Dec 2023 - Yvonne's power bills are less than $80 a month. Here's how she did it.

 

Yvonne's power bills are less than $80 a month. Here's how she did it.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-07/power-bills-renewable-energy-efficient-home/103192374

Key points:

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• Power bills have risen by 45 per cent in two years

• Experts warn the capital costs of clean energy transition will flow through to consumers

• The transition to renewables is estimated to cost $383 billion by 2050.

Yvonne Parker remembers having to sleep outside in the front yard of her housing commission home as a child when the temperature inside reached 50 degrees Celsius in summer.

This memory of living in a "terrible" uninsulated brick and concrete house inspired her, decades later, to create an energy-efficient home on Victoria's picturesque coastline that's cool in summer, warm in winter and, importantly, immune from rising power prices.

"We find it so utterly liveable, that we just love it," she said, brimming with pride.

The retired social scientist and her daughter spent about $10,400 out of their own pocket and took advantage of $6,500 worth of state government subsidies to install solar panels, a battery, an inverter and heat pump – an investment they predict will take about six years to recoup.

Their power bill is now sitting at around $80 a month, which Ms Parker reckons "is pretty hard to match".

As prices climb, Australians are taking control of their power bills: more than 3.4 million households and businesses have rooftop solar and about 185,000 of them are backed by batteries.

According to the competition watchdog, which analysed retail market offers, the median annual household bill is now sitting around $1,926 across the National Energy Market — a 45 per cent increase in two years.

Politically this figure is problematic for a federal government that was elected on a promise to cut household power bills by an average of $275 a year by 2025.

Instead, prices have gone in the opposite direction, rising by about $600 since that pledge was made.

By 2030 the government wants 82 per cent of Australia's electricity to come from wind, solar and hydro, up from about 32 per cent now, backed by a vast new network of high-voltage transmission lines to connect these far-flung renewables to consumers.

Shifting from fossil fuels to renewables in just seven years is an "economic transformation on the scale of the industrial revolution", according to Ms McNamara, who warns "it's not costless".

A price tag can be found in the Australian Energy Market Operator's own figures, buried deep in its Integrated System Plan, mapping the decades-long clean energy transition.

The total of all costs of phasing out coal and gas-fired power stations and replacing them with wind, solar, hydro and batteries on an industrial scale between now and 2050 is estimated to be about $383 billion.

The UN COP28 Climate Conference Dec 2023

 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-07/andrew-forrest-fossil-fuel-heads-on-spikes-un-cop28-climate/103198354

Andrew Forrest calls for fossil fuel bosses' 'heads on spikes' in extraordinary outburst on sidelines of UN COP28 climate conference

• Australian mining magnate Andrew Forrest is attending the COP28 climate conference in the United Arab Emirates
• He says energy bosses should have their heads "put up on spikes" for not committing to phase out fossil fuels
• It comes as some companies, including the national oil company of the UAE, defy calls for a wind-down of fossil fuel use.

• There have been a flurry of announcements and commitments aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions during the first week of COP28.

  Chief among these was a pledge by more than 100 countries — championed by conference host the United Arab Emirates — to triple the amount of renewable energy across the globe by 2030.

  Mr Forrest said none of the announcements made so far would be enough to ensure the success of this year's conference without a definite commitment to ending the use of fossil fuels.

  He said there was already strong evidence the world was on track to breach the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

  And he took particular aim at the oil and gas bosses who were dismissing the calls, describing them as "selfish beyond belief".

  He said their actions were jeopardising the lives of millions of people in overwhelmingly poor countries who were at risk of "lethal humidity", or an inability to cool themselves down.

• On Monday, Australia's biggest fossil fuel player Woodside joined a host of other major producers in signing up to the COP28 oil and gas decarbonisation charter.

  Under the charter, signatories have agreed to end routine flaring and "near-zero upstream methane emissions" by 2030.

  Woodside chief Meg O'Neill said the charter was historic.

• Mr Forrest's business empire includes Fortescue, which is Australia's third biggest iron ore miner and a massive polluter in its own right.

  This seeming contradiction has been acknowledged by Mr Forrest, who has described himself as a climate "culprit" while stressing his commitment to spending $6 billion cleaning up Fortescue's operations.

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