Electricity prices...What can WE do about it?

T

TheEnd

Well-Known Member
It seems to me that apart from the debate about wether Labor or Liberals have ruined the economy there is another factor contributing to the massive expenses EVERYONE is prersently having to pay for....In the last three years we have ALL seen electricity prices increase by AT LEAST 50%..... This has driven everyones business costs up, labour costs up etc to cover it all.

What I want to know is....IS there something we can all do (Apart from converting to solar which I have already enquired about)..... Why cant someone start a petition against what has happened.... I'm not sure what to do but all I know is its killing the economy and things are getting really scary in this country.
 
And also, WHY should the working class tax payers have to pay high prices for power when its the government that supply the coal burning power stations to make the energy......Should'nt the government be finding 'alternative' ways to supply electricity?
 
The electricity price rises are due to a range of factors pretty much all of which are squarely the direct fault of past and current Government policies. Much of the recent surge has been due to having to play catch up from artificially forcing the price rises in previous years to be lower than they needed to be. Price fixing never works in the long run, especially in the presence of strictly mandated supply reliability legislation and we are now paying the price of successive interventions. Be thankful you're not in SA where consumers have been forced to pay for the misguided, super-expensive wind farm policies.
 
Ye well wind generators only work when its windy lol! They must be bloody expensive to install too?

Seriously though, isn't there something we can do.... What about a petition? How would we go about starting one?
 
TheEnd said:
Ye well wind generators only work when its windy lol! They must be bloody expensive to install too?

Seriously though, isn't there something we can do.... What about a petition? How would we go about starting one?
Click to expand...
The "great" thing about wind is how it tends not be blowing when it's stinking hot and people want to turn their air conditioners on.

See the negative correlation during one of the big SA heatwaves a few years ago. The wind stops blowing when everyone wants power and starts when nobody wanted it. This means the electricity system needs more on-call gas and diesel peaking generators that can be switched on and off rapidly to allow the load demand to be met.

6824_windcorrelation.jpg
 
^ This of course drives up the prices as you now have least as twice as much expensive capital stock lying around idle for most of the year.
 
Um use less power? Why dramatise everything? The rise in power prices isn't that big of a deal. My last quarterly power bill was $180 and thats at 26c a kWh and a 25c per day connection fee. Thats $11.25 a week... I have to work less than one hour a week to pay my power bill. Its less than 1/40 of what I earn. Get my point? The people who live in the house above me paid around $550 last quarter and thats for 3 adults and a baby. They aren't very frugal with their power either; They have 2 fridges, run air conditioners in 3 bedrooms every night and don't stress too much about leaving lights and fans on. Thats 3 working adults paying $180 a quarter for power. So for them thats half an hour of work every week to pay for power. Thats SFA. Many people out there pay my weekly power bill every day to buy a coffee in the morning and a roll for lunch. And theres nothing wrong with that; all i'm saying is this constant whinging about power bills is bloody stupid. If your'e going to sook about the cost of living, have a cry about rent or food. Although both of them things are not a problem either if you live within your means.

Also its worth noting that the fascist labor parties commie carbon tax is not solely responsible for power price increases. The cost of electricity has only risen about 10% from the carbon tax. And thats while it was $23 a tonne. I believe its way less now that we have made the switch from a carbon tax to an ETS. Most of the power price increases are from grid upgrades made to prevent blackouts during heat waves etc as well as to help the grid cope with all the solar panels people are getting. (all the transformers and the grid as a whole needs to be bidirectional now) Power prices have also been increasing for a long time before the carbon tax was introduced. Some sources now say that the carbon tax has cost us around half of what was originally expected. So after all the costs have been passed on and have trickled down to groceries etc it only costs the average family $5 a week. A massive clusterf*ck of a media scare campaign over $5 a week. Way to go Murdoch, you piece of scum. Its sad that most of the people in the country have allowed the media to demonise an entire political party over what is actually a good thing. Yes, as crazy as it sounds the carbon tax works and emissions from electricity generation are dropping. At the current rate more than a quarter of our power in Australia will be generated renewably by 2020. Unless your'e a bat shit crazy climate change denier thats a pretty good achievement.
 
when water was scarce we stopped using it, the same would happen if it was expensive.
 
Privatisation is to blame.

Instead of the promised increase in competition leading to lower prices, the opposite has happened. All of the private providers have jacked up the price knowing full well consumers would have no choice but to pay.

Privatisation has never benefitted any ordinary australian. Prices have always risen so have fees and penalties.

The only winner is big business.
 
Byron said:
Privatisation is to blame.

Instead of the promised increase in competition leading to lower prices, the opposite has happened. All of the private providers have jacked up the price knowing full well consumers would have no choice but to pay.

Privatisation has never benefitted any ordinary australian. Prices have always risen so have fees and penalties.

The only winner is big business.
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Ye just as I thought...greed wins again..... Honestly cant we do something about this?
 
Had a friend that used to live out bush, grew up on tank water etc. moved here to the coast and decided to hook up his rainwater tank to the house. Council noticed almost zero water usage. They sent around an inspector to his house and slapped him an infringement.
They told him the tank water was unsafe to use in kitchens. My ass all you have to do is throw a couple of tablets into the tank and its safe.
It was illegal here in the 70's/80's to have a tank and now it's legal to have one but they fine you if you use it.
 
metalzzz said:
Had a friend that used to live out bush, grew up on tank water etc. moved here to the coast and decided to hook up his rainwater tank to the house. Council noticed almost zero water usage. They sent around an inspector to his house and slapped him an infringement.
They told him the tank water was unsafe to use in kitchens. My ass all you have to do is throw a couple of tablets into the tank and its safe.
It was illegal here in the 70's/80's to have a tank and now it's legal to have one but they fine you if you use it.
Click to expand...

Who the hell are they to tell him what to do in his own kitchen?

Also I never knew tanks were illegal in th 70 and 80s. Was that everywhere? And why?
 
TheEnd said:
Byron said:
Privatisation is to blame.

Instead of the promised increase in competition leading to lower prices, the opposite has happened. All of the private providers have jacked up the price knowing full well consumers would have no choice but to pay.

Privatisation has never benefitted any ordinary australian. Prices have always risen so have fees and penalties.

The only winner is big business.
Click to expand...

Ye just as I thought...greed wins again..... Honestly cant we do something about this?
Click to expand...

Other than nationalisation or govt legislating price controls, no.
 
Don't know about everywhere else but down this way the oldies always rage about it. I'm guessing it was a metro area council BS rule. Wouldn't make sense in rural.
 
Not sure if it's still the case but it was illegal in the past to use tank water for drinking purposes in urban areas due to the pollution in the rain
tank water for watering the garden or flushing the toilet is ok
 
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