Who would believe that the Greens could save anyone money on their power bills when it is the Greens who are responsible for the the ridiculously high bills now!

We used to have state owned power delivered by the people for the people and the social benefit and affordable manufacturing/business opportunities it alone provided provided!

Search high and low the world over and nowhere can we find, an area where energy privatisation or corporatisation has reduced the bill!

Ours has gone up 106% in just a decade! And as an entities we built and fired with our own coal!

With privatization you get evil CEO's with their eye fixed on what is important? The CEO's maximised and all too often obscene salaries and entitlements!

Shareholder's dividends! That must be also maximised even if that requires raiding operating capital, which is replaced with an ever increasing debt burden or creative accounting/ponzi schemes?

Save $370 a year? Well we can do far better than that and without creating carbon!

And here is your chance to identify the greens as intransigent recalcitrant ideologues, with mountains of dated and largely irrelevant information or just maximised misinformation?

And able to mount a scare campaign about the radioactive and therefore deadly bananas? Given bananas are more radioactive than thorium! And where our energy dollar needs to be redirected, as walk away safe, cheaper than coal, safer than coal, and cleaner than any variation of fossil fuel energy!? Save say NG consumed inside a ceramic fuel cell?

And given the average family makes enough biological waste to, when converted to methane in on site digesters, to power their home for the price of the infrastructure spread over 30-50 years, we can do so much better!

In fact, with molten salt, walk away safe, world's cheapest energy, have the high tech energy dependant industry queuing to join!

Particularly if truly well crafted genuine tax reform is part of a principled pragmatic package!

As for greed driven CEO's? Some of the brightest folk come from third world countries where english is a universal language, and an average income is a fortune!

Time to reverse this (greed is good) phenomena and the patent big numbers BS that created much of it!
Alan B.

I got my first over $1000 domestic power bill last month. $1220 actually, where just a few years back it was under $400.

Yes it's a country property, so we have to pump our own drinking water, & pump it again as grey water after we've used it, & pump our own garden water, but we have done that for 25 years, & with more people living here.

I know most of this extra cost comes from the green supported fool windmills, & the ridiculous solar panels on so many roof tops. About 55% of the increase is from this green stupidity.

Then we have the huge network costs, greatly inflated again by green stupidity. We lose power in most thunderstorms. Why? Because Energex is cowered by greenie activity into not clearing trees sufficiently far back from transmission lines.

Every little blow sees a crew out clearing branches off lines, all on a 4 hour call out for a few minutes work. We know it is minor work, because when a tree or large branch takes down a line, it's a day or 2, not just an hour or 2 before power is back.

It really is hard to be sure who is most dangerous to the average Ozzies wellbeing, North Korea, China, or our own damn fool greens, but I think the ratbag greens have it.

When did the greens ever have the power to change anything. You need to look at the govt at present.

Whining about power prices, and do nothing about it.
Get solar and you won,t have to worry about it. Simple and cheap.

And I do mean genuine tax reform like say a 15% entirely unavoidable flat rate! Which given, it would by dint of the commercial realities, eliminate the need and considerable cost of tax minimization or avoidance, put on average, 7% back to the bottom line, meaning, an effective and unavoidable rate of 8%.

And at oft times 8% more company tax than we collect now from some of our international/multinational guests!? (40%, and as much as 60 billion plus per?)

What could we do with an extra 60 billion per? Well why not draw dowll government debt? As well as enable us to live within our means, without sacrificing public amenity or good!

Couple that to, walk away safe, molten salt thorium energy and the new desalination it makes even vastly more affordable! Then you have a recipe for snowballing jobs and growth; and or, a handful of hugely disgruntled recalcitrant intransigents who have/had another, secret or purely self serving agenda!?

Politicians of all stripes need to get out of the residential housing market where they are inducibly part of the affordably problem and instead invest their spare or surplus capital in intelligent projects that utilise the world's cheapest energy, or very affordable desalinated and therefore guaranteed water, or both!

And that investment could be in the form of 30 year, self terminating, government guaranteed, tax free infrastructure bonds. That'd likely walk out the door as fast as we could print them, always providing, they were earmarked exclusively for income earning nation building projects! Like affordable desalinated guaranteed potable water and the world's cheapest most affordable, safest, cleanest energy! Alan B.

'Labor will likely shift their policy position to try and capture the Greens vote'

THAT is the real lunacy !

The ALP is a policy free zone.

Bit early for policy, policy needs to reflect the situation at the time of election. You should be interested in policy of the incumbent govt. which of course is in disarray.

They make it one day and discard it the next.

My biggest battery is 650 amp hours. And weighs 75 kg,s that runs a fridge, freezer, and all lighting 24/7. It would not start a car as it has no cranking value.
A different barttery for micro wave, toaster and jug.
I have two transfer pumps running directly on solar panels.
Anyone that does not get with the solar revolution is either decrepit or lost in time.
It,s free for the collecting.

Hi Alan B, i think you have a good point.

Hi doog, i discover your suggestion is one of the best. Getting solar can do a lot of help.

Doog.

How many years will your big battery last and what is the replacement cost?

Add that cost to the free energy.

$650 in 2008. 250 watt solar panels x two $ 380 ea.
My big battery has a replacement guarantee of 15 years so I would expect 20 years.
The solar panels have a guarantee for 25 years.
Good value for money.
Probably the best investment ever to add to the house.

Doog.

Sounds good.
Storage is the key to solar as you would absolutely know.
I see they are talking pumped sea water hydro for SA.
What type of battery do you have there? Ni cad or what?

Ignorance is bliss. Domestic electricity supply is cheap. If you stay connected to the grid you are guaranteed $ 400 / year for supply cost. My total cost for the year was 650 $.

If you are in an area with more wind speed than 3.0 meters /second on a regular occurrence install a 2 or 3 kWh wind turbine. Battery storage is not essential for cutting household power costs. Wind turbine, or solar is quite happy supplying power directly to the inverter for use as is. That system you have to be connected to the grid. Solar power gets priority over grid power and excess power goes back into the grid.

That system will cut your power from the grid by 50 percent. Storage for excess power will cut your costs by 90 percent.

Anybody that has a fisher and paykel washing machine and likes playing around with generation has a generator at hand that is easily fashioned into a wind turbine of 1 kWh capacity. You can use that as a 24 hour a day storage charger.

Ignorance is not bliss, ignorance of being ripped off is a waste of money.

Doog, why don't you answer what type of battery you have?

I did not realise that was a question.
My big storage is an AGM gel deep cycle battery x 12 volt.
A battery that operates microwave, kettle, and toaster is a 12 volt deep cycle marine battery.
Transfer pumps are run directly connected to solar panel.
A Gate opener uses same type of battery as microwave. 10 year usable life.

Batteries now are going toward ni cad for longer life.
My system has been there since 2008.
The battery that supplies power for the gate I expect to last for excess time because it remains fully charged always.

Thanks doog.
Another couple of questions.

Why is it that your big 650 amp hour gel battery has no cranking power?

Can you give a few clues about your solar controller?

Maybe our post limit will mean reply tomorrow. Cheers.

The batteries intended purpose is storage and does not have great amounts of amperage release as needed to start a car. It has a controlled release of power to supply an inverter over lots of hours.

A power controller is between the solar panel and the battery to guard against overcharge.
An inverter is after the battery and after the meter 12 volt in and 240 out, that is where your safety switch is before any 240 appliance. Excess power which goes to the grid or used for battery charge.

My inverter is bigger than necessary to cater for future expansions which has not happened yet.
The gate runs directly on 12volt power from the battery.
The transfer pumps run directly from 12 volt solar panel, which means sometimes they run fast and other times they run slow. Depending on the quality of power at the time.

All batteries being charged must have a controller

doog.

The intended purpose of all batteries is storage.

How does your big 650 amp hour battery control release of it's power?

I have long term background running a 110 volt DC lighting plant on a station 200 miles west of Bourke and I consider it is the type of batteries that will determine viability of green energy.

In recent years I have been using solar on a remote tropical Pacific island where weeks of cloud often reduce power supply.
Then when the sun shines it is intense, non stop till sundown.

Battery life is a big problem there, both with lead acid and gel.
Deep cycle batteries are not available there.
I paid top price for a new 12v x 90 amp hr lead acid 4wd/RV battery but it lasted only 3 years on a 40 watt solar panel with solar controller, to run a 500 watt x 220v inverter.

I am trying to find what makes your big battery last so many years as you say.

Is the key in some type of battery output controller you have there, maybe especially included inside the battery?

I have used a 200 a/h battery for brief welding, so what actually makes your 650 a/h hold back amperage even to start a car?

I am trying to understand your battery to find how you can get so many years of use.

Bear in mind a solar powered household freezer in Tasmania will use less power and therefore less battery recharges than a freezer at the equator.

I have no idea how glass mat battery controls release of power. All I know they are specifically for solar storage and use. They are completely unsuitable for anything to do with a car. Both terminals are at the same end and about 10 mm in diameter.
The battery can be mounted in any position and 100 percent sealed.

You should never use lead acid batteries for storage. Unless they are 2 volt fork hoist battery.

Car batteries are for storage, how many starts without charge is the point
The difference between those batteries is when it drops below 12 volts it has to be charged. A real storage battery can down to 10 percent charge and still give 12 volts of power.

Mine are nine years old now, no doubt they have improved or altered since.
I think the AGM battery was American at the time I got mine.

Marine batteries are far better than lead acid also completely sealed and deep cycle.

Doog,

Thank you so much for that info. Key words there are "glass matt".
I Google'd glass matt batteries and found a wealth of info such as here:
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/absorbent_glass_mat_agm

The "Heat loading and battery life" hyperlinked info is of great interest to me, especially the temperature factor (tropics).

I hope you will not be too disappointed because somewhere in the info I read that batteries of the 1990's were expected to last 20 years but have since been found to last only 10 years.Maybe you have one year remaining.

I can see that solar linked battery education is vital to achieve green energy viabiity and sustainability. Lots of lead involved.

It's a tough call, privatization V publicly owned.

With privatization you get the greed of CEO's stopping AT nothing to ensure they get paid well,and will not let anything get in their way, even job losses.

Then you have the likes of the public health system where timelines are not as important as 'when is my next rdo' or smoko break so I can pluck an extra long weekend. Meanwhile sick people line up for hours on their feet just to be seen.

Maybe that is the sticking point. If you are sick you should arrive by ambulance, as ambos are your first screening. If they will not take you because they bo not run a taxi service. You are not sick enough to go to hospital. Make an appointment to see your own doctor.
If you walk into hospital you will be accessed by a nurse as to your urgency. Then you wait in line to be seen. If you leave the hospital in disgust, go and make an appointment to see your own doctor.
If you genuinely believe you have waited long enough, stage a pass out and lie motionless on the floor. They will scrape you up and try to find out what you are there for. After you have spent six hours on a trolley under obsivation, they decide to send you home with an aspro for a headache.

An emergency is an emergency. You would expect some signs of injury or pain to be there in the first place. If you can not demonstrate any of the above make an appointment for your own doctor.

The greens are advocates for low electricity prices in the same way that Genghis Khan was an advocate for peace.