Au revoir carbon tax

[yibbida]

http://www.businessspectator.com.au...on-markets/axing-carbon-tax-costs-budget-74bn

 

[Pessimistic]

Whats betting the power companies pull something like:

" the planned tarrif increases planned for 2014 will not now go ahead due to the repeal of the carbon tax"

In other words theyll just slug us in 2015 instead. Icbf wondering how so called competition among suppliers has us remembering the old monopolistic SEC fondly

 

[Power Raid]

Will Showbag Bill blink or we will have to wait till July to get rid of this nonsense*?



*Getting rid of one nonsense doesn't condone the absolute nonsense of implementing Direct Action.

Show bag Bill?

Why the nickname?

 

[dymot]

Passed by the hor. Now let's all wait and watch the greens and labor scumbags Start to block the tax in the senate still despite the people rejecting their view on it.

 

[Power Raid]

Passed by the hor. Now let's all wait and watch the greens and labor scumbags Start to block the tax in the senate still despite the people rejecting their view on it.

it will go, it is just embarrassing we actually implemented a tax on a fad

 

[pazza]

Will not go.

And as for the energy bills going down....expect price gouging.

The best way to lower your energy costs is to....USE LESS

 

[Power Raid]

Will not go.

And as for the energy bills going down....expect price gouging.

The best way to lower your energy costs is to....USE LESS

disagree

using more makes power results in a lower % of expense to income

 

[Puddy]

Will not go.

And as for the energy bills going down....expect price gouging.

The best way to lower your energy costs is to....USE LESS

You really have no idea. Electricity is now a luxury. What the * is with Left Wingers wanting everyone to live in poverty?

 

[ag6858]

Electricity is now a luxury.

And so it should be. Why do we need to use the excessive amounts we consume?

 

[Puddy]

And so it should be. Why do we need to use the excessive amounts we consume?

What the *? How the * is electricity being a luxury that people simply cant afford a good thing? A huge amount of homes here in SA have been disconnected because of high prices. Electricity should be affordable, along with water. Something left wing people disagree with

 

[Power Raid]

And so it should be. Why do we need to use the excessive amounts we consume?

I hear where you are coming from but it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of how the world works and human behaviour.

It is attitudes like that, that destroy the environment

 

[pazza]

What the ****? How the **** is electricity being a luxury that people simply cant afford a good thing? A huge amount of homes here in SA have been disconnected because of high prices. Electricity should be affordable, along with water. Something left wing people disagree with

I wonder why there is high prices.

Give you the tip...it is not the carbon tax.

Ever since power companies were privatised across the board, the amount an average electricity bill has gone up has been astronomical.

The power companies haven't had checks and balances to keep their prices in check. Throw into the bargain the staggering drop-off in maintenance of the supply and you basically have a perfect storm.

So we all pay a lot more for an essential service that has become less reliable. The carbon tax has made SFA difference to the costs of electricity, gas and water.

However, there are things we all can do to lower our energy costs. One is the installation of solar panels on our homes, with storage capacity, therefore going "off grid". Even though the initial start-up cost is significant...the returns over the short, medium and long term outweigh the initial costs.

There is also an ability for all of us to use less. Forget about 10 hours in front of an Xbox..go get a cricket bat and tennis ball and play outside!

 

[Puddy]

I wonder why there is high prices.

Give you the tip...it is not the carbon tax.

Ever since power companies were privatised across the board, the amount an average electricity bill has gone up has been astronomical.

The power companies haven't had checks and balances to keep their prices in check. Throw into the bargain the staggering drop-off in maintenance of the supply and you basically have a perfect storm.

So we all pay a lot more for an essential service that has become less reliable. The carbon tax has made SFA difference to the costs of electricity, gas and water.

However, there are things we all can do to lower our energy costs. One is the installation of solar panels on our homes, with storage capacity, therefore going "off grid". Even though the initial start-up cost is significant...the returns over the short, medium and long term outweigh the initial costs.

There is also an ability for all of us to use less. Forget about 10 hours in front of an Xbox..go get a cricket bat and tennis ball and play outside!

The carbon tax has played a part in our electricity prices, although not a huge one it has hurt. The issue is our government put the enviroment over the cost of living and it will lead to deaths. How many elderly people will die this summer because they cant afford to turn on the a.c. I know thenLeft dont care because they dont care about human life but in the real world this is probably the biggest issue facing Australia today

 

[Bosun]

The carbon tax has played a part in our electricity prices, although not a huge one it has hurt. The issue is our government put the enviroment over the cost of living and it will lead to deaths. How many elderly people will die this summer because they cant afford to turn on the a.c. I know thenLeft dont care because they dont care about human life but in the real world this is probably the biggest issue facing Australia today

While far from being a fan of the carbon tax, that is pretty hyperbolic. Surely as you have stated, if the carbon tax has not had a large impact in consumer electricity prices (i.e it was other factors such as privatisation, maintenance etc) then I highly doubt the elderly of whom you speak of would not have been able to afford the AC before.

The "Left dont care" comment is rubbish as well.

 

[Power Raid]

The carbon tax has played a part in our electricity prices, although not a huge one it has hurt. The issue is our government put the enviroment over the cost of living and it will lead to deaths. How many elderly people will die this summer because they cant afford to turn on the a.c. I know thenLeft dont care because they dont care about human life but in the real world this is probably the biggest issue facing Australia today

I would argue it has been significant. The tax direct impact is small foe individuals but large on manufacturing margins and business. The uncertainty, has resulted in a massive impact, as it has held up sensible investment whilst many dollars have gone into ridiculous schemes that have only pushed prices through the roof.

 

[Footy Smarts]

I would argue it has been significant. The tax direct impact is small foe individuals but large on manufacturing margins and business. The uncertainty, has resulted in a massive impact, as it has held up sensible investment whilst many dollars have gone into ridiculous schemes that have only pushed prices through the roof.

What investment are you talking about? How has the hold-up in this investment been affected by the carbon price and how has it affected electricity prices?

 

[Power Raid]

What investment are you talking about? How has the hold-up in this investment been affected by the carbon price and how has it affected electricity prices?

There has been a massive over investment in infrastructure which has cost plus implications. Items that fit into this category would include over spending on the grid.

There has also been a massive investment and subsidised investment in expensive technologies driven by ideology rather than economic or common sense. Why would governments buy solar at $0.40 when they can buy at $0.15 from the primary power producer. Worse, we not only pay for the $0.40 but we also pay for the $0.15 (as the coal power station can't shut down) meaning we pay $0.55 for the same power and have the same CO2 footprint.

Sensible investment transition to a lower CO2 world has also been held up as no one in their right mind would invest in an industry with a government that has no clear agenda or outcome. The risk of investing $Bs into a sector, only to find out you are being taxed out of existence is NOT an investment proposal I would want to take to a credit committee.

A lack of sensible investment has resulted in a greater reliance on old and increasingly inefficient power stations and expensive inefficient new technologies.

The sum of politics over good management and investment practices is higher energy prices and the loss of higher energy consuming business to overseas. I have no doubt we will continue to see refineries and manufacturing shift offshore. The result will equal less jobs for Australia and greater levels of pollution for the globe.

Quite sad really.

 

[Footy Smarts]

There has been a massive over investment in infrastructure which has cost plus implications. Items that fit into this category would include over spending on the grid.

This is absolutely what has been the main driver of electricity price increases. However it's got nothing to do with carbon pricing. They're entirely separate issues.

TThere has also been a massive investment and subsidised investment in expensive technologies driven by ideology rather than economic or common sense. Why would governments buy solar at $0.40 when they can buy at $0.15 from the primary power producer. Worse, we not only pay for the $0.40 but we also pay for the $0.15 (as the coal power station can't shut down) meaning we pay $0.55 for the same power and have the same CO2 footprint.

Except this hasn't happened. Australia has virtually no utility scale solar producers. So we're not paying for large scale solar.

What we do have is rooftop solar. Sure there have been FITs but these make up a tiny proportion of electricity bills for non-solar users. Also the great thing about rooftop solar is that it removes the need for the massive infrastructure spending because it reduces peak demand significantly (it's down some 15% in recent years). It also does help our carbon footprint because it reduces overall demand leading to utilities running their fossil fuel power stations at well below full capacity. The following article shows a list of coal fired power stations in Queensland that are all operating way below peak capacity. Queensland is particularly interesting since it has the highest occurrence of rooftop solar.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au...-energy/another-coal-power-station-bites-dust

Which has led to this (note the black line is electricity being produced by utilities and doesn't include rooftop solar):

This is smart investment. We could've spent a small amount on encouraging rooftop solar and not had invest anywhere near as much in the polls and wires. Unfortunately the states were greedy so they encouraged the investment in polls and wires anyway which is not only incredibly costly but is also now unnecessary.

Sensible investment transition to a lower CO2 world has also been held up as no one in their right mind would invest in an industry with a government that has no clear agenda or outcome. The risk of investing $Bs into a sector, only to find out you are being taxed out of existence is NOT an investment proposal I would want to take to a credit committee.

A lack of sensible investment has resulted in a greater reliance on old and increasingly inefficient power stations and expensive inefficient new technologies.

I think you'll need to be more specific. What sensible investment are you talking about? Again I don't see what the carbon price has to do with it since this was encouraging investment to help transition the economy.

The sum of politics over good management and investment practices is higher energy prices and the loss of higher energy consuming business to overseas. I have no doubt we will continue to see refineries and manufacturing shift offshore. The result will equal less jobs for Australia and greater levels of pollution for the globe.

Quite sad really.

Sure but again nobody's been able to show the carbon price having any impact on that. The whole point was that it was designed to protect trade-exposed industries and to have a fund to assist them in shifting to cleaner methods. No doubt that bad politics and investments by government have caused prices to skyrocket but it's almost entirely down to charges to do with transmission, not because of carbon pricing.

If the rise in electricity prices aren't mainly due to carbon pricing (which they're clearly not) and the industries are provided huge assistance for the rises that are due to carbon pricing, then clearly carbon pricing isn't to blame. The over-investment in electricity infrastructure is a far, far greater issue to these industries than carbon pricing and the high $A is (or was) an even bigger issue again. No doubt there have been dumb decisions but at worst carbon pricing is a very, very minor impact compared to other dumb decisions like over-investment in infrastructure.

 

[Norwegian Blue]

What we do have is rooftop solar. Sure there have been FITs but these make up a tiny proportion of electricity bills for non-solar users. Also the great thing about rooftop solar is that it removes the need for the massive infrastructure spending because it reduces peak demand significantly

Actually it doesn't. Peak demand occurs late in the evenings on hot summer days, after people get home and turn their aircon on. Those north-facing rooftop solar panels are producing bugger all then.

 

[Footy Smarts]

Actually it doesn't. Peak demand occurs late in the evenings on hot summer days, after people get home and turn their aircon on. Those north-facing rooftop solar panels are producing bugger all then.

Actually, in summer, peak electricity use doesn't occur late in the evenings at all. It generally occurs somewhere in the mid afternoon (3-4PM) on very hot days. For example the purple line here shows the average demand across the 3 hottest days in NSW in 2011:

http://energyaction.com.au/peak-demand-what-is-it

Of course rooftop solar isn't working optimally at that point but it does make a significant difference. Just look at what installing ~400MW of rooftop solar generation has done to peak electricity demand during summer in SA in recent years:

On the left you can see that in the last couple of years, which has seen the widespread installation of rooftop PV, the peak has dropped dramatically (~8%). The peak has also shifted later, as rooftop solar goes offline. Of course solar without storage can't help after about 5PM but thankfully by then electricity use has dropped away by about 10% on its maximum on the hottest days that demand the most of our grid.

 

[Norwegian Blue]

Actually, in summer, peak electricity use doesn't occur late in the evenings at all. It generally occurs somewhere in the mid afternoon (3-4PM) on very hot days. For example the purple line here shows the average demand across the 3 hottest days in NSW in 2011:

http://energyaction.com.au/peak-demand-what-is-it

The timescale on that graph is in NEM time which doesn't include daylight savings. The peak is shown is at 4pm, i.e. 5pm in summer.

For an actual scientific study, you could look at a paper I was reading the other day:

http://ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Magnetic Island High PV Penetration Case Study Report.pdf

"A Case Study of Increasing PV Penetration in Electricity Networks" by The Australian Solar PV association, UNSW and the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets. Funded by ARENA, so it's hardly anti-PV propaganda. It's a case study specifically on Magnetic Island, but it mirrors results found elsewhere. If you look at p15:

The annual peak demand on Magnetic Island occurred on December 27 during the Christmas holiday season (Figure 10a). Peak PV generation on this day was 560 kW and peak PV penetration 12%. It can be seen that PV plays a useful role in reducing the morning peak and reducing load on the system during the day, but makes no contribution to reducing the evening peak.

and

It is well known that there is a correlation offset between PV generation and residential peak load on a daily time scale, with PV generation highest around midday and peak load occurring during the evening.

Of course rooftop solar isn't working optimally at that point but it does make a significant difference. Just look at what installing ~400MW of rooftop solar generation has done to peak electricity demand during summer in SA in recent years:

You're making the assumption that the drop in demand is solely the effect with solar PV. There have been many factors driving the dropoff in demand, overall not just peak, of which PV is one only one.

 

[DivideandMultiply]

I would argue it has been significant. The tax direct impact is small foe individuals but large on manufacturing margins and business. The uncertainty, has resulted in a massive impact, as it has held up sensible investment whilst many dollars have gone into ridiculous schemes that have only pushed prices through the roof.

We have been over this before. The price increase attributable to the carbon tax is marginal.

The vast majority is directly attributable to spending by the utilities, both in grid gold plating and increase in corporate overheads.

 

[DivideandMultiply]

Back on topic, I am not sure what we should call this. Economic vandalism. Perhaps the politics of spite, or maybe a government prioritising the interests of it's financial backers over that of the public:

http://www.afr.com/p/national/green_fund_in_the_black_says_jillian_yS05D9rEEb55sLOsiBQBQN

Clean Energy Finance Corporation chairman Jillian Broadbent has urged the Abbott government to spare her organisation, saying it is making money for taxpayers and, if allowed to continue, will account for 50 per cent of Australia’s 2020 emissions reduction target at no cost.
Ms Broadbent, a former Reserve Bank board member, and CEFC chief executive Oliver Yates told a Senate inquiry into the abolition of the carbon tax on Tuesday that the CEFC, a $10 billion loan facility, was exceeding all expectations.
It was “delivering substantial abatement while making a return to the taxpayer’’. Its abolition would cost taxpayers up to $200 million a year in lost revenue.

It is set to be abolished along with the carbon tax and the government has budgeted a saving of $760 million over four years from its demise. But because the CEFC is making money, the combined blow to the budget from its abolition could be as high as $1.5 billion.

http://www.afr.com/p/national/green_fund_in_the_black_says_jillian_yS05D9rEEb55sLOsiBQBQN

So the coalition wants to dump both a money maker and fund that is actually helping cut emissions. Is this a case of, if it's green dump it, or making sure to trash a rare success from the previous government?

 

[Footy Smarts]

The timescale on that graph is in NEM time which doesn't include daylight savings. The peak is shown is at 4pm, i.e. 5pm in summer.

No it's not. It is in daylight savings time. This is where the graph's from and it gives a good summary of what's happened in recent years:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au...summer-and-peak-demand-–-what-really-happened

For an actual scientific study, you could look at a paper I was reading the other day:

http://ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Magnetic Island High PV Penetration Case Study Report.pdf

"A Case Study of Increasing PV Penetration in Electricity Networks" by The Australian Solar PV association, UNSW and the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets. Funded by ARENA, so it's hardly anti-PV propaganda. It's a case study specifically on Magnetic Island, but it mirrors results found elsewhere. If you look at p15:

Yes you've picked the part of the country with approximately the earliest summer sunset that there is. No daylight savings combined with a very north location means the latest sunset is before 7pm. In Melbourne you basically get 2 hours more sunlight than on Magnetic Island. So no solar PV doesn't have much affect on summer peak on magnetic island since the sun sets far earlier. But to pick the worst place for this and suggest it "mirrors results found elsewhere" in Australia is absurd
As shown in the above article the impact of solar PV has been significant. It is also noticeable that the drop off in peak demand is more significant in SA and VIC than NSW and that is more significant than QLD. One of the reasons is that the southern states have later sunsets and hence solar produces to a later time in the day.

You're making the assumption that the drop in demand is solely the effect with solar PV. There have been many factors driving the dropoff in demand, overall not just peak, of which PV is one only one.

Are we talking summer peak? Then yes solar PV is the predominant driving force in the dropoff in demand, especially in the southern states (which is where peak demand has dropped the fastest). Please explain why demand has plummeted during the day, when solar PV is working, and risen slightly outside that time during summer as shown in the graph I posted earlier.

Actual energy use on the hottest days is actually increasing in contrast to other times of year, mainly due to air-conditioners increasing and having hotter summers. But less is having to be transferred by the grid due to the expansion of solar PV. Of course energy efficiency and mild winters have meant overall electricity use has dropped significantly across the year and even less than that is having to be transported due to solar PV.

 

[Footy Smarts]

Back on topic, I am not sure what we should call this. Economic vandalism. Perhaps the politics of spite, or maybe a government prioritising the interests of it's financial backers over that of the public:

http://www.afr.com/p/national/green_fund_in_the_black_says_jillian_yS05D9rEEb55sLOsiBQBQN

http://www.afr.com/p/national/green_fund_in_the_black_says_jillian_yS05D9rEEb55sLOsiBQBQN

So the coalition wants to dump both a money maker and fund that is actually helping cut emissions. Is this a case of, if it's green dump it, or making sure to trash a rare success from the previous government?

Sheer unadulterated madness.