Lights off: Part III

This article follows on from Part I and Part II.

It's fairly obvious from this brief historical conspectus that privatisation is an agenda that's been force fed by the self interested to NSW Labor governments over the last 15 years, and swallowed wholeheartedly. Even Blind Freddy could see that proper consideration has not been given to viable, sustainable long-term alternatives like solar energy.

And if the boobs in Macquarie Street can only be transfixed by the siren song of the Wall Street players, what about paying a little attention to what Warren Buffett's "senior" associate, Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway, has said about the future of solar energy.

But no, not in New South Wales: if it's clean, renewable and socially and environmentally responsible, let’s axe it. Pardon? Given the prevailing mentality I guess it's only natural that such a commodity should actually be blamed for rising electricity bills!

What the government also fails to trot out are figures to show us how special deals for large users of electricity add to our quarterly bills? How many of those large energy users are on negotiated, guaranteed fixed prices for their electricity, at rates which mean they’re effectively subsidised by householders? Are we given details of those users and their effect on the system's capacity? Oh no, we can't disclose information like that: it's "commercial in confidence"!

NSW started with very positive schemes to encourage alternative energy sources, but those of us who install solar panels from now on receive only 20c per kwh to feed energy back into the grid, whereas those whose installations occurred between Jan 1 and October get 60c kwh for seven years. And the gloomy prediction from the big side of town is that paying for those already receiving 60c kwh will add an extra 10% to bills, on top of increases of up to 16% consumers will be facing anyway! They don't mention that 20c is much less than the conventional payment of a little over 40c per kwh, and no plausible reason has been given for such a complete about-face

Giles Parkinson of the Climate Spectator has written a detailed and informed series of articles about NSW’s Solar Scheme.

If one were to take a cynical approach one might think the scrapping of the NSW Solar Scheme was somehow connected to and contingent on the electricity sale proceeding

But just look at what is happening on the solar front notwithstanding our government’s best efforts.

Innovation

2008 data for Australian households indicates that 67% used spatial cooling and 77% used spatial heating. Spatial heating/cooling comprises 41% of household energy costs. Water heating accounts for 24% and other appliances about 13%. Plasma televisions consume almost three times more power than older versions.

We have already read about the development of extremely efficient solar-powered air-conditioning systems that will not only lighten the load on the mains transmissions grid, but also address the huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated by the use of air conditioners. It won’t be long before systems like that are on the market here, whether Australian made or from China.

There’s also the CSIRO Brayton Cycle system that doesn’t need water, and uses natural gas to overcome weather/sun variability. The CSIRO project will incorporate the option of a future solar thermal storage system that will allow extended operation during peak demand times in the evening and address the challenge of continuous operation from renewable energy sources.

Whether the NSW government knows it or not, believes it nor not, supports it or not, or likes it or not, solar is coming.

Another objective: containing peak demand

It’s preposterous to simply accept that vast sums of money have to be expended to boost capacity just to accommodate peak demands. Apart from being more tolerant of occasional interruptions in supply, which I accept may not be politically acceptable, there are many steps that can be taken to contain or reduce peak demand. It’s been done successfully in other countries, but not really pressed here yet. Some suggestions that have already been made include:

• Giving power distributors the ability to turn up the temperature in shopping malls and office blocks by one or two degrees.
• Promoting only the most energy efficient appliances by making manufacturers and retailers of appliances provide preferential pricing to customers in hardship and restrict access to credit (in all forms) for the purchase of less efficient appliances.
• Investing in home energy displays and the distribution of technology, particularly for low income households, to help people monitor and reduce their energy use and expenditure.
• Reinstating the solar bonus scheme at the generally accepted rate of 40c/kWh

Measures like these only have to work in the short term to be effective. In the longer term, with a bit of foresight and planning, more fundamental changes should come into play that will get us out of the mess we’re sliding into now.

The US Rocky Mountain Institute bemoans our current electricity systems as “inefficient, wasting both capital and electricity”; its scientists Amory Lovins and Bennett Cohen describe the acceleration of micropower in taking over the global market long dominated by central thermal stations.

The Institute hopes to eliminate fossil fuel use in the electric system by 2050 and is working on a model of the “next-generation utility” (NGU) which “replaces traditional 'baseload' coal and nuclear power with dynamic demand and supply-side resources to create a low-carbon utility system that is both cost-competitive and highly reliable”. They’re taking a clever approach to problem solving, whereas back in NSW our government is creating new problems and solving none.

Conclusion

Thanks to political gullibility, economic stupidity and intellectual vapidity we’re in a tight spot.

More than a decade ago, in Advice from Abroad on Restructuring Electricity, renowned systems theorist Donella Meadows said the advice of international experts was “BEFORE privatization” (her emphasis) to make prices tell the truth; protect small users; enforce anti-trust measures; require honest advertising; hold investors generally responsible (she said the press should be in the room when any amounts of public recompense are decided, with ratepayers having veto power: our current government would love that!); and above all keep the system flexible because:

“the (then) current changes are only the start of a huge technical shift in electricity production. … Ten or twenty years from now … households may join that trend, generating their own electricity with rooftop solar, fuel cells, and even mini-generators in electric cars. The wildly decentralized system, still connected in grids, could be much more democratic, environmentally friendly and resilient to breakdown.”

Such voices of reason - now supported by well documented local and international experiences with power privatisation, almost universally bad - resonate against everything that’s been done in restructuring and selling off our electricity assets.

Maybe what’s been missing from the energy reform (ie privatisation) debate is the voice of the citizens of New South Wales.