Outrageous Electricity rise

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Originally Posted by koputai

Yes, it's bad that prices are going up, of course.

BUT, there is something everyone can do about it........

Use less electricity! Australians are very wasteful, not only of electricity, but water, food, their inteligence, other people's money.....

If you want a smaller power bill, be more sensible about your usage.

Cheers,
Jason.

Good advice but you can only go so far (unless you want to live under candle light). You go out of your way to reduce usage yet get an even higher bill than the previous one. Having the most expensive electricity price in the world is not a record to be proud of.

[stephenb (Stephen)]

Originally Posted by koputai

Yes, it's bad that prices are going up, of course.

BUT, there is something everyone can do about it........

Use less electricity! Australians are very wasteful, not only of electricity, but water, food, their inteligence, other people's money.....

If you want a smaller power bill, be more sensible about your usage.

Cheers,
Jason.

Unfortunately that is a very simplistic answer which it touted when this argument arises. That's like saying to an overweight person "Well, just eat less!".

I know of families, including the aged family members who now are almost living by candlelight , as well as foregoing heating, and it doesn't make a dent in their energy usage. A majority of the costs are associated with 'service charges'. I have had to assist people like this in need and it's not good to witness.

This is 2012: not 1912. No one should be living in these conditions. Unfortunately the homeless and disadvantage in this country have it a lot worse. . Enough said. I'm going back to my hot water bottle.

[silv (Annette)]

yeah - saving.
or how about solar energy and feeding that back into the provider's network?
do you have such (subsidized) models in NZ or Oz?

I just read that in NZ, houses will need to comply a certain insulation standard from soon-ish onwards.

I am from Germany - and it grieves me horrendously how no house here in NZ has double glazing or proper insulated walls, floors and ceilings.
Not even the posh 6-year old I am currently renting a room in.

Admittedly, we don't get temperatures here like -15 for weeks on end but still - the power consumption of the dehumidifier and heater during winter is like crazy because of these buildings.
In South-Ireland, comparable to the climate/temperature here, in Auckland/NZ, I lived in a (luxurious) stone town house apartment (~80 years old). Outside walls 40-50 cm thick. And double glazing.
There was NO need for heating. Except for that 1 week in January 2010
when temperatures dropped below zero for almost a week.

The outside walls of this house here are less than 20cm. And all those beautiful panorama windows are single glass panes.

There is soo much sun here - if only the house could store the heat somewhere ... no chance, though, in these thin paper walls.

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by Astro_Bot

One of the problems might be that before privatisation, electricity infrastructure was State-funded and only partly recouped via consumer electricity charges. Since privatisation, the main (probably only) source of funds is the price. The rise in prices might not be simple profiteering. If capital investment (which may include upkeep and refurbishment of existing assets) was underfunded in the past when under State management, then the only way to fund that investment now is to increase electricity prices.

Hi,

In NSW we are being told it is due to heavy investments in infrastructure, necessary following years of under-funding by successive State Govts.

That may be true or partly true, but it does not ease the pain of a sudden jump in costs way in excess of the CPI. This is STILL the case even if you were the most efficient of electricity users to begin with.

So I suppose profligate wasters of electricity are in the best position They have more scope to make savings. I've changed suppliers and claimed an old fart's rebate, but it is still going to hit me right in the electric blanket. I wonder if my EQ5 will run on 1/2 amp instead of 2?

Cheers

[theodog (Jeff)]

Originally Posted by silv

yeah - saving.
or how about solar energy and feeding that back into the provider's network?
do you have such (subsidized) models in NZ or Oz?

I have net feed into the grid, but as of yet recieve no payment (from Govt. or Company) for it. They are taking my generated power and onselling it to other customers for pure profit.

This is robbery -yet there seems nothing can be done.

[silv (Annette)]

wow, jeff, but at least the company takes what you produce off from your 'consumption and connection' bill, don't they?

(I faintly remember that it costs money to make the generated power usable for the network. ....?)

[dj gravelrash (Dino)]

iselect.com.au now has a search engine for cheaper gas and electricity comparisons.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Jason

If you want a smaller power bill, be more sensible about your usage.

That only goes so far.
We were told we had to go to a user pays privatised system
yet nearly 1/3 of my bill is still "supply charges".
Its like telling people to buy cars, pay rego and insurance etc etc
"to keep local industry afloat"
but then dont drive them
It would be interesting if someone could tell us what management costs were pre privatisation and post privatisation.
I suspect we are paying much higher executive and administration costs these days "relative" to previous, simply because of the duplication of all the "managements".
I also suspect a lot of the profits are going overseas now, where as before, it was put back into maintaining the system.

Andrew

[hotspur (Chris)]

Its not good,all this rise in power bills.recently I had to cook 8 plum puddings,on an electric stove -it would have added to the power bill,so
I took the big boiler outside and put it on a blacksmith forge with some charcol
I just came out and turned the handle once every half hour.They cooked over 5 hours and all turned out well.

Over the last few weeks people have been coming to collect charcol,and use it-have not had any demand for charcol for ten years,its a bit odd using a 100 year old forge and charcol,-what's old is new again.Not much help for city folk,but maybe there might be some ways of lowering your bill with a bit of lateral thinking.

The way they keep rising the bills,some people will really be affected.

[stardust steve (Steve)]

Yep, shafted with a capital "S". Last water bill from my dark site was $70. Upon breaking down the bill, we used $1.50 worth of water, the rest was supply charges and levies.
The same goes for the electricity.
It is surely not right

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Sooner or Later ... there will be a MASS REVOLT .... people just won't take this anymore.

Hope it happens ... !!

Flash

[GrahamL]

talking to a elec worker a few years back, I have a suspicion when the privitise thing kicked off the buyers didn't do the math to well to start with , he told me loads of them where redundafied straight off the bat a year down the track they realised they actually needed these
guys they'd given the boot,, and wasn't that a drama due to the terms of there redudancies, they were reemployed as "consultants" or some such nonsence to get around the fine print .

Also part of the problem imo is that we are increasingly using more power, I work near a large substation thats just had new upgrades done over the last year , the existing infastructure I'm told was on paper was suposed to meet demand until 2015, new homes do seem quite large these days , pools and air con all burn that coal I guess ,

perhaps were a big part of the problem ?

[BPO]

Originally Posted by silv

I am from Germany - and it grieves me horrendously how no house here in NZ has double glazing or proper insulated walls, floors and ceilings. Not even the posh 6-year old I am currently renting a room in.

Admittedly, we don't get temperatures here like -15 for weeks on end but still - the power consumption of the dehumidifier and heater during winter is like crazy because of these buildings.
In South-Ireland, comparable to the climate/temperature here, in Auckland/NZ, I lived in a (luxurious) stone town house apartment (~80 years old). Outside walls 40-50 cm thick. And double glazing.
There was NO need for heating. Except for that 1 week in January 2010
when temperatures dropped below zero for almost a week.

The outside walls of this house here are less than 20cm. And all those beautiful panorama windows are single glass panes.

There is soo much sun here - if only the house could store the heat somewhere ... no chance, though, in these thin paper walls.

And yet I live in the heart of the Mackenzie high country, where -20 is not unknown on occasion, and -10 is common. The basic-as-anything huts up at my observatory at almost 2,000m have 150mm of insulation all 'round, but you'd be hard-pressed to find even a new house down in the surrounding area with double-glazing and decent insulation. Or, as you said, anywhere in NZ, for that matter.

Why?

Because costs and prices associated with construction and property are as high in NZ as anywhere in the OECD, and incomes are amongst the lowest. So people have to throw another log on the fire if they're to avoid freezing to death. Or they can use the heat pump and find themselves on the brink of bankruptcy when the power bill arrives, because electricity prices are as high as those anywhere, if not actually higher.

We have the highest solar insolation values in the country, even higher than those for Nelson/Blenheim/Marlborough, but you'll find very few solar energy systems of any kind. My wee mountaintop observatory probably generates as much-or-more electricity than all the other PV systems in the area combined.

At least the Lucky Country Aussies don't have to worry about the cold!

[silv (Annette)]

now, when you start blaming lack of insulation and use of solar energy on uncontrollable factors like pricy housing markets -
I will throw in the cultural difference of building towards forever vs building like will-do-for-the-moment.
Which of course is induced by the earth quakes - which will eventually render probably every house unusable?

[silv (Annette)]

Mackenzie - what a wonderful area to be living in! You are so lucky

[gts055 (Mark)]

I wonder if minimising power consumption has a catch 22 effect in that if most users substantially cut their demand, the suppliers could increase the cost to compensate for the revenue loss. Mark

[BPO]

Originally Posted by silv

now, when you start blaming lack of insulation and use of solar energy on uncontrollable factors like pricy housing markets -
I will throw in the cultural difference of building towards forever vs building like will-do-for-the-moment.
Which of course is induced by the earth quakes - which will eventually render probably every house unusable?

At risk of taking this so OT it's not funny, I don't think that's a truely valid argument.

For one thing, if you'd suggested such a thing to Christchurch residents and builders they'd have laughed in your face. Nobody there expected an earthquake in that area, and certainly not a big one.

Even here in the Mackenzie, where the Alpine and Ostler faults are actually visible, nobody thinks much about the quake risk. The number one factor when it comes to quality of construction (or lack thereof) is cost.

Sorry for going off the rails here! Now, back to the Australian electricity price discussion...

[BPO]

Originally Posted by gts055

I wonder if minimising power consumption has a catch 22 effect in that if most users substantially cut their demand, the suppliers could increase the cost to compensate for the revenue loss. Mark

I don't know about Australian electricity market players, because I have no experience with them, but I can say that NZ generators and distributors have an enormous margin. Simply vast. That's not supposition, or heresay, or rumour. It's based on my years of working with and for them. They make a lot of money. They can afford to trim their profits. But they won't.

[TrevorW]

You know who gets screwed by this, the average joe blow, the rich don't give a ****e,the rich all had the spare capital to invest in solar buying 5kw systems when 10 year rebates were high and are reaping the rewards, receiving nice excess rebates cheques that pay off their systems in under 5 years.

Here in WA we still have a State owned energy producer yet prices have doubled since Barnett was elected and are still rising, to top it off his Govt scraped the renewable energy buy back scheme rebates.

Now we have a situation where Western Power is the wholesaler, Synergy is the retailer, They buy electricity from WP at a 7c KWH wholesale rate then sell it back to the consumer at 20c kwh

Anyone who now buys a PV System now will receive the wholesale rate as a rebate. So energy you produce will cost you 13 kwh and they class this a fair and reasonable.

Bullocks the Liberal Govt in this state can kiss my butt

[clive milne]

(Some of) The views expressed in this forum reinforce my belief that democracy without an effective fourth estate is in practice a really, really bad idea.

~c