The mainstream media, the Murdoch press in particular, rails against the supposed impact of renewable energy and carbon pricing schemes on electricity prices, yet remains curiously silent on the massive impact of network charges on low volume electricity users.
Last month RenewEconomy brought attention to the huge rise in fixed charges in Queensland. Despite the gushing press release announcing reduced bills picked up uncritically by the local media, the real horror was the impact on low energy users, single person households, pensioners and solar and energy efficient households in particular.
We thought at the time that the impact translated into an effective rate of more than 40c/kWh for those low energy users. We were wrong.
While scrolling through the latest report from the Queensland Competition Authority to respond to the latest bit of trolling from fossil fuel apologists, I came across these graphs below.
In the first, it shows how the lowest energy users have been hit by big rises in their bills, mostly from the huge increased in fixed tariffs. A household using just 1MWh of electricity from the grid, faces an annual bill of $712. That is the equivalent of 71.2c/kWh. Their bill has risen at least 16 per cent.
Energy hogs, on the other hand, have been delivered significant cuts. A household guzzling 10MWh a year, presumably with air con and pool pumps, are paying an effective rate of just 29c/kWh.
Of course, it goes against everything that the state government, which owns the networks, has been proposing for the last 10 years on energy efficiency, and the encouragement of solar PV, and more recently their rhetoric around battery storage.
Indeed, this next graph shows the figures in a different way. The bill increases for low energy users (look to the left) have risen by up to 35 per cent in some cases, for those using little or no electricity (holiday homes?) during the year.
This data also shows that more than half a million homes – using 3MWh or less of electricity in a year – have been hit by rising bills in 2015/16, courtesy of higher fixed charges, despite the rhetoric from the government.
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of One Step Off The Grid, and also edits and founded Renew Economy and The Driven. He has been a journalist for 35 years and is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review.
This post was published on August 21, 2015 2:10 am
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It's usually elderly and most vulnerable that are in situation where they have to watch their budget...... so they get punished for being economical..... What a farce
To say this makes me angry is an understatement!
Thanks Giles, it is a telling situation as you suggest with the "regulated" media picking and choosing very specifically what and how they will cover an issue. The graphs you have presented are just for one year, the same graphs have been produced for a number of years now and the accumulated impact on the left of the peak is astounding.
I'm of the view that the "grid network" is needed for maximising the renewable energy opportunities, the question is how do we pay for it in the most equable and efficient way?
Answer 1- mandate TOU for the top 10% each year, working down the list each year.
2-The flat tariffs need to urgently dumped and replaced with inclining ones as well as TOU
3- introduce true full competition so individual RE produces can sell to other users directly on the market and not at a wholesale price, same with efficiency. Trade nega watts. via phone apps lets make it true competitive not a protection racket which it currently is!
Not necessarily a lot of gas being used in homes in QLD, but this electricity pricing situation would drive residential gas use in QLD to very near zero, you would think, at least amongst those that have any energy-cost concerns whatsoever.
Don't really agree with averaging the total bill across energy use like this. Why not lay the facts out as they are, the fixed cost that everyone pays, and the cost per kWh? It may not give such a sensationalised headline but at least it will be a bit more...honest I suppose.
I have read a lot on this subject of late and it would seem the rebalancing of the fixed cost of the transmission and distribution is something that should have happened long ago within the two part tariff (or more likely tariff reform should have occurred).
People are complaining about the network and how much it costs, to an extent it is what it is and we have to deal with that for now, but little has been said about the benefits it does provide and that in no small way we (the public who want no blackouts ever) are to blame for the so called "gold plating' that we all love to cry foul about.
I am for solar and cheaper bills, but let's be fair and level headed about it and come up with an achievable pathway to where we should be without abandoning the vulnerable.
Is solar still a good investment or not ?