1. At Wally’s house, there is a septic system that treats sewage and sprays the treated water onto his grass. Even when nobody is home, the system needs to be powered, but uses only a tiny amount of electricity from the grid. The bill has remained at about $24 per quarter for almost two years, while the house has been empty. But suddenly, the bill jumped to $78 for the quarter.
2. Recently, Jo’s house has been adorned with a 1.5 Kw set of solar panels, enough to generate more than her total electricity use. Her bill should have come down to almost zero. It would have been about zero, except for a new charge that appeared on both Jo’s and Wally’s bill. A service fee, apparently for rent of posts and wires.
Up until now, that has been included, but is now added on top of the usual payment for electricity used. Fact is, Australians have been cutting their household electricity use for years, so demand has dropped. We thought that was a good thing, so many people doing their bit for Global Warming, but suddenly, less used poles and wires need to be paid for, so in goes the charge.
Meanwhile, politics reared its head and most of the rise in power charges was blamed on the Carbon tax by our current government when in opposition. That was an outright lie. If it was not, when they scrap the Carbon Tax, we should see prices plummet. I don’t think we will and here’s why.
Because the Carbon Tax added under 10% to the cost of electricity, while prices went up over 50%, we know Abbott lied to get into Government. But power is largely a State responsibility. It seems that' under a smoke screen of ranting over the Carbon Tax, the states were Gold Plating their distribution systems. So, now we get to see who was lying, or do we?
NSW is now about to sell off its posts and wires to Private Capital. OK, so I think we now know why Gold Plating the system happened at our expense, when it did.
Being in such great shape, it will attract a higher price, and the new owner, being a monopoly, will continue to push up prices.
Jo is thinking of buying a battery bank, an inverter and snipping the wires. I can’t see how they can charge for posts and wires we do not use, but I’m willing to bet they’ll think of something!
Coal: Nature's Hazardous Waste Dump.
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Many people are legitimately concerned about issues such as global warming or healthcare, Political leaders use these concerns to expand their power and increase revenue with little or no concern as to whether the issues are resolved.
ReplyDeleteIn the US, several states have proposed bills to charge people for the sunlight their solar systems use and one state now charges people ofr using rain that falls on their property.
While the issues are real. most government solutions are not.