Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova – “The Australian” newspaper reports that a rise in costs, climate “fatigue”, and a rise in green tokenism has caused a collapse in demand for an Aussie green energy scheme.
Climate change fatigue, cost hits renewable GreenPower scheme
GreenPower, a scheme run by state governments in which people and businesses pay more for their power to buy non-fossil-fuel electricity, has been hit by up to a 40 per cent increase in cost as retailers pass on the rising price of large-scale renewable energy certificates.
…
Even before the price jump, the willingness of customers to pay more for renewable energy has ebbed in line with the political debate over climate change policies.
The scheme has gone from more than 900,000 customers in 2008 who bought about 1 per cent of total generation to just over 500,000 who bought just 0.6 per cent of all the electricity generated in 2013.
Since, sales have dropped a further 21 per cent.
…
A report by UTS’s Institute of Sustainable Futures for the NSW Department of Resources and Energy — which administers the scheme on behalf of all the states — said the rise in roof- top solar panels had contributed to the demise of GreenPower. “It seems that once customers have ‘done their bit’ by paying for solar PV, they no longer see the need to pay extra for GreenPower.”
Read more (paywalled): http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/climate-change-fatigue-cost-hits-renewable-greenpower-scheme/news-story/f539152e18a55644110c07a508415a7a
So why is the price of green power rising?
According to the Sydney Morning Herald;
“Retailers are making it more expensive than it needs to be for the consumer,” said Richie Farrell, group manager of investor relations and strategy at Infigen Energy.
“The consumer is entering into a contract with them to buy renewable energy and they are not taking action to enter into a contract with renewable energy providers to supply the electricity, they are just entering into short-term agreements on the spot market to meet the liability the customer has imposed on them through purchasing their product.”
Mr Farrell said it all comes down to supply and demand.
“For a long time the renewable energy certificate market was oversupplied. Everyone knew there was going to be an upcoming shortfall and to avoid that shortfall retailers were required to enter into long-term contracts with people like ourselves to ensure that more renewable supply came into the market.”
Unfortunately for consumers, he said, retailers have so far refused to do that.
“They have sat on their hands and not entered into these new contracts. Basically, by our projections, by 2017-18 we will have more demand than supply for renewable energy, and as such prices increase in that scenario.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/why-are-green-energy-prices-going-through-the-roof-20160105-glzgva.html
You can hardly blame energy retailers for being hesitant to commit to long term contracts. There simply isn’t an upside, to taking financial risks, to try to revive the already aneamic green energy market.
Australia is facing difficult economic conditions, and the Australian government is carrying a substantial and growing debt.
If the global economic slowdown worsens, Aussie government debt could very rapidly balloon to dangerous levels. In other countries, a public debt crisis was the trigger for retroactive, uncompensated cuts to green subsidies.
When individuals, businesses and governments tighten their belts, unnecessary luxuries like expensive green energy are often top of the list of costs to be cut.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The poor do not count ” Green Energy ” as a luxury . To the poor, It is an overwhelming burden !
…that they cannot afford !
Just let the disappearing middle class pick up the slack!
Maybe that’s why the “disappearing middle class” is…. disappearing.
Maybe that’s why world markets are slouching toward another recession.
Yes – Big Green is very classful. There is no way the working poor nor the out of work poor are going to get on board Big Green. But don’t you think, as our governments do, that Big Green is sooooo very important that they’d subsidize the poor and working poor’s energy bill to allow them access to the Big Green gold? But they don’t. Isn’t that enough to make you go “hmmmmm”.
Just wait … that’s part of Phase II if Cacklery gets elected.
She’s already dangling massive billions to the out of work coal regions.
Prince Charles, the future king of Oz is doing his part. On a clear day you can see the toilet paper hanging out to dry. Next week the empty Champagne bottles and Caviar tins will be out in the recycle bins. One does what one can, in spite of the hardships. Some say the Royal Tampon and is thinking of recycling Camilla.
Classic
I like it! 😉
Camilla is recycled. She is a divorcee.
Four words sprang instantly to mind-We Told You SO!
No demand for that inefficient, unreliable novelty energy….none whatsoever!
Why would anyone willingly pay more for electricity than necessary?
Liberals are stupid ??
“Liberals are stupid”
These people aren’t Liberals. Very illiberal “greens” is what they are in polite language. If you want to be less than polite, you could call them deluded far-leftist Fairfax reading stooges of the socialist parties.
Did I forget to mention ABC watching?
Really? I’ll go right away and try that.
Sorry, was trying to respond to the taste test.
“Green” energy is double-plus good!
Yes and it comes out of the wall with that shiny neat decal, not like that dull and boring regular electricity. Otherwise you probably could not tell the difference. Do you think your electric blender can feel the the double-plus good?
If you stick your tongue in the socket, you can taste the difference.
Why? To paraphrase David Thompson, in order to display “HOW VIRTUOUS AND FASHIONABLE THEY ARE”.
+1
The people who are purchasing “green” energy at a higher cost are practising what they preach and I have no objection to anybody doing this. Good luck to them.
The ones I object to are the celebrities who fly private jets to climate conferences while telling us we need to cut back on our carbon emissions. The climate scientists who claim there is a crisis yet must attend every climate jamboree in the world. The politicians who are happy to increase energy costs “because its good for the planet” and award themselves higher than inflation pay rises. The eco fascists who turn up outside fracking sites with a plethora of oil based products and proceed to destroy the environment and pollute the nearby streams and rivers with their garbage.
‘The people who are purchasing “green” energy at a higher cost are practising what they preach and I have no objection to anybody doing this. Good luck to them.’
They get their electricity off the grid like everyone else.
Agreed. Al Gore and his massive hypocrisy are much worse than some prat who gets solar panels to power his Tesla.
Of course, some components of those panels aren’t exactly all that green themselves, but hey, so long as it doesn’t mess up anywhere Al Gore or celebrities will actually visit, who cares?
“The people who are purchasing “green” energy at a higher cost are practising what they preach and I have no objection to anybody doing this.”
————————
The problem is that a substantial portion of the price which those preachy people are not paying is being subsidized by their neighbors, who have no choice in the matter. Worse than that, if the resistant neighbors decided they would not pay the extra cost to subsidize their neighbor’s folly and deducted that subsidy amount from their taxes, then men with guns would come and take the money anyway and imprison or kill the reluctant ones.
total agree
Don’t it make you feel good?
Yes, like it feels way better after I stop hitting myself in the head with a hammer after 5 minutes…
There’s a sucker born every minute, and someone born every second to take advantage of them.
You already do in Ottawa if Ontario One is your provider, Robert.
The fat green blobs couldn’t be bothered pedalling bicycles attached to generators..
Robert of Ottawa,
Ontario has FIT- Contracts, Yieldcos and cap-and-trade. So what’s next for Ontario?
“The scheme has gone from more than 900,000 customers in 2008 who bought about 1 per cent of total generation to just over 500,000 who bought just 0.6 per cent of all the electricity generated in 2013”
I believe, properly structured, this could be turned into a very telling analysis of the incidence of masochism in contemporary Australian society. Who in their right mind would deliberately pay more for energy than they needed to? It makes no economic sense.
It reminds me of the early Christian self-flagellists doing penance for sins unknown. “Bring out your dead!”
I thought the bring-out-yer-dead thing referred to the Bubonic Plague, not doing penance.
The flagellist were during the Bubonic Plague. Supposedly whipping your self warded off the plague and villages were saved. Did have to pay them off with large doses of wine and other adult beverages for the act though.
Nowadays we pay them off with Carbon Credits, but it’s exactly the same idea…
Brainwashed millennials. Plenty of them. Very hipster.
I’m not sure why, but I love these stories.
For me, it’s like watching natural selection in action.
As per Remedial Economics .001.
Someone had to serve as a bad example.
With industry and jobs going offshore, no-one here (Australia) is too bothered about climate change and green energy…other than those involved in the scam. It’s been raining here in Sydney for two days straight, with another day to go. it’s not much more than 22c…in SUMMER!
Move to Newcastle.. but buy a canoe first !!!
I would have to learn how to speak Jordy!
”move to Newcastle….but buy a canoe first That will haul tonnes of coal to Newcastle. ””
Andy;
Is that Newcastle-upon-Tyne or the real one in NSW?
>>Is that Newcastle-upon-Tyne or the real one in NSW?
Since there were never any castles in Oz, it can hardly be the ‘real one’. 😉
R
As I gaed doon tae Wilson Toon
Ah met wee Geordie Scobie,
Says he tae me ‘Could ye gang a hauf?
Says I ‘Man, that’s my hobby’
Professor Flannery probably has one for sale at a discount seeing he thinks that it will never rain again.
Yes Patrick but those “involved” in the scam are making a packet billing you and I.
Turnbul and his well trained monkey (Hunt) are again funding windmills after Abbott pulled the “plug on the scam. Hunt flagged last week how he and the government are committed to buying overseas carbon permits with our taxes to keep the lights here, from highly likely country who burn our coal.
Which investment bank will do the convayancing I wonder!
Yes, nobody’s paying any attention and there in “lies” the problem!
MADNESS!
Turnbull and his mates at MacQuarrie bank. Turnbull will be a disaster for Australia.
That would be “billing you and me…”
This unseasonal summer drenching has been sponsored by ……… EL NINO.
Now, a word from our sponsor “Be Green or watch out!”
No-one here in Australia is too bothered about climate change and “green energy”, we are more focused on finding work with jobs and industry being sent offshore! 2016 is going to be a tough start to a new year for many in the “lucky” country.
“we are more focused on finding work ”
Then you damn well better be bothered by the “green energy” hoax, and what it will do to your economy if coal power is obliterated by them Greens.
EU energy, Dec.15, 2015
‘Why the Paris Climate deal is a win for energy companies’
The winners are the renewable energy companies and the losers are fossil fuel companies/oil and coal.
http://www.energypost.eu/paris-climate-deal-win-energy-companies
Barbara commented: “…‘Why the Paris Climate deal is a win for energy companies’…”
What a load of carp, lipstick on a pig, and all other trite phrases used to describe media spin. Paris was a non deal. Nothing. A bunch of bureaucrats that couldn’t agree on anything meaningful to guarantee their “promises”. Anyone, including the energy companies, that believed any verbiage from that ‘meeting’ is delusional. It was all political talk with no constituents.
Perhaps it is lipstick on a pig, but increasingly I see money institutional money flowing into green energy.
The houses are downright giddy over the 5 year extension and they are going ugly early.
https://www.altestore.com/blog/category/solar-energy-incentives-rebates/
The science IS settled because it never was about the science for more than the time it took to get attention.
The significance of Paris is not the failures of this or that climate tax, but the general tone of full speed ahead for microgrids (decentralization), alternative energy and wheeeeeeeee (i put on my little baseball cap with the twirling blade) rebates for all who play.
Remember it was a REPUBLICAN congress that passed the omnibus bill.
Even if a GOP president gets elected, I seriously doubt you’ll see a smackdown of the trend.
The GOP Congress has their hand in the till.
If you woke up tomorrow and POTUS gave a speech that said “i was just pulling your leg about the CAGW thing”, we would still be marching towards the new energy frontier.
However, IF the equity markets fall apart and people start scampering for exit door, you will see a tightening of the giveaway programs.
Phase II has begun in earnest.
Love the picture up top….” The Black Hole of Green Energy ” …but, you should have included a few million crosses for all the women and children that have ” Died for the Green Cause ” !! IMHO…
The windmills that can allegedly generate reliable power are essentially 3-armed crucifixes to the green pseudo-religion. They can represent the few million crosses swirling down that black hole.
In some ways you could replace the term “Green Power” with “Central Planning”. I guess a Five Year Plan is missing.
I note that Weather Bell states that the BoM has designated 2015 as the 5th warmest year for Australia. I have been watching temps worldwide for over a year now on a multi daily basis. South America had nothing exceptional to show in warmer temps, neither did Africa. It is very hard to understand the warmest year claim from NOAA/GISS for the year 2015. Especially as the upper NH experienced an intense cold spell which started in early October across all of Siberia before it migrated to affect most of the upper NH with temps on average that were 20F below average. What region of the planet was significantly warmer to offset that 10 week period of intense cold?
I think you’ll find that a slice of the Canadian Arctic went up to minus 15˚C for a couple of months when ‘normally’ it should have been at minus 30˚C!!!
On a “average to end of November” basis for all years,
UAH for Australia is in 13th place.
Waiting for Roy to post the full set of numbers so I can get Dec for Australia.
In both UAH and RSS Global, 2015 can in 3rd place.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_December_2015_v6-1.png
I googled on renewable energy failures and got “About 1,590,000 results”. Here are the titles of the first ten:
Google-ing for renewable energy failure spain got about 2,970,000 hits.
Most of the first page hits were older than a year.
Google-ing for renewable energy failure britain got about 9,060,000 hits.
Most of the first page hits were recent.
Anybody who thinks it’s a good idea to push us onto renewable energy is living in cloud cuckoo land. There’s so much evidence …
I think the worst curse you can use on a “renewables” fetishist is that you hope someone puts a windmill in their backyard.
Then they can learn first hand just how horrible those things are.
Of course if stopping fossil fuels is really what is required, common sense would be to make those more expensive, and the green or clean alternatives cheaper.
Of course if stopping fossil fuels is really what is required
======================================
make it illegal. like drugs or gambling or crime. that’s the ticket. that will stomp fossil fuel use out over-night. death sentence for anyone using fossil fuels. after all, obama tells us it is the greatest threat. greater than IS. so for sure we should nuke anyone using fossil fuels back to the stone age.
You haven’t heard? Guns are now the US’s biggest problem according to Obama. As with climate, they totally have data on their side: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2013/05/SDT-2013-05-gun-crime-1-2.png
Pretty soon, those rates are going to hockey stick, freddie. Have to do something NOW.
But it’s the other way around. Fossil fuels are reliable and cheap, “renewables” are inefficient, intermittent, and expensive. Most windfarms are built to farm government subsidies, not actually produce any electricity.
The Danes went wind crazy and now pay the highest electric bills in Europe.
I am so sick of this, restart coal plants in Oz and the EU, supply the people to heat their homes with coal ( as they have for centuries) and kick these greens to kingdom come. They should be prosecuted and jailed!!
Heating homes with coal, wood, or cowpaties produces lots of pollutants. Burn it it power plants with scrubbers and heat the the homes with electricity. That is how to improve air quality in cities.
Lots of things have been done for centuries. I am thinking aysbot did not have a coal furnace in his house growing up.
[Comment deleted. “Jankowski” has been stolen by the identity thief pest. All Jankowski comments saved and deleted from public view. You wasted your time, David. What a sad, pathetic life. -mod]
Michael Jankowski
January 5, 2016 at 5:42 pm
But just imagine all of the green jobs that were created!
————————-
If you want to see the Green jobs, that’s just what you have to do- imagine them
About 15 years my company sent me to a ‘GreenPower’ conference in Portland, Or. It was about marketing not producing power. Apparently, the target consumer is liberal arts majors with multiple degrees.
The misconception that liberal have is that making electricity has significant environmental impact. It does not.
The retail solar power sector are switching to rural areas and putting in panels at reduced prices with the promise that when the subsidies on grid input from them go to zero, they will able to buy a Tesla battery and cut themselves from the grid.
I can see a new ‘Pink Batts’ scandal coming up.
Speaking to one who has done this already and believed, the problems are evident.
1] Living in a rural bushfire area spraying water on banks of solar collectors in full sun could lead to shorts and a fire risk. Roof fires mean no water collection to tanks and no home.There needs to be safetys mandated for these installations.
2] Hanging Teslas on rural buildings just adds to the fire risk. It would be better to construct a fire resistant shed and cable the power into the dwelling.This needs legislation.
Too many hover boards and banks of lithium batteries have burned in aircraft to roll these large lithium batteries out on our homes.
3] The pitch is that the batteries will be affordable, so the consumer trusts and buys the solar panels.
There is no clear indication these batteries will be safe, yet alone affordable compared to grid power.A standard contract for solar supply should be drawn up so that any such claim has to be documented and if not forthcoming, actionable under consumer protection legislation.
Like with other utilities, water and sewer, if your property is serviceable then the property should be levied for having the service available. Nobody in OZ can avoid paying rates for water and sewer whether the block is vacant or built upon, you pay … should be the same for the electrical grid, poles and wires come by your property, you pay for the privilege irrespective of whether you have a diesel generator, solar panels, windmill or batteries. You feed-in to the grid, you pay double!
I tried that argument on my local conservative federal MP – no response. Perhaps a few others could try on theirs.
Do coal fired plants pay for access to the grid? Serious question!
LOL … Get serious, the coal fired generators are the backbone of why the grid is there.
why the hell should we pay for a service we dont use/connect to..or want?
I dont have sewer pipes handy
I have paid for septic and will continue to use it regardless
so why should I forgo a paid for safe system..to pay for massive thousands connections and replumbing when its NOT wanted or required.
the utilities dont have to add joins/connection points etc if I chose NOT to avail myself and they have to run by the property regardless.
pay for a service we dont use?
wtf?
thats as sane as paying for cable would be -seeing as I dont have a TV but the service is available
LOL, not too smart, eh? … if the public utility services runs past your suburban property and you don’t use them, you are still paying for the privilege whether you like it or not … in fact, save for being a vacant lot, you will not be allowed to use septic tanks. Check your rates bill from the Council or the Council owned utility company, if the service runs past your property in suburbia you will pay for it. If it weren’t for the extremely excessive solar ‘feed-in’ rates (in Qld 44c/kWH compared to the retail rate of 27c/kWH) that the socialists saddled us with we wouldn’t be having this discussion because you would not be subsidy farming like the warmist academics and assorted hangers on. Why don’t you get your unsubsidised tesla batteries and get off the grid today? The utility services for power generation have been in existence long before you as a public service. It is nothing like paying for a commercial TV cable service that you don’t use.
So streetcred, its alright for big business ie coal to have free access, but I should pay because Im a small provider who is actively lwering peak demand eith my solar setup? Seems fair, in a Liberalworld!
Ah so you’re just another one with the snout in the subsidy trough. LOL, take away the poles and wire and what will you do with your excess unstable generation? Your very generous feed-in tariff should be removed for another reason that the unstable generation from you costs everybody else for the infrastructure upgrades need to cope with rapid changes in supply. We don’t need more leeches in the system … I object strongly to paying your excessive feed-in tariff. Power stations, be they coal, gas , whatever, were all previously owned by a single quango of each of the State governments who provided the network and the power generation to the public. Nothing wrong with coal fired power stations by the way … they generate less pollution than the toxic waste from the manufacture of your subsidised solar panels.
“This is what a melted Tesla looks like.”
https://www.rt.com/news/327752-tesla-electric-car-fire/
Another Tesla burst into flames in Norway recently.
But we’ll always have Paris….right? :p
Here’s looking at you, Kid.
Green “sustainable” energy meets unsustainable taxpayer subsidies. Green energy will do fine once it can stand on its own without subsidies, and provide cheaper and more reliable power than fossil fuels. Until then…
TO paraphrase “Fools and their money are soon parted.”
Climate fatigue, ha ha ha, from flogging a dead parrot ?
Trillions of dollars for this?
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/graphics/images/Assessment%20Reports/AR5%20-%20WG1/Chapter%2001/Fig1-04.jpg
Reality strikes again. Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die. Reports such as this will only multiply and the people haters will move on to a new bogeyman to quench their thirst for destroying humanity while they continue their own lifestyles unabated. The halls of the UN must be ringing with teeth gnashing and cries of “oh the humanity” as control of wealth redistribution slips from their grasp. I love a story with a happy ending.
““The Australian” newspaper reports that a rise in costs, climate “fatigue”, and a rise in green tokenism has caused a collapse in demand for an Aussie green energy scheme.”
I can only think of Luther nailing his Ninety Five Theses critical of Indulgences to the door of the Wittenberg Church….
What I learned Over the Holidays
The ages of late teens to early 30s in the US don’t really believe in CAGW. Its a nice idea and all that but deep down they know the science is bad. They do however feel that a bold new energy future is their legacy.
They are proud of electing a president that passed health care and are proud that this president has embraced alternative lifestyles. The down and dirty of what they think is that it is better to spend the money on a new energy future than fighting wars in far away deserts over things like oil.
I talked to many youngins and while it is only a small subset of the population, my contacts were from mostly well to do families with lots of influence in the crazy world of politics.
I’m also more convinced than ever that the politics of things is attached to the backlash effect. Whatever Obama is identified with with will likely create a backlash of its own.
So it goes.
“Mr Farrell said it all comes down to supply and demand.”…
Wow…. supply and demand… what a concept that is COMPLETELY lost on clueless Leftists…
If you offer a more EXPENSIVE product that’s indistinguishable from a cheaper supplier of the same good, guess what….the demand for the expensive product falls… and the lower the price for the expensive product becomes, the higher the price the expensive product needs to become to cover fixed overhead expenses….
in the real world, such a situation ends in bankruptcy…. In the unicorn-rainbow world of Leftists, it merely means governments must waste even more taxpayer money to keep the “green” energy companies afloat…
Wow… imagine that…
Germany has already learned the concept of supply and demand for their expensive and unwanted wind/solar energy fiasco and are now building about 100 new coal-fired plants to fix the problem of their own making….
CAGW is entering the beginning of its demise. People just are not believing the BS anymore, and are NOT willing to pay higher electricity prices for “green” energy, which decrease their competitive edge, lowers living standards and destroys their economies….