It’s death by a thousand cuts, or more accurately, increases. Electricity price rises seem to have become the third thing you can be sure of in life.
The heavy impact of power price increases is detailed in the recent Clean Energy Council report we mentioned yesterday, which shows the dramatic jumps between June 2007 and June 2012 in the following capital cities:
Melbourne: +84%
Canberra: +45%
Sydney: +79%
Brisbane: +67%
Adelaide: +62%
Darwin: +42%
Other capitals not mentioned were not left unscathed; nor the regional towns and cities throughout the nation.
To add to the pain, since July last year electricity prices have increased again – on top of the above figures:
Queensland – average 16% rise
New South Wales – 11.8% to 20.6% across different electricity supply regions.
ACT – 17.74% increase in retail electricity prices.
South Australia – 18 per cent rise.
Western Australia – an extra 12.6%
Victoria – an extra 5 percent.
Northern Territory – 20 per cent increase
Tasmania – an extra 12%
The electricity bill shocks unfortunately won’t end there. For example, there will be a further five per cent increase in 2014 and another five per cent in 2015 in the Northern Territory.
For Queensland households, the situation is even more grim as they face electricity price rises of 22% soon; tacking hundreds of dollars onto the average annual bill. The Queensland Government’s electricity rate increase freeze has come back to haunt it – and in spades. It was akin to easy credit in that like easy credit from shady sources, debt repayments are often very hard.
In among all this, one thing has been continually proven true – that green schemes are a bit player in the increases. The title of major culprit goes to network costs – poles and wires to replace ageing infrastructure or in some cases, just to “gold plate” it and to deal with the infrequent spikes in power use each year through the use of air-conditioners; an issue that home solar is helping to address.
The nay-sayers can diss and blame solar power all they wish, but households are becoming increasingly savvy to the spin and going solar to slash their bills; assisted by the low entry cost of solar panel systems and options such as zero deposit payment plans.
