Federal Treasury estimates that 51 per cent of an average household electricity bill is spent on network charges (compared to nine per cent on the carbon tax). Most of that is going towards paying off the $45 billion network companies have spent on updating and building new poles and wires over the last five years because they predicted an increase in demand for electricity. Despite the clear reality of falling demand, the network companies insisted that demand was rising, and they carried on investing billions of dollars into the grid. Every dollar of that investment is now being recovered from consumers, via our power bills. Every dollar, plus 10 per cent: a guaranteed return granted to them by the Australian Energy Regulator. The irony is, we’re paying higher electricity prices at a time when Australia has more energy than it can use. Nationally, energy demand is now lower than it was in 2006, which is due to the decline of the manufacturing sector, the rollout of energy efficient appliances and because over the last six years, 1.3 million households have installed solar panels on their rooftops. We need carbon pricing for many reasons – to make polluters help pay for the damage they cause, to make industry invest in research and development of sustainable practice, to make business and individuals change their behaviour, to encourage investment in renewable energy which will be a growing industry of the future, to avoid being hit with tariffs or sanctions by other countries who have carbon pricing, but most of all to save the planet for our children.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 10:04:06 +0000
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