill This doesn't not add up
Dwyer the bushman |
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