Winter Power Bill

I received my winter power bill recently so have spent the afternoon comparing the bill.

Daily Usage:
1.4 kwH per day greater usage in 2012. This is where I need to see if I can increase the amount of insulation and reduce heat loss. Most of this increase is due to having someone at home all day needing electricity, whereas I had hoped to reduce usage with all children off at work during the week.

Difference in cost: $99.09 extra this year

Tariffs - Peak (2011) - 28.73 c/kWh :
2012 before Carbon Tax - 30.34 c/kWh
2012 after Carbon Tax- 34.62c/kWh
 -Off-Peak (2011) - 10.89 c/kWh
2012 before Carbon Tax -11.50 c/kWh
2012 after Carbon Tax-13.12 c/kWh
Adjusting for slightly different number of days (95 days in 2011 and 89 in 2012)
gives $ amount increase of $92.15 for the equivalent number of days (89).
70% of the price increase is the carbon tax, the rest the increase prior. Its a quite a bit more than what the government had suggested - 15% instead of 10%. Is it all due to the Carbon Tax or also other price rises by the electricity company (profiteering??). Carbon Tax seems to be affecting the off-peak rate a bit more (17%) which is interesting.
The amount we contributed to the grid is a little less this year - either more cloudy or greater usage than last year.
So the increase with the Carbon Tax is about the same as the increase that has been occurring almost yearly the last 3-4 years. While increases in costs are not welcome, in my case the % cost that electricity makes to my bills versus my& my partners net income is approx 1.8%.
Verdict -Not the end of existence as we know it!

Victorian Feed-in-Tariff and Coal Fired Power Stations

The war between renewable technologies such as Solar Power (PV) and the dirty, polluting brown coal power stations boiled over recently. The Victorian State Government has completed its review of "Power from the People" and announced the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) for household solar power will be reduced to the wholesale electricity rate of 8c. See more information at http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/energy/environment-and-community/feed-in-tariffs.
I will be very interested to see what the effect this will have on the uptake of Solar PV in Victoria. The argument of the state government that the changes to a lower FiT enables both equity to all Victorian's and encourages investment in larger systems is nonsense.
Householders who own their roofs and have a solar system feeding in electricity to the grid are directly leading to reduced peak electricity costs ( "Who's afraid of solar PV - The Conversation) and reducing the need for costly new power stations, thus saving $$ for those renting or otherwise unable to generate their own power. As Environment Victoria says on its website "Importantly the feed-in tariff in Germany has actually led to lower wholesale electricity prices as it has reduced peak power demands." 
Householders who install a PV system and generate electricity to feed in to the grid are positively discriminated from installing bigger systems - who would make that extra investment when the extra power fed back is not earning the same as the amount used inside the house itself?
To me this is another example of big,established, polluting businesses having more "power" over governments than we, the citizens! Exactly what is expected of a Liberal Party & their business at all cost ideology.

At the same time the Federal Government has broken off negotiating with owners of the oldest and dirtiest brown coal power stations in Victoria, such as Hazelwood,  and elsewhere. Initially the Federal government was going to buy off these stations to close them. However, no agreement could be negotiated. The Age is scathing in its analysis saying "According to Frontier Economics, it means the generators are between $400 million and $1 billion better off than if there was no carbon tax"., So is the ABC.

Meaning of course that these stations had already negotiated unfair compensation with the carbon tax and would have got more if they were closed early. So although this decision has saved us, the taxpayer money, the Federal Government has again shot itself in the foot with its voter base!

So Australia will have 2 choices the next Federal election - a running scared, changeable Labor Party which is scared of the Greens, the companies, the Liberal Party and a "lets give everything to business" Liberal Party who will "levy" the people to pay for carbon reduction incentives by big business.

So there is no choice at all!!!!