Price lift for household solar would confirm our system’s broken

Price lift for household solar would confirm our system’s broken

There is a bitter irony that should not be missed in Colin Packham’s report: negative prices for daytime wholesale power are cited as one of the reasons that energy retailers have demanded a hike in the default electricity tariff for consumers (“Solar energy rush risks power price surge”, 3/1). There are good reasons for this.

The main system with all its fixed costs is still required, including by customers with rooftop solar panels. Not only must those fixed costs be recovered over fewer kilowatt hours but the solar PV itself makes the grid system more expensive to operate: a double whammy. Johannes Leak captured this well in his earlier cartoon of the household gathered around the kitchen table with their rapidly rising power bill: “If renewables get any cheaper we’re stuffed!”

Stephen Wilson, Nundah, Qld

Surprise, surprise, our electricity bills look like going up yet again to allow energy retailers to make up for the freebies paid to households on solar. The mere point that household solar, as well as industrial solar, is subsidised in the first place destroys the myth that renewables are cheap. The inevitability that subsidies and freebies are eventually borne out by increased prices and taxes has materialised.

Since the integrated energy oligopol­ists have been at the forefront in promoting renewables in the hope of gaining from the renew­ables gravy train, they don’t deserve further profit protection at the cost to consumers and should pay the consequences for their incompetent decision-making.

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic

Householders who heeded the loud and ongoing exhortations of governments, both federal and state, to install rooftop solar systems and later batteries would find the report by Colin Packham on The Australian’s front page as absolutely incredible.

Given we were advised that householders could make significant cost savings and would be able to contribute to the power network, it is perplexing that it now seems to be our fault for the current difficulties being experienced by energy retailers.

I received 24c per kilowatt hour when I first installed my solar panels and my three-month electricity bills did not exceed $100 for autumn and winter and were under $50 for spring and summer, a magnificent investment, I thought. Today, as a single occupant of my home, which has a battery installed, I receive 10c per kilowatt hour and my monthly bill in May was $117.30 and in October $70.61. I can’t imagine what the size of bills for families with children and without solar would be.

Along with this demand, energy retailers have also indicated that they wanted to keep in place a set profit margin for their industry. Perhaps households should request that our government afford us a similar opportunity by providing us with a guaranteed amount from our income that we can put away as savings.

Ian Macgowan, Ceduna, SA

Super to the rescue?

In his media conference on Wednesday, Anthony Albanese revealed his government was committed to tackling the cost-of-living crisis.

“Our priority will be to provide cost-of-living relief while taking pressure off inflation,” he said.

The most effective non-inflationary way to help struggling mortgage-holders would be to allow conditional access to their own superannuation funds.

Conditions might include limiting access to owner-occupiers who have no other property investments, withdrawals not to exceed 80 per cent of the value of their home, the “super advance” to be repaid to their superannuation fund if the property against which the advance has been made is sold, and access to an individual’s super is a once-only opportunity.

This proposal does not restrict national financial accounts as it simply shifts ownership of the asset, the dollar value of the home, from the superannuation funds to the banks, which will reinvest those dollars just as the super fund would.

If the ALP is not prepared to do this, the Coalition surely will.

Roger Dace, Greenway, ACT

Employment blunders

The ALP government is enacting policy changes that are having a negative effect on the economy as a whole, especially small business, farming and horticulture. The government, having no prior experience of running a functional employment system, instead is damaging infinitely flexible employment arrangements that suit small businesses; it is now putting in rigid structures that work against small business and potential employees at the same time. How can farmers possibly afford to pay people a minimum of 30 hours a week when there is often enough bad weather, which means harvesting is impossible, and farmers and producers require as much flexibility as possible? Producers are dictated to by the weather and the market, and therefore need flexibility so they make a profit, not a loss.

Graham Thomas, Kadina, SA