Not that long ago there was a story in our local paper about a town having a community meeting with the agenda being to look at getting the whole town off the grid. Can't remember the name of the town but some where not a long way from where I live
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Not that long ago there was a story in our local paper about a town having a community meeting with the agenda being to look at getting the whole town off the grid. Can't remember the name of the town but some where not a long way from where I live
Or they just up the GST.
The private power industries will cry foul and just like the car industry, the government will start to subsidise the power companies just to prop them up.Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigE
Maybe a 'levy' will be proposed on all those earning above $80k to supplement the 'disadvantaged' electricity companies? Save the power line levy. Refurbish a power plant levy. Start a new coal mine levy. Supplement a coal mine levy. Luxury panel tax. Luxury electric car tax - oops already got that.
When will we get anything right with utilities....
Didn't the gummit place a tax on the motor vehicle LPG in the last couple of years???
The taxi industry here in the Newcastle area used to run LPG powered Fords and Holdens now I notice they are running those Toyota Hybrid thingies. From what I can understand a tax has been placed on LPG to gradually increase over the years.Making it uneconomical to spend a few grand on converting to LPG then pay well above 90c a litre for LPG
Car owners were originally converting their cars to LPG and the gummit has really put a damper on the industry when it introduced this tax. Same will happen with solar, the gummit will not miss out.
Being an optimist, I trust that in the longer term, the economic logic of more community energy schemes will win out over the vested interests that will fight to preserve a system based on big centralised generators feeding into a large national network.
These issues are already being discussed by some people that matter, and in fact there's a conference in Canberra on this very subject in just over a month's time. C4CE | Program
Hopefully that might "generate" (excuse the pun) lots more discussion on the future of small renewables based networks. May even excite a few forward thinking pollies in the big political parties. (Is than an oxymoron??)
Still, even as an optimist, I can't see the current federal government making it easy for anyone to threaten the incumbent energy interest groups.
In fact they seem intent on doing all they can to kill off further investment in renewables. History will judge them harshly, as it has done to King Canute!
Alan
We have enough coal and natural gas reserves to last us 3,4 hundred years,yet we sell it off to other countries so they can have cheap power,while making us pay through the nose for ours:mad:
grey nomads have been going off grid for 3 months of the year up north by the thousands all over Australia for the last 20 years ?
Just seen an add for battery storage, they must have been reading this thread....?
:idea:
That'd be Steiglitz, and I know a long time resident there whose ancestors have been there or abouts for generations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hogarthde
From memory his own family unit use a mix of solar and diesel backup for elec. All comphy.
He's a very cluey bloke, into everything...........art, farming, etc.
Ask around for Pete.
cheers, DL
We're almost entirely "off the grid". It would have cost $100k+ to get poles to our place - That buys a hell of a lot of batteries! :p
I'm in the process of building an extension with a loft that will also house a low pressure hot water tank fed by solar and a Rayburn stove, and supplied by two (soon to be three) 5,000 gallon tanks up the hill. This will replace the current instant gas hot water system.
The only down side is the 60km drive to work now