Energy Nation: Saul Griffith encourages investment in solar power and moving to households to electrify

If we really believed in nation building, we would figure out how to finance every single Australian household to completely electrify, according to Saul Griffith.

Getting all households to have solar and electricity should be a priority, says Saul Griffith. Picture: John Feder

Australia needs to pay more attention to encouraging consumers to invest in solar power and electrify their households, according to renewable energy advocate and inventor, Saul Griffith.

Speaking at The Australian’s Energy Nation Forum on Wednesday, he said there need to be more focus on encouraging consumers to play a bigger part in the energy transition.

Mr Griffith said in an ideal world, governments would provide financial help for households to install rooftop solar.

He said electrifying households – including moving away from gas and using electric cars- would reduce energy prices.

“I’m saving about $4,000 a year because driving an electric car in Australia with a mix of rooftop solar into the grid costs about two cents per kilometre,” he said.

“Driving a petrol vehicle costs 20 cents per kilometre.”

He said there had been too much focus on the supply side of the energy transmission, and there needed to be much more focus on getting consumers to play a bigger role in the energy transition.

“We are having a lot of conversations on the supply side of the discussion,” he said. “But you have to consider the demand side of energy and energy demand includes households.”

Having electric vehicles in the home could help provide a source of energy storage for the broader household, he said.

The engineer added he was working on a paper for the Central Bank of New Zealand which argued that household electrification was anti-inflationary by keeping down the cost of energy.

He estimated that New Zealand could save as much as $4,000 per household per year if all homes were electrified and that Australia too could save a significant amount if it had a commitment to electrifying all households in lieu of gas.

If that was modelled for Australia, Griffith estimated the country could save a total of $1.7 trillion in energy costs between now and 2050 if all households were electrified.

Mr Griffith said regulators needed to be having more conversations about encouraging households in Australia to electrify.

“We don’t even allow our regulators to ask the right questions,” he said.

He said if households invested in rooftop solar power they could “buy thirty years of freedom” from rising electricity prices.

He said financing such investments needed fixing.

“If we really believe in nation building, we would figure out how to finance every single Australian household to completely electrify,” he said.

Mr Griffith rejected the idea that gas was needed as the key transition from coal-fired power.

“If you model a lowest-cost energy system … there is no gas in the residential and commercial sectors of our economy,” he said.

“Rooftop solar, winds delivering electricity at five cents a kilowatt hour, not 32. The net price of electricity, including that, can go down if we design the market to allow it.

“High upfront costs … this is not a cost problem and you’re all having the conversation wrong.”

“The problem is most Australians don’t have access to the finance.

“If we really believed in nation building, we would figure out how to finance every single Australian household to completely electrify.”

Anna Collyer and Mr Griffith in conversation at the forum. Picture: Eventive Photography

The chair of the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC), Anna Collyer, said Australian households had already made an “enormous contribution” in the energy transition by their investments in solar power.

“Households have led the way for quite some time with their investment in solar panels,” she said.

“They have been putting their own money on the table.”

Ms Collyer said households were expected to contribute further by investing in batteries or communal batteries to store their roof top solar.

She said households would also be making another significant investment by moving to electric cars.

She said it was expected that 50 per cent of households in Australia would have roof top solar by 2050.

She said the electricity system needed to be set up so it could accommodate both categories of consumers - those with roof top solar and those without.

“People want to have access to affordable power which they can turn on when needed,” she said.

“We need to ensure that the way we are setting up the system at the customer end works for all categories of those consumers.”

Originally published as Energy Nation: Saul Griffith encourages investment in solar power and moving to households to electrify